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 COPYl^IClIT DEPOSIT. 
 
EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 OR THE CULTURE OF 
 CHARACTER 
 
 A BOOK FOR TEACHERS' READING CIRCLES 
 NORMAL CLASSES, AND INDIVIDUAL TEACHERS 
 
 BY 
 
 L. H. JONES, A.M. 
 
 PRESIDENT MICHIGAN STATE NORMAL COLLEGE, AUTHOR OF THE 
 
 JONES READERS, AND FORMERLY SUPERINTENDENT OF 
 
 SCHOOLS IN INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA 
 
 AND CLEVELAND, OHIO 
 
 GINN AND COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY L. H. JONES 
 
 ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 811.3 
 
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 GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
 PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 
 
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FOREWORD 
 
 Perhaps no sane person ever lived to be fifty 
 years of age without wishing at least once that he 
 could live his life over again, bringing back to his 
 youth the experience of his maturity. Realizing 
 that this is impossible for himself, he earnestly de- 
 sires that his children, and, if his sympathies are 
 broad, other young people, shall become wise ere 
 it is too late to profit by their wisdom. But in his 
 anxiety for the young he frequently mistakes knowl- 
 edge for wisdom', and in his theory of education he 
 is liable to leave out of account that growth or 
 development of the soul which alone makes a 
 person capable of using aright his treasures of 
 acquired learning. This little book is devoted to 
 a discussion of the best ways of attaining sound 
 character through the process of acquiring an edu- 
 cation under the discipline of the school and other 
 
 institutions of civilization. 
 
 L. H. JONES 
 Ypsilanti, Michigan 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE POINT OF VIEW i 
 
 II. SELF-ACTIVITY 33 
 
 III. SELF-REVELATION 84 
 
 IV. SELF-DIRECTION 163 
 
 V. SELF-REALIZATION 178 
 
EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 With so large a theme as education, no book of 
 modest size can treat more than a small part of the 
 subject. The point of view chosen will determine 
 the range and character of the details. Much will 
 be omitted, not because it is untrue or even unim- 
 portant, but because it is irrelevant. Other things 
 may be included, not because they are the most im- 
 portant that can be said, but because they are neces- 
 sary to the proper unfolding of the line of thought 
 chosen. This book is frankly one-sided, — devoted 
 to the discussion of one important phase of educa- 
 tion, namely growth^ as distinguished from other 
 aspects of the same subject. The idea of growth is, 
 however, so fundamental in all education that a dis- 
 cussion of this phase leads inevitably to a considera- 
 tion of the other aspects as well ; so that this point 
 of view, while confessedly partial, is after all a cen- 
 tral one. Whatever of symmetry may be found in 
 the present work, therefore, is due rather to this 
 fundamental character of growth as an element in 
 
2 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the process of education than to any intention on 
 the part of the author toward full or balanced 
 treatment. 
 
 This fundamental idea of growth is not so simple 
 as it might at first seem. Its relations are numerous 
 and important, and its implications varied and inclu- 
 sive. It is the function of this chapter to explain 
 and illustrate the nature of this idea and some of 
 its most important implications, to the end that the 
 remaining chapters may be read in the light thus 
 shed upon them. 
 
 Growth can take place only in an individual some- 
 thing which can by its own power react on some- 
 thing else so as to get benefit out of such contact, 
 thus producing within itself certain changes lead- 
 ing toward perfection. There is, therefore, in every 
 actual case of true growth these three essentials : a 
 something capable of these worthy changes in its 
 own nature, certain processes comparable to nutri- 
 tion and exercise, and a noticeable change for the 
 better in the thing receiving the nutrition and taking 
 the exercise. The best growth implies also some 
 care in the arrangement by which the environment 
 may be made to call out the proper reactions in the 
 growing agent, — that is, cultivation or culture. 
 
 This general statement of the law shows its appli- 
 cability alike to material and spiritual existences, 
 being as true of the human soul as of the human 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 3 
 
 body, though the processes are different in the two 
 cases, and nutrition fit for the soul may be quite a 
 different thing from that which will serve a like 
 purpose for the body. The author believes that 
 each human mind (soul, spirit) is an entity, or some- 
 thing capable of such reactions upon other things 
 in the universe as to gain both helpful exercise and 
 wholesome nutrition. The problem of intentional or 
 directed education is largely a problem of directing 
 these reactions so that the exercise may become as 
 helpful, and the nutrition as wholesome and effective 
 as possible, in bringing the immortal, potential spirit 
 into all the perfection implied in its type. The body 
 of this book will be devoted to a discussion of this 
 problem. 
 
 It will readily be seen that much of the language 
 used in these preliminary pages is figurative; for 
 instance, the expression " within itself " is not in all 
 cases used in a spatial sense ; nor is " nutrition " 
 used in a material sense. Accurate studies in psy- 
 chology are so recent that language has not yet 
 adapted itself to the simple and direct expression 
 of many of the most important discoveries of this 
 science of the human being. Close attention to the 
 context will doubtless, in all these cases, make plain 
 the meaning intended. 
 
 The author writes out of an experience of more 
 than forty years of teaching and supervision of 
 
4 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 schools ; and it is the result of this extensive experi- 
 ence in actual school work that he has wrought into 
 these pages, rather than a logical analysis of the 
 theme from the standpoint of the abstract student. 
 However, the results of a somewhat wide profes- 
 sional reading have been used in the interpretation 
 of the theme. 
 
 The point of view is further made clear by the 
 explanation of certain beliefs of the author, which 
 have become so well established as to direct and 
 control his thinking and his interpretation of facts. 
 Fundamental among these is the belief that the 
 human being whose education is discussed in these 
 pages is, in its essence, a spiritual being, that is, 
 a being whose essential nature is expressed by its 
 thinking, feeling, and willing ; and that its material 
 body is merely a necessary condition to existence 
 in this world of matter. The body is the instrument 
 of the mind or soul, and as such is worthy of all the 
 attention that it is likely to receive in any system 
 of education. Its development and training are of 
 the utmost importance so long as its subordinate 
 position as a useful instrument to the spirit is 
 recognized. But the real education discussed in this 
 book is the education of the spirit, often carried 
 out, it is true, through the right use of the bodily 
 organs, by which alone one spirit has definite means 
 of communication with other spirits or persons. 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 5 
 
 There is Implied underneath this view the behef in 
 the immortality of the individual human soul, since 
 it is everywhere considered as enduring and ac- 
 countable ; while the body is treated as a necessary 
 condition of the performance of human functions 
 and therefore as an actual part of the human being. 
 
 There is here no intention to enter upon a theo- 
 logical discussion, but rather to make plain the psy- 
 chological principle which is an important inter- 
 preting idea for the succeeding chapters of this work. 
 Nor is there the least disposition on the part of the 
 author to dispute with the physiological psycholo- 
 gists whose recent discoveries make up the most 
 brilliant and helpful chapter of educational psy- 
 chology of the last quarter of a century. The scien- 
 tific study of the body, and especially of the nervous 
 system in relation to mind action, cannot be too 
 highly commended ; nor do I see any reason to 
 quarrel with the results of such scientific study as 
 they are given us direct from the psychological 
 laboratory. It is only when physiology is called 
 psychology, or conditions are called causes, that the 
 psychologist has a right to protest. 
 
 The writer believes that there is a wide difference 
 between the cause of mental action and the mere 
 occasion or condition of such action ; and that while 
 conditions or occasions, or even motives, may come 
 to the spirit through the body, the real power to 
 
6 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 begin, direct, and control such action is lodged with 
 the soul and not in the body. Numerous illustra- 
 tions of this difference will occur in the succeeding 
 chapters. It will therefore be seen that the author 
 believes in the essential freedom of the human will 
 to a degree at least which develops the idea of 
 accountability in the human being as his right edu- 
 cation goes forward. The whole structure of modern 
 education, as developed in the later chapters, is 
 based on this belief. Any being not accountable — 
 not responsible — is not capable of moral develop- 
 ment or growth. Accountability or responsibility is 
 inconceivable without a degree of freedom in the 
 choice of one's course in life. Nor does this view 
 conflict at all with the practical limitations which 
 one constantly sees placed upon human conduct by 
 heredity and environment. Freedom of the will as 
 used here does not imply the ability to overcome 
 obstacles of heredity or environment at once or in 
 any particular instance, but rather the power to 
 retain a right attitude of the mind and thus achieve 
 a spiritual result similar to that of victory over 
 external forces. The moral integrity of a person is 
 often maintained under appearances that would in- 
 dicate the opposite to a superficial observer. The 
 power of the mind to develop its selfhood, to main- 
 tain its integrity, and to renovate itself through ideals 
 and motives and the spiritual activities to which 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 7 
 
 they lead, is the divinest capacity of the human 
 being. The power of one person to enter vicari- 
 ously into another's life, through the implanting of 
 ideals and motives, is a truth that lies close to the 
 heart of the profession of teaching, giving to educa- 
 tional work its highest inspiration. The possibility 
 of doing this without disturbing the selfhood of the 
 pupil is due to the fact of essential freedom as here 
 described. While many teachers semiconsciously 
 appreciate these conditions and partly apply these 
 principles in teaching, it is left to those who clearly 
 and philosophically understand them to apply them 
 most fully, and thus to set up standards which 
 others without this clear view semiconsciously imi- 
 tate. There would be no high standard to imitate, 
 however, did not some one take the pains to think 
 out and apply the fundamental principles involved. 
 
 As has been already suggested, this doctrine of 
 freedom of the will (which will be more fully devel- 
 oped in a later chapter) is inseparably connected 
 with questions of heredity and environment. As 
 these influences assist or retard the educational 
 process, it seems appropriate here to explain those 
 views of heredity involved in that theory of the free 
 will which has been stated herein, and which is 
 applied and enforced in the succeeding chapters. In 
 doing this it is unnecessary to enter upon that illimit- 
 able field of discussion over which the scientists 
 
8 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 and philosophers of the world have driven one 
 another in fruitless advance and retreat for many 
 centuries. A few plain statements, which will appeal 
 to the reason of the fairly well educated, will suffice 
 for our purpose, leaving the hairsplitting arguments 
 of philosophic scientists and scientific philosophers 
 to those who make a specialty of such intricate 
 studies. There will be selected here only those 
 phases of these subjects which are likely to be of 
 immediate advantage to practical teachers engaged 
 in their daily work in the schoolroom. 
 
 If heredity, in an individual case, be separated 
 from environment, as I think it may be for purposes 
 of thought at least, it is chiefly a matter of persist- 
 ent tendency. It includes those forces which tend, 
 in the process of growth, to modify or direct action 
 irrespective of particular environment. There are 
 native tendencies, too, for the individual, which must 
 be carefully distinguished from inherited ones, in 
 the ordinary use of the word " inherited." 
 
 The author disclaims any intention of entering 
 upon the discussion of the great question of the 
 spiritual interpretation of the universe, made so 
 interesting through discoveries in modern science 
 and the results of recent philosophic thinking. Such 
 discussion seems unnecessary, inasmuch as the re- 
 sults, so far as demonstrated, in no wise affect the 
 position assumed by the writer in this work. Should 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 9 
 
 the champion of materiaHsm substantiate all he sus- 
 pects to be true, it would chiefly result in changing 
 certain names; while if those philosophers who in- 
 sist that even what is called matter is but a mode 
 of spiritual activity should succeed in proving their 
 contention, the conclusion would but emphasize the 
 teachings here exemplified. The term " matter " 
 whenever used in these pages is used in its ordinary 
 meaning ; and the word " spirit " is applied to beings 
 whose nature is expressed by such happy combina- 
 tion of thinking and feeling and choosing as to con- 
 stitute a true personality. 
 
 As an example of a native tendency take an illus- 
 tration from the germ of a seed. If the germ of a 
 seed be examined under a microscope, there cannot 
 be found in it a single root cell. But the first cell 
 that forms at one end of the germ in the first act of 
 growth is a root cell, and its first instinct is to seek 
 the soil ; while the first cell formed at the other end 
 is a stem cell, and it turns toward the light. These 
 are native or race tendencies, inherent in the nature 
 of the plant as a plant. If one's thinking be carried 
 back far enough, it may be seen that even this tend- 
 ency was orginally received through heredity, but 
 it is now so firmly fixed in the constitution of all 
 plants as to be regarded as a part of their essential 
 nature. The tendency of a particular rose plant, 
 however, to fill the cell in its flower leaves with red 
 
lO EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 coloring matter rather than with yellow is a clearly 
 inherited tendency, involving a long preceding line 
 of roses, which to some extent, under peculiar con- 
 ditions, were led to do this same thing. To make 
 its petals red is not a tendency of the plant as a 
 plant; therefore it is not a native tendency but an 
 inherited one, now inhering in this rose because a 
 certain number of its predecessors have done so 
 increasingly through a long line of descent. In like 
 manner the tendency of a child to think, or to feel, 
 or to choose, under appropriate conditions, is a 
 native tendency, inherent in each child as represent- 
 ing its human nature. But his tendency to run 
 excessively to feeling rather than thought, or to 
 thought rather than feeling, is an hereditary tend- 
 ency. So any other noticeably peculiar mental ac- 
 tion, which is not immediately dependent on any 
 special environment, may be looked upon as a mat- 
 ter of hereditary tendency. Many thinkers, in the 
 face of much seeming testimony to the contrary, 
 have denied the transmission from one generation 
 to another of these acquired characteristics or tend- 
 encies, saying that all tendencies found at birth are 
 native tendencies, and that all others noticeable in 
 a growing individual, amounting to peculiarities in 
 many cases, are due in each individual to the 
 influence of environment. They claim that all such 
 peculiarities die with the death of the individual 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW ii 
 
 manifesting them. Such writers account for the in- 
 finite variety of human traits solely on the basis of 
 environment, and they are quite willing to boast that 
 all are born free, since no one is bound by hereditary 
 tendencies. They are forced to admit, however, by 
 their own theory, that although we have no inher- 
 ited tendencies we are not really born free, for we 
 enter at birth into a set of ideals, customs, laws, and 
 institutions which proceed to bind us quite as effec- 
 tually as we could have been bound by hereditary 
 tendencies. In other words, the denial of the trans- 
 mission of acquired characteristics does not seem to 
 me to be any great argument in favor of freedom of 
 the will, so long at least as we are compelled to 
 admit the force of environment. As I shall show 
 elsewhere, true freedom of the will is not affected 
 by such questions. The argument against the trans- 
 mission of hereditary tendencies breaks down, more- 
 over, under the accumulation of evidence in the view 
 of every observing student. The theory of free will 
 taught in this book is not that one is born " free " 
 from hereditary tendencies, or " free " from the in- 
 fluence of environment ; but rather that one is born 
 with the power to become free in the midst of both. 
 Still other biological scientists claim that only 
 those characteristics which have become thoroughly 
 ingrained in the nature of the race are ever trans- 
 mitted. This is only a special way of admitting that 
 
12 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 acquired characteristics are transmitted^ and that 
 the more fully they have been ingrained in the 
 nature by frequent and uninterrupted transmission, 
 the surer are they to be transmitted regularly; all 
 of which seems to be the truth when stated in this 
 latter form. It is interesting to notice that while 
 learned scientists have been asserting that it is 
 utterly impossible that recently acquired character- 
 istics can be transmitted, either in plant or animal 
 life, Luther Burbank has proved that they are so 
 transmitted in his own experimental gardens. In 
 regard to the evidence shown there in plant life he 
 has recently said that he sees no reason why analo- 
 gous laws should not hold in animal life ; and that 
 such laws, in all probability, are not confined to 
 bodily traits, but belong equally to spiritual attri- 
 butes. While, of course, Mr. Burbank's statements 
 in regard to spiritual heredity are only matters of 
 theory with him, they have the force which accom- 
 panies the thinking of a man whose investigations 
 in an analogous field give him the right to speak 
 with some degree of confidence. 
 
 The theory followed in this book is that spiritual 
 as well as bodily characteristics are transmitted 
 from parents to children, but under laws not yet 
 well understood; that the most generally known 
 law governing the case is that recently acquired 
 characteristics are much less likely to be transmitted 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 13 
 
 than those thoroughly ingrained in the nature by 
 a long line of successive transmissions; and that 
 when these recent characteristics are inherited, they 
 are more likely to be irregularly and erratically 
 transmitted. Of course, when these erratically trans- 
 mitted characteristics are repeated many times 
 through partial or complete transmission, they be- 
 come fixed, and can be relied upon to descend with 
 certainty and regularity from parents to children. 
 
 This general law governs both spiritual character- 
 istics and bodily peculiarities. It is recognized that 
 in this possibility of transmission, from parents to 
 children, of good qualities that have been acquired 
 in one generation or in many generations, there lies 
 the great hope that education (used in its largest 
 sense) will eventually reclaim the world. It is also 
 recognized that evil has the same general opportu- 
 nity for increasing its range of power over the 
 world as has good, were it not for two factors, 
 namely (i) the possibility of vicarious regeneration 
 of others by faithful parents and teachers, who fur- 
 nish ideals and motives ; and (2) the greater strength 
 and persistence of good over evil in the world. 
 Nature is favorable to recovery, whether the dis- 
 ease be physical or moral. This eternal health and 
 sanity at the heart of things is the saving element 
 in all life. The possibility of evil — degeneracy — is 
 the necessary accompaniment of high development 
 
14 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 and supernal worth in human character; but it is 
 only the negative side, and it has not the strength 
 nor the persistence of the positive, aggressive, sav- 
 ing element in the good. It must h^ possible for one 
 to choose the evil in order that his choice of the 
 good be of the highest worth and effect in charac- 
 ter culture ; but the motives to right choice glow 
 with a radiant steadiness and a permanency which 
 make them finally attractive over the seductions of 
 the evil life. The doctrine of heredity, then, when 
 well understood, is in happy accordance with right 
 methods in education, preserving and handing down 
 to generations yet unborn every sincere effort in 
 the right direction. It is full of suggestion to the 
 earnest teacher and a self-replenishing source of in- 
 spiration. There is here no support for pessimism or 
 excuse for the doctrine of laissez faire in education. 
 Even the question of environment is also, to some 
 extent, a question of inheritance. At least a man 
 may be said, somewhat figuratively, perhaps, to in- 
 herit a set of social standards, ideals of life and 
 conduct, customs, laws and institutions (domestic, 
 social, political, and religious), and other limitations 
 constituting the advantages or disadvantages per- 
 taining to the community in which he is born and 
 in which his education must take place. These in- 
 fluences begin their work upon him before he be- 
 comes conscious of their full meaning or bearing on 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 15 
 
 his life; and, before he is aware, they produce an 
 effect on his character quite as forceful for good or 
 evil as are even the most imperious inherited traits. 
 It must be repeated, however, that neither the 
 hereditary predispositions nor these forces of envi- 
 ronment constitute a prohibition against freedom of 
 the will, that is, its power to try to overcome them. They 
 merely offer obstacles that should challenge action 
 instead of precluding it. By freedom of the will is 
 not meant that there are no obstacles to its com- 
 plete sway, but rather that the human being has the 
 power or tendency to choose to stand against these 
 outside forces. If the soul cannot fully conquer 
 these obstacles, it can at least minimize their evil 
 effects. Herein is the inspiration of the true teacher, 
 — the opportunity to offer motives which shall ap- 
 peal to this free will and call out its action toward 
 overcoming adverse inheritance or environment, 
 and toward carrying forward the soul's own growth. 
 The vicarious element in human life, so pathetically 
 applied by Jesus Christ and all the martyrs and the 
 saviors of men, is at bottom the principle which 
 underlies the process of intentional education such 
 as that offered by the school through the teacher. 
 The teacher becomes a part of the new environment, 
 offering nobler and more potent motives than those 
 incidentally offered by heredity and the former envi- 
 ronment. Whatever else the school may accomplish 
 
1 6 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 through the teacher, it must always encourage this 
 growth of the soul and an effort toward more 
 exalted ends than mere chance offers, thus leading 
 to the development of noble character through 
 heroic living. 
 
 The act of teaching, then, is seen to be a perfectly 
 natural process, being founded definitely on the 
 principles of human nature. The study of human 
 nature has usually been called psychology, and 
 under this name has been a subject regarded with 
 undue prejudice among teachers who have given it 
 but slight attention or have studied it only in the 
 abstract. As a matter of fact, in its concrete forms, 
 that is, as it is exhibited in the everyday actions of 
 all classes of people, it is an intensely interesting 
 and absorbing study. The prior study of psychol- 
 ogy proper, that is, human nature as a science, is 
 profitable to teachers mainly in the degree in which 
 it enables them to interpret more rapidly and effec- 
 tively human nature exhibited in actual life, and 
 especially in the schoolroom. The succeeding chap- 
 ters of this book elaborate a theory of education in 
 harmony with the latest and best results of psycho- 
 logical study so far as the author can interpret them, 
 though little attempt is made to explain psychology 
 itself. It is believed that the principles of psychology 
 are so simply and definitely illustrated by the suc- 
 cessive discussions that all will be seen to be in full 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 17 
 
 harmony with human nature, even by those who 
 have had no special interest in psychological studies; 
 while to those more thoroughly trained in psy- 
 chology by previous study a deeper meaning and 
 worthier suggestion will be apparent. 
 
 The author is aware that a few favored persons 
 inherit the ability to understand human nature in 
 the concrete without studying it in the abstract, but 
 he is also aware that most people need all the help 
 possible before attempting to deal with so complex 
 a problem as a school ; and he is therefore a firm 
 believer in the study of psychology and allied sub- 
 jects by all persons who would aspire to the high 
 title of teacher. Through long experience in teach- 
 ing and the supervision of schools he has observed 
 that those young teachers who at first teach so well 
 by native grace, lose this power after a little while 
 unless they grow interested in a more scientific 
 study of their work. Their supply of native or in- 
 herited tact is soon exhausted, and their interest, at 
 first stimulated by novelty, begins to wane unless a 
 careful study of human nature and its needs supplies 
 a more permanent set of motives. Without such 
 study the teacher who started out as a wise, tactful, 
 successful worker frequently grows into a routine 
 follower of forms, and ends in being a mediocre, 
 commonplace, dissatisfied drudge. On the other 
 hand, the author has seen those who blundered 
 
i8 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 openly and unmistakably at first, saved by their ear- 
 nestness and enthusiasm, which led them to study 
 their profession. Many of these he has seen grow 
 into teachers of great tact, freedom, and efficiency, 
 through this more fundamental understanding of the 
 principles of teaching. In fact, his observations have 
 led him into the belief that in general only those 
 who keep an interest in the continued study of the 
 principles of their work and their applications, con- 
 tinue to be efficient as the years go by, or attain to 
 any degree of success which would warrant their 
 being considered as professional teachers. While 
 these truths are in general applicable to the members 
 of any profession, as a keen observer will have full 
 opportunity to verify, they may be said to be espe- 
 cially applicable to teachers, because the large scope 
 of their work, and the extreme complexity of human 
 nature and of shifting social and political conditions, 
 all tend to make the intelligent practice of their 
 profession more difficult than that of any other. Yet 
 I think that most of us can see many instances of 
 the potency of these tests as applied to ministers, 
 doctors, and lawyers who have come under our 
 observation. 
 
 Those phases of psychology applicable to school 
 education are so inwoven with the very texture of 
 the remaining chapters, and so fully explained by 
 the illustrations given, that it has not been deemed 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 19 
 
 necessary to make a detailed separate treatment of 
 the subject in this prehminary chapter. There is, 
 however, one phase of the subject so fundamental 
 that it is everywhere implied and used rather than 
 explained, and so it seems better to make some 
 detailed study of it here before going to its applica- 
 tions in the following chapters. 
 
 It has been suggested in earlier pages that this 
 book is written in the belief that the human soul is 
 a spiritual being, and that its connection with the 
 material body is an incident that in no way changes 
 its spiritual nature. This statement does not bring 
 into question any theory as to how the soul has 
 become what it is, whether by special creation or by 
 evolution of some sort, but merely refers to its pres- 
 ent condition. 
 
 This spiritual nature consists in the fact that on 
 occasion the soul can think and feel and choose, — 
 actions which no being composed entirely of matter 
 can perform. It has the power, too, to maintain 
 such relations of these three activities as prove it a 
 person. Whenever in this volume the word " spirit " 
 " mind," or " soul " is used as a noun, or whenever 
 the word " spiritual " is used as an adjective, there 
 is implied the above meaning, namely, the ability to 
 think, feel, and choose, in contradistinction to any 
 action that is merely reflex or automatic, such as 
 might belong to a material object. This distinction 
 
20 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 between spirit and matter is fundamental, and with 
 its implications will serve to give distinctive tone 
 to all that may be said in the following pages. 
 
 By the human soul, however, is meant the soul 
 actually connected with and using the body. This 
 constitutes its human aspects. What the soul may 
 be after it leaves the body, or what its mode of life 
 may then be, is not here under consideration. The 
 soul is the element which may be educated, while 
 the body alone is powerless. So long as the body is 
 informed and interpenetrated by the spirit it may 
 be trained, and thus become an eflBcient instrument 
 for the service of the soul. Such training of the 
 body or any of its organs as requires the constant, 
 conscientious cooperation of the mind may, by 
 courtesy, be called education ; as instructors in gym- 
 nasiums all over the country have tended to adopt 
 the term " physical education " rather than " physical 
 training^'' as indicative of the higher ratio of mind 
 exercise which they hope to involve in their work. 
 Advocates of so-called manual training have, on the 
 other hand, unfortunately used the lower term. The 
 view of the soul here described does not tend to 
 throw discredit upon phases of education such as 
 those just mentioned, but rather shows how to 
 make them successful, and how to gather about 
 them those professional associations which will give 
 them a more dignified place in educational thought 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 21 
 
 and literature. Nor does this view of the soul, tend- 
 ing as it does frankly toward education as a culture 
 process, belittle the utilitarian side of education, as 
 will be fully shown in the chapter which treats of 
 ideals and motives as educational forces. What it 
 does insist upon is that no process is valid as an 
 educational procedure which does not go forward 
 on the theory that in the mysterious combination 
 making up the human being as we know him in 
 this world, the soul is master and the body is serv- 
 ant. We know little of the soul as an independent 
 existence, except through such inferences as we are 
 justified in drawing from the knowledge we gain of 
 it as we find it connected with the body. We must 
 therefore deal with it in education by fully recog- 
 nizing its connection with the body, and indeed its 
 dependence in many ways upon the body for its 
 own continued existence in this world. 
 
 These conditions justify all efforts that have been 
 made in recent years to find out the facts and 
 methods of the relationship between body and mind, 
 which has interested psychologists from the begin- 
 ning of the study; but they hardly justify the rash 
 utterances of students, who, impatient of results, 
 have indulged in speculations of a materialistic na- 
 ture. The author feels that the investigations now 
 being carried on carefully, industriously, and con- 
 scientiously in psychological laboratories in various 
 
22 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 parts of the world are likely in the end to give us 
 a reliable body of truth that shall greatly illumi- 
 nate the educational process; but that as yet the 
 definite conclusions reached are much too meager 
 to allow the building upon them of any elaborate 
 educational structures. Such studies have already 
 had large results for good in the deeper sympathy 
 for childhood induced by them, and in the relief 
 given to abnormal children. The author looks to 
 see in the near future much additional light from 
 the same source. 
 
 It does not seem likely, however, that any dis- 
 covery will be made that shall change our present 
 estimate of the nature of the soul itself, although 
 we may gain greatly in understanding the relation- 
 ship of the soul and the body. It is to be hoped 
 that we shall learn much more than we know now 
 about how to treat the body in the interests of the 
 soul, especially how to treat the nervous system, 
 which is so intimately associated with the soul's 
 actions. But, after all, it is the soul's own action 
 which must be roused and directed if true education 
 is to proceed. So we must always, in our methods 
 of teaching, respect the soul as a self-active, respon- 
 sible entity, however much we may learn about 
 better ways of using the body in its interest. 
 
 There seems one more psychological truth need- 
 ing explanation before we are fully ready to open 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 23 
 
 the treatment of our main theme, and this is the 
 simple truth (with large implications) that each soul 
 is a one thing, — a unity, an essence, spiritual in 
 its nature, and thereby absolutely indivisible. The 
 soul does not even have parts, as that term is usually 
 applied to material things. The soul has three great 
 capacities, namely, the capacities of thinking, feeling, 
 and willing ; but the thing, the something, the spirit- 
 ual unit which possesses these capacities and uses 
 them, is strictly an indivisible unit. Remaining 
 always a one thing, this one thing is developed and 
 made greater and more worthy or powerful through 
 the proper exercise of these capacities; and the 
 process by which such increase of power or worthi- 
 ness is gained is properly termed education, whether 
 attained in school or in other disciplines of life. 
 Thus education is never a static something already 
 finished, but always a process, a becoming, a move- 
 ment toward a far-away ideal. This book, however, 
 treats chiefly of the process as carried forward in 
 the school and as limited to the young. 
 
 This simple conception of the essential unity, or 
 oneness of the soul, endowed with definite capacities, 
 throws such illumination upon otherwise obscure 
 matters in education that it seems worth while to 
 illustrate it a little. Thus we say that the soul is a 
 one thing, endowed, for instance, with the power to 
 think; and that while it is thus endowed with the 
 
24 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 power to think, it is also endowed with the power 
 to feel, and that it may at will exercise either or 
 both of these capacities or powers; and that while 
 endowed with these powers, it is also endowed with 
 the power to choose among a number of attributes, 
 which may be under consideration by the soul 
 through its power of knowing and feeling ; and that 
 the exercise of one or all of these powers at once 
 does not cause any multiplicity of essence, but only 
 a complexity of activities. Examples of just such a 
 situation are common in everyday life and cause no 
 difficulty or comment there. A single illustration 
 will be sufficient. The various small organizations 
 by which social and political affairs are administered, 
 require for their effectiveness certain officials, who 
 are usually selected by the membership of the special 
 organizations themselves. The most common officers 
 are president, secretary, and treasurer; and vice 
 president, sergeant at arms, and others are some- 
 times added. Custom has assigned quite definite 
 duties to these officers, so that if nothing be cited 
 in constitution or by-laws in reference to their duties 
 in any case, the officers know with sufficient accu- 
 racy what is required of each. In smaller organiza- 
 tions it is not unusual to choose the same person as 
 secretary and as treasurer of the body, when he is 
 usually styled secretary-treasurer. Here is one per- 
 son — an undivided unity — exercising two functions, 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 25 
 
 that of secretary and that of treasurer, without pro- 
 ducing any lack of unity in himself as a person by 
 such complexity of performance. And were still 
 other functions given him, requiring still other 
 activities, these would not affect the unity of his 
 personality, not even if the numerous duties inter- 
 fered somewhat with one another. 
 
 He would still be one person everlastingly in- 
 divisible. So the human soul, exercising in complex 
 profusion its three great capacities in numerous 
 acts more or less varied, is still in itself one and 
 indivisible. 
 
 It is not safe to press a metaphor too far, but the 
 illustration used above has one more happy adap- 
 tation to the case in hand. As secretary-treasurer 
 the man's duties might be performed successively 
 or even at the same time. As treasurer he is charged 
 with the safe-keeping of all moneys belonging to the 
 organization. While he is thus holding securely in 
 bank or elsewhere this money for which he is respon- 
 sible by bond or otherwise, he may as secretary con- 
 duct the correspondence of the organization without 
 in any way lessening his reliability as treasurer. At 
 another time, however, while conducting this corre- 
 spondence under pressure, some one might be urg- 
 ing him for a check which he could give only in his 
 capacity as treasurer. He could perform but one 
 duty at a time, and one or the other would have to 
 
26 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 await the completion of that which had already been 
 begun. So duties and functions might interfere with 
 one another. It is even to be conceived that with 
 the growth of his official correspondence his value 
 as treasurer might be reduced, or vice versa. It is 
 also conceivable that these duties might reenforce 
 one another, — that the knowledge gained in con- 
 ducting one office might render the person more 
 efficient in the other. So certain definite possibilities 
 lie in the combination of the coexisting duties and 
 activities of this one man, — these duties now con- 
 flicting, now reenforcing one another, and now flow- 
 ing peacefully side by side, without at any time 
 affecting the personal unity of the official. 
 
 Singularly close analogous conditions exist with 
 reference to the soul and its complex capacities and 
 activities. The soul, though in itself one, is endowed 
 by its very nature with three great capacities, — the 
 power to think, to feel, and to will (or choose). It is 
 doubtful if the soul ever ceases to act in every one 
 of these ways after such action has once been 
 consciously roused. These coexisting activities, like 
 the duties of the secretary-treasurer, may conflict 
 with or reenforce one another; or they may peace- 
 fully proceed side by side without influencing one 
 another at all. Each person, by reference to his 
 own case, can verify these statements. There are 
 experiences in which strong feeling precludes clear 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 27 
 
 thinking; in other cases a happy flow of feeHng 
 seems to be the thing needed to make thinking easy 
 and effective. All will recognize the fact that strong 
 conviction and intensity of feeling are precisely what 
 stimulate and control choice; yet there are times 
 when a peaceful serenity, indicating an absence of 
 conflicting activities of the soul, is essential to wise 
 judgment. 
 
 But our figure will bear one more application. 
 We have seen that the secretary-treasurer is essen- 
 tially one person, though transacting different and 
 differing duties. We have also seen that these duties 
 may conflict with one another, may assist one an- 
 other, or may coexist without noticeably affecting 
 one another. But whenever this person transacted 
 any one of these duties it was the whole person who 
 did it, though his power to do this thing well might 
 have been reduced by his other duties or responsi- 
 bilities. His power to do any one of his duties might 
 at any time have been augmented or decreased by his 
 other duties, but his personality as a unity was never 
 in any way affected thereby. In every act that he 
 performed it was his whole self that did it, though 
 sometimes with diminished capability. So it is with 
 the soul and its activities. These activities coexist, 
 often influencing one another as to character or de- 
 gree; but each one of these is the action of the 
 whole soul, — of an individual unity. 
 
28 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 Psychologists have doubtless always been aware of 
 this great truth, but have not always been careful to 
 imply it in their language. By using the terms "in- 
 tellect," " sensibility," and " will " so frequently they 
 have implied a threefold division of the soul, each 
 part having definite functions. The illustration given 
 above shows how the three great classes of activity 
 of soul coexist as activities of the one indivisible 
 soul, — each as much a product of this soul unity as 
 if no other had been existing at the same time. 
 What the psychologists really mean is perhaps made 
 clear by saying that " intellect " is not a part of the 
 soul, but "the whole soul predominantly engaged 
 in thinking"; "sensibility," not a part of the soul, 
 capable only of feeling, but " the whole soul pre- 
 dominantly engaged in feeling " ; " will," not some 
 part of the soul capable of choosing, but " the whole 
 soul engaged predominantly in choosing." These 
 are rather words of emphasis, and are always to be 
 so interpreted, never for a moment allowing the idea 
 of the eternally indivisible unity of the soul to be 
 clouded. The same holds true of all the long list 
 of terms which represent what psychologists have 
 sometimes called " faculties." In each case we merely 
 mean to emphasize the predominant state of the soul 
 as relating to knowledge or feeling or choice. 
 
 A single additional phase of this matter will com- 
 plete our preliminary survey of the field and open 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 29 
 
 the way fully for our future discussion. We have 
 seen that the soul carries on three great lines of 
 activity all the time, and that some one of these is 
 usually relatively high in degree as compared with 
 the others. We have in a general way indicated the 
 differences in the character of these classes of ac- 
 tivities by showing that one class relates itself chiefly 
 and directly to the gaining of knowledge in some 
 form; a second relates itself to what is popularly 
 known as feeling or emotion; and the third has to 
 do with our choices. These activities are ultimate 
 things in their realm, experienced by all but not 
 easily defined by any. Indeed it is impossible to 
 define these finalities, since there is nothing like any 
 one of them with which we may class it for identifi- 
 cation and formal definition. But we may distin- 
 guish them in such vague ways as have already been 
 pointed out, and we may refer each person to his 
 own consciousness for more exact observations. 
 
 This reference to each person's consciousness 
 ought to reveal to each another fact, of great signif- 
 icance in the development of character as a result 
 of education. This further fact is that there is no 
 absolute line of demarcation or difference among 
 these activities, or between any two of them. Out- 
 side of mathematics nature seems to abhor perfect 
 classifications. Each act of the soul may be pre- 
 dominantly one or another of these three, — thinking, 
 
30 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 feeling, or choosing, — but not wholly so ; it is always 
 tinged with one or more of the others. Our descrip- 
 tions of states of the soul as states of thought or of 
 feeling or of willing are merely expressions describ- 
 ing a predominance of one or the other of these 
 states. The soul is never engaged in pure thinking, 
 untinged by feeling, or vice versa; but each act of 
 the soul is some happy blending of two or more 
 of them, — perhaps of all three in even the simplest 
 process. We move this way or that in our per- 
 sonal experiences, now moving toward absorption in 
 thought, now toward feeling, or now deciding our 
 course in a great crisis of life; but some blending 
 of all three varieties will be found in each act. Our 
 moods are but variations of the degrees of the three, 
 no one ever being entirely omitted. Thus we begin 
 to see that experiences which at first seemed differ- 
 ences blend into a unity, all the richer by reason 
 of the resulting complexity. The great end of edu- 
 cation is well-nigh reached when control and right 
 direction of these blending activities shall have been 
 acquired by the soul, so that it shall pursue its course 
 measurably free from the control of heredity and en- 
 vironment. And the glory of the teacher is that he 
 is permitted, during this minority of the child, to 
 suggest standards and supply motives till such time 
 as the immature person shall have become mature ; 
 the weak, strong ; the ignorant, intelligent ; and the 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 31 
 
 irresponsible, moral; so that he can thereafter take 
 the rudder in his own hand and direct safely his 
 own course in life. It is thus the teacher's business 
 to make himself no longer necessary to his pupil. 
 
 Under the guidance of such doctrine as the 
 foregoing, the four succeeding chapters, making up 
 the body of this book, have been written. It is in 
 the light which these principles may throw over the 
 pages that these chapters are to be interpreted. 
 The intention has been to take up mainly the 
 cultural side of education, as has already been in- 
 dicated in the Point of View. The theme unfolds 
 itself therefore along that line, and while the dis- 
 cussion is liberal in tone it is necessarily narrow 
 in range. 
 
 The line of thought followed, naturally divides 
 itself into four remaining chapters : 
 
 1. Self-activity. 
 
 2. Self-revelation. 
 
 3. Self-direction. 
 
 4. Self-realization. 
 
 Each of these terms is interpreted liberally. The 
 chapter on Self-activity discusses this principle as 
 conditioning all educational processes and directing 
 their methods. Self-activity is seen to be the primal 
 essence of the soul, out of which all progression 
 toward excellence is possible. The other three 
 terms express the higher and higher stages of the 
 
32 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 self-active spirit, as bud, flower, and fruit express 
 the higher and higher stages in the annual life 
 cycle of a plant. There is then no possible abrupt 
 termination of the one or the beginning of another, 
 but a gradual transition from the predominance of 
 one to the enlarging power of another. 
 
 The chapter on Self-revelation treats of the rev- 
 elation of the soul to itself, through the use it 
 makes of the knowledge which by its self-activity 
 it has acquired. That on Self-direction treats of the 
 correlation of previous experiences into ideals and 
 motives, placing the directive power of a person's 
 life within his own soul, thus making him a moral 
 and responsible person and member of his com- 
 munity. The chapter on Self-realization discusses 
 the processes by which the truly educated person 
 becomes the highest type of being of which 
 humanity is capable. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 SELF-ACTIVITY 
 
 The human soul is a spiritual entity whose 
 essence is self-activity. Out of this primal attribute 
 all the other elements of human character develop 
 as self-activity seeks to realize itself in human free- 
 dom. Without this self-activity — the power of 
 initiative, the power to begin action without com- 
 pulsion from another — the human soul would not 
 be responsible for its own actions. In such case 
 there could be no moral element in human action, 
 and the cultivation of character through education 
 would be impossible. It is important therefore to 
 make clear the nature of self-activity, as a necessary 
 condition for the discussion of all methods for the 
 development of character, whether in the school or 
 elsewhere. 
 
 In the treatment of an idea so fundamental as 
 self-activity it is impossible to present its full mean- 
 ing by mere definition. One must rather take the 
 method of suggestion, in which partial definition, 
 appeal to experience, and statement of fact mingle 
 in such way as to arouse and direct the thinking 
 power of the learner until he thinks out for himself 
 
 33 
 
34 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the idea thus suggested and identifies it with his 
 own experience. 
 
 In fact the very nature of self-activity makes the 
 appeal to experience its strongest proof. He who 
 finds himself exercising self-activity in some em- 
 phatic way on some notable occasion is better able 
 to recognize descriptions or definitions of it; and 
 he alone who has had such experience really be- 
 lieves in self-activity as an actual attribute of him- 
 self. Henceforward no sophistry can shake his 
 belief in his own power of initiative, nor can it 
 relieve him from that sense of responsibility which 
 always accompanies the recognition of one's self- 
 activity. It is essential to moral culture that the 
 feeling of responsibility shall be naturally developed 
 as our self-activity gradually makes itself clear in 
 our experience and conclusive to our reason. Mod- 
 ern school methods have sometimes failed to reach 
 this important end in moral culture of the young, 
 from a mistaken notion that learning should be 
 made interesting at all hazards. The idea that chil- 
 dren must always be entertained has often led to 
 practices especially enervating to the will, which is 
 merely another name for self-activity. 
 
 So soon as a person has developed a feeling of 
 responsibility through the experience of his own 
 initiative, it is possible to teach him a sense of 
 worthiness, as a result of meeting fairly and properly 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 35 
 
 the responsibilities of life. This sense of worthiness 
 as a result of right action is the noblest and most 
 powerful motive that can be made to appeal to a 
 human being. It cannot come to any one till he has 
 experienced his personal freedom, so far as choice of 
 his own course of action is concerned. This sense 
 of worthiness, connected with right action, is the 
 correlative of remorse, as related to wrong action. 
 
 Neither a sense of worth nor one of remorse can 
 appeal to any person till he has had his sense of 
 right and wrong somewhat developed, and this can- 
 not be done with an individual till he appreciates 
 to some extent his own power of initiative in action, 
 and therefore his share of responsibility for the con- 
 sequences of his action. Although all these appre- 
 ciations develop in a sense together, yet there is a 
 logical sequence which is absolutely controlling, 
 however small the portion of time intervening in 
 any case. 
 
 The supreme importance of a right understand- 
 ing of the doctrine of self-activity is sufficient 
 reason for an extended treatment of the theme 
 before presenting those other and more obvious 
 elements of character culture which so completely 
 depend upon the facts of personal initiative. The 
 subject is made more complicated by the fact that 
 in the human being the soul (or spirit) is connected 
 with the material body. At birth the human being 
 
36 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 is an embodied soul (or spirit), that is, a soul which 
 has begun to build for itself a body. This body it 
 inhabits and uses, or soon learns to use, as a 
 medium of contact with the material world. Impor- 
 tant relationships come to exist between the soul 
 and the body, which thus together constitute the 
 human being. Neither is a constituent of the other, 
 nor do the two follow the same laws of develop- 
 ment. Nevertheless there are important analogies 
 developed as the double life proceeds, and we shall 
 need to take account of the reciprocal influences 
 which from time to time make themselves em- 
 phatically felt. 
 
 It is especially to be noted that it is only after an 
 understanding of the elementary stages of mind 
 development, dependent on the senses, that one is 
 in condition to appreciate fully the higher stages 
 of human culture, in which the moral tendency of 
 human action is so controlling and significant. The 
 reader will therefore be the more patient during the 
 following discussion of certain relationships of body 
 and soul, which at first seem far away from our 
 theme, but which in the end will be seen to have 
 furnished the key to a right appreciation of what 
 might else have remained obscure. 
 
 The self-activity of a human infant needs to be 
 carefully distinguished from some limited forms of 
 self-activity, as, for instance, that found in plants. 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 37 
 
 Indeed, we may come to see its true nature better if 
 for a moment we compare and contrast it with the 
 life principle in a seed. Every fully ripened seed 
 which has not been subjected to unnatural condi- 
 tions has this life principle existing in its germ. 
 Whenever the appropriate conditions are supplied, 
 such as air, soil, warmth, and moisture, the life prin- 
 ciple in the germ of the seed has the power to begin 
 a process of cell building by which it embodies itself 
 in a new plant. At first this power is only sufficient 
 to build cells out of prepared material placed in the 
 seed surrounding the germ by the preceding plant. 
 But a little later, after a few new cells at one end 
 of the germ have been formed into a little root, 
 and a few cells at the other end of the same germ 
 have been formed into a little stem with tiny leaves, 
 the self-active power, originally in the germ of the 
 seed, but now embodied in the growing plant, ac- 
 quires the power to go outside the seed and seize 
 upon the molecules of matter in air, soil, and mois- 
 ture, destroy the chemical combinations in which it 
 finds them, select such as serve its uses, and build 
 these molecules into plant cells, which it distri- 
 butes within its growing structure according to its 
 type or kind. The growing plant has thus begun 
 to conquer its environment and to take from it 
 such portions as it can best use for its own life 
 development. 
 
38 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 In this beautiful process of growth it is important 
 for present purposes to note especially two or three 
 points : (i) the life principle in the seed has the power 
 to begin this process of growth when the appropriate 
 conditions are supplied ; (2) through the instrumen- 
 tality of the growing plant thus developed, this life 
 principle or self-activity acquires the power to con- 
 quer its environment and to make it serve its own 
 uses ; and (3) this power exhausts itself in providing 
 for its own reincarnation in the seed again. The 
 whole life history of self-activity as exemplified in 
 plant life is included in the cycle from seed to seed 
 again, although some plants repeat this cycle through 
 many years. 
 
 There is an almost completely analogous proce- 
 dure in the case of a human being. The self-activity 
 of the infant, through its developing body, acquires 
 the power to take possession of its physical environ- 
 ment in a process of growth, building the animal 
 cells thus produced into the structure of its body. 
 
 This analogy of procedure in the two cases is very 
 striking, resulting in each instance in a closed cycle 
 when the self-active power is insured its reembodi- 
 ment in appropriate form. Here, however, the analogy 
 ends and the contrasts begin. The contrasts are 
 numerous and important. 
 
 I. The self-active principle of the plant has no 
 other uses which it can make of the external world. 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 39 
 
 The self-active principle of the human being, the 
 soul, can make spiritual uses of the material world 
 through its distinctive power of knowing, feeling, and 
 choosing. These spiritual uses of the external world 
 do not destroy the matter used, nor do they neces- 
 sarily change its physical conditions or relations. 
 The changes made are produced in the soul itself, 
 constituting, when properly carried out, a course of 
 character development. This use of the material 
 world as a means of soul development or character 
 culture is made possible by the use which the spirit 
 makes of the body as a means of contact with matter. 
 2. Another marked contrast lies in the fact that 
 the self-active principle in the seed cannot decline 
 to begin action when appropriate conditions are sup- 
 plied, nor can it act in any other way than that 
 determined by the conditions themselves. If these 
 conditions be supplied to a seed in which the life 
 principle has been destroyed by unnatural exposure, 
 they but hasten the decay of the lifeless seed. It 
 is therefore the self-active principle which begins 
 growth and secures mastery over matter, but it can 
 exercise this self-activity only in limited forms and 
 under definite compulsions. The human spirit, on 
 the contrary, may, in its spiritual uses of the world, 
 decline to act when the conditions are supplied, and 
 may even act in some way not suggested directly by 
 the conditions. It may even be whimsical about it. 
 
40 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 Therefore it may not be commanded nor entirely 
 controlled by its environment. Indeed, to a consid- 
 erable degree — an increasing degree as development 
 proceeds — it may create its own environment and 
 determine the conditions of its own action. 
 
 The human being, then, is a self -active entity. It 
 is composed of a spirit and a body, the latter used 
 by the spirit as a means of contact with the material 
 world. I do not know what solicitations may be 
 offered to pure spirit — a spirit not supplied with a 
 body — to begin an action of thinking, or feeling, or 
 choosing; but with human beings the first solicita- 
 tions to such action come through the sense organs 
 of the body. Through the eye bright colors and 
 pleasing forms solicit the active attention of the 
 spirit (mind or soul) within ; and in due season, and 
 of its own volition, the soul responds to the solicita- 
 tions and begins a process which, as it grows in 
 complexity, results in knowledge, accompanied ulti- 
 mately by feeling and choice. Through the senses of 
 sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing, and perhaps others, 
 the various objects of the external world make their 
 appeal to the developing mind. Whenever voluntary 
 response is made to these solicitations, mind action 
 is established and definite knowledge of the external 
 world is obtained, its particular kind being deter- 
 mined by the sense organ through which the solici- 
 tation is carried. In each case the sense organ that 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 41 
 
 carries the solicitation furnishes the conditions under 
 which the mind can obtain a certain kind of knowl- 
 edge. Though there are certain vicarious relation- 
 ships, no one of them can act as a full substitute for 
 another. All the senses are needed for that complete 
 knowledge of the external world which seems so 
 necessary to physical existence and so helpful as a 
 basis for moral development. How all this occurs as 
 a purely natural process of development is the inter- 
 esting theme of the next few pages. 
 
 It is to the physiological psychologists that we are 
 indebted for these discussions. Until within the last 
 few years there were no reliable data in regard to the 
 physical functions which condition all knowledge of 
 the external world. Now, however, thanks to those 
 who have worked so patiently and effectively in the 
 thoroughly equipped psychological laboratories of 
 the great universities, the chief physiological facts 
 are definitely determined, and the psychologist has 
 only to interpret them by showing the way in which 
 the soul uses the magnificent mechanism furnished 
 it in the nervous system of the human body. 
 
 A brief description of the nervous system in its 
 simplest elements seems necessary here as a basis 
 for the explanation of the knowing process as we 
 must come to understand it in order to appreciate 
 its fundamental relations to character growth. Only 
 such portions of the nervous system will be mentioned 
 
42 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 as are requisite to an understanding of the process 
 of acquiring knowledge, leaving out all confusing 
 details. Should the reader desire fuller discussion of 
 these physiological conditions, they are now happily 
 described in numerous volumes devoted to this phase 
 of our subject. These details are not essential to the 
 understanding of general mental processes, but only 
 to the comprehension of numerous minute variations 
 of mental action which are not now under considera- 
 tion. They may therefore be left for the student who 
 is especially interested in such things, since they do 
 not greatly influence the mental processes with which 
 the teacher deals in ordinary problems of education. 
 So far as each sense organ offers a condition for 
 mental action in a human being, its chief element is 
 a nerve fiber or a collection of nerve fibers. The 
 usefulness of the nerve fiber for this purpose con- 
 sists in its capability of receiving and carrying what 
 is known as a nervous impulse. Its outer extremity 
 is influenced peculiarly by some physical force, — 
 light, pressure, taste, odor, sound, temperature, or 
 some other force. The molecular impulse thus im- 
 parted to the nerve extremity is carried to the inner 
 extremity of the nerve fiber, — the brain or some 
 similar ganglion of nervous matter. The nervous 
 impulse or molecular motion which thus travels from 
 outer nerve tip to inner extremity within the brain 
 sets up a molecular disturbance in the gray matter 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 43 
 
 of the brain tissue. Such disturbance repeated many- 
 times renders such gray matter more and more sus- 
 ceptible to being thus influenced, that is, it organizes 
 the gray matter into a better and better receiving 
 organ for such nervous impulses. 
 
 When such molecular disturbance has grown 
 strong by repetition, it has power to attract the at- 
 tention of the soul. The soul is not compelled to 
 give its attention. It may be engaged in some other 
 employment which it prefers, and from which it 
 refuses to be drawn away by any ordinary solicitation. 
 In the very early life of the child, however, — at the 
 dawning of mental action, — the attention is usually 
 soon attracted to some of these disturbances of gray 
 matter brought about by nervous impulses from the 
 various sense organs. Those caused by light and 
 carried through the optic nerve seem to be most 
 powerfully attractive ; at least, so far as observers 
 have reported, attention is first noticed in connection 
 with the sense of sight. Nervous impulses originated 
 by moving or brightly colored objects seem to make 
 the strongest appeal. 
 
 The response of the soul in these cases is vague 
 at first. It grows stronger, more definite, and effec- 
 tive only after numerous repetitions. When the 
 attraction is so strong that the soul gives its atten- 
 tion, the result is an awareness by the soul of this 
 molecular disturbance in the gray matter of the 
 
44 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 brain. This awareness is what the later psycholo- 
 gists call sensation. It is probably a blending of 
 knowledge and feeling, the latter predominating. Its 
 precise nature is a matter of conjecture, or, at best, 
 of reason, since none of us can remember our own 
 experiences of this kind; indeed, the first ones, in 
 all probability, are too vague to form any basis of 
 memory. The nature of these earliest mental proc- 
 esses is, however, fairly well inferred from a study of 
 our later mental actions through our own conscious- 
 ness. The process by which attention is solicited 
 through other sense organs is substantially like that 
 described in connection with sight. The awareness 
 in each case varies according to the nature of the 
 nervous impulse carried. 
 
 All the physical apparatus for the production of 
 sensation as described above is supplied to the 
 child, ready for use, as soon as he enters the world. 
 He is equipped at birth with the sense organs 
 adapted to gather the physical influences which are 
 to affect the outer extremity of the nerve fiber 
 resident in any particular sense organ. The nerve 
 fiber itself is already organized to carry the in- 
 fluence received by its own molecular action to its 
 inner extremity in the gray matter of the brain, 
 or, in some cases, to another mass of nervous 
 matter. The gray matter of the brain has already 
 been made susceptible to this nervous influence, 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 45 
 
 so that a peculiar molecular disturbance is set up 
 within it by the transmission to it of the nervous 
 impulse carried by the afferent (inbearing) nerve. 
 This " organized " condition of the afferent nerve 
 is well known to physiologists through experiment. 
 There are also some evidences of a like organi- 
 zation of nerve fibers extending from the same gray 
 matter of the brain outward to certain organs of 
 motion, such as the hands, lower limbs, etc. This 
 organization makes these nerve fibers susceptible 
 of being affected by the molecular action of the 
 gray matter of the brain, as set up there by the 
 nervous impulse brought to it by the afferent nerve 
 from the sense organ, or by the direct will of the 
 person. Thus the gray matter of the brain, through 
 its molecular action, sets up a resulting action in 
 certain efferent (outbearing) nerves, whose outer 
 extremities lie in certain muscles. This outgoing 
 nervous impulse causes certain molecular disturb- 
 ances in muscles, known as contraction and relaxa- 
 tion. In this way motion of the whole organ is 
 brought about automatically by successive trans- 
 ferences or transmissions of nervous impulse from 
 a sense organ along the afferent nerve, through a 
 brain center, or other nervous matter, and along an 
 efferent nerve to the muscles which move a particular 
 part of the body. These actions are at first entirely 
 automatic. The most conspicuous of these automatic 
 
46 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 actions of the baby are the purposeless movements 
 of hands and feet, though there are many others. 
 Many of these actions are noticed before there is 
 any evidence of the awareness which constitutes 
 sensation ; though no doubt the conditions for both 
 automatic action and sensation begin substantially 
 at the same time. The former are immediate phys- 
 ical responses without intervention of mind action, 
 while the latter must wait the voluntary notice of a 
 mind, however immature. 
 
 There is a peculiar reason why this organization 
 of nervous matter, fitting it to carry nervous im- 
 pulse, should be available at birth for the production 
 of motion in many bodily organs, for the preser- 
 vation of health, and for the establishment of right 
 conditions of growth ; and this automatic power 
 extends to all organs in some degree. But in refer- 
 ence to the movement of the hands, for which the 
 organization is quite perfect, there is another and 
 weightier reason, as we shall see when we come to 
 speak of the beginnings of purposive actions of 
 the child. The hand becomes the most significant 
 educational equipment of the developing mind. 
 Through it is begun the process of soul growth 
 resulting in other forms of expression, even of oral 
 and written speech. This insight, when explained, 
 will give a new and deeper significance to the sub- 
 ject of manual training, especially in the lower grades. 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 47 
 
 We have now seen that the child has at birth 
 a complete physical apparatus for supplying all 
 the conditions for sensation, and that soon after 
 birth he gives voluntarily sufhcient attention to 
 the molecular action set up in the brain to secure 
 for himself sensations, — vague, it is true, at first, 
 but real sensations so far as their nature is con- 
 cerned. While these sensations are vague and few 
 the child does not have any perceptions. By this is 
 meant that the sensations as yet have no meaning 
 to him. They must be interpreted or understood. 
 When this takes place it will be an intellectual act, 
 which will result in knowledge. This interpretative 
 act begins as vaguely and proceeds as slowly as did 
 the act of sensation, becoming, through much repe- 
 tition under slightly varying circumstances, more 
 and more definite. As the molecular action solic- 
 ited attention, resulting in sensation, these sensa- 
 tions, when they become vivid and numerous, solicit 
 further attention resulting in perception, namely, 
 the discovery of the meaning of these sensations. 
 This meaning takes the form of the percepts of sight, 
 sound, taste, touch, smell, temperature, form, etc. 
 
 Very exact observations of infancy have been 
 made and verified, showing the stages of progress 
 in growth and sensations within a short time after 
 birth, and through the early months and years 
 of life. It is not necessary for our purpose here 
 
48 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 to trace this progression in detail. We do need to 
 notice that it is essentially a voluntary action on 
 the part of the learner, — the exerting of a perfectly 
 natural function, made possible in its early stages 
 by the happy adaptation of the spirit to the mate- 
 rial world through the nervous organization of the 
 body, whereby the external world is able to make 
 its insistent appeal to the spirit within. 
 
 Were it not for the self-active nature of the mind 
 (or soul), the appeal would be in vain. It is this 
 ever-present power to initiate its own activities that 
 distinguishes the soul so completely from physical 
 organisms, which must depend upon compulsion or 
 propulsion for all their movements. 
 
 We are now to see still more wonderful proof of 
 the self-active character of the soul than has yet 
 been shown. This will appear as soon as we begin 
 to study those phases of the soul's action which 
 introduce purpose as a distinctly volitional activity. 
 For the complete explanation of this phase of 
 self-activity we must again go to the experiments 
 of the physiological psychologists. 
 
 It has already been explained that the child 
 comes into the world with a ready-made physical 
 apparatus for receiving external stimuli through 
 sense organs, and for carrying the nervous impulse 
 thus generated to internal masses of nervous matter, 
 either the brain itself or some organ which acts in 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 49 
 
 conjunction with the brain or instead of it, as the 
 spinal cord or the nervous masses of the gangUa of 
 the sympathetic nervous system. These matters are 
 common facts of physiological knowledge and do 
 not need elaboration here. It has been noticed also 
 that the child is born with a less well-developed ap- 
 paratus for carrying the nervous impulses through 
 a brain center outward to muscles, forming the basis 
 for rudimentary, spasmodic, unintentional action. 
 
 This preparation for unintentional or automatic 
 action is complete enough at birth to be the con- 
 dition for inaugurating and continuing the life of 
 the child in the new environment, through such 
 stimuli as come to him by means of the sense 
 organs, or from chemical and physical changes 
 which arise within the body itself, especially in the 
 blood. Many of these chemical changes are taking 
 place at the time of birth, and where they continue 
 as purely chemical or physical changes they are 
 independent as yet of any volition of the child 
 himself. All the processes of circulation, diges- 
 tion, nutrition, and the like are thus made sure to 
 the child by prepared apparatus and by forces or 
 stimuli furnished by the outside world or by inter- 
 nal physical and chemical changes begun before 
 birth and continued automatically after birth by 
 their own inertia or by new stimulation from the 
 external world. There are as yet no phenomena of 
 
50 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 self-activity ; there is no mind action or soul action, 
 — merely reflex action. Much of this action is 
 necessary to the continuance of life, — physical life, 
 if there be such a thing separate from the life of the 
 soul. But to the teacher there is a deeper signifi- 
 cance here than has yet been suggested. Nature 
 seems to have taken care, through heredity, for the 
 preservation and continuance of what may be called 
 the vegetative or purely animal life of the child. 
 Has it also prepared the way for the child's soul to 
 get possession of this physiological apparatus for 
 spiritual uses, — for its own development? The 
 answer to this question will be clearly seen after a 
 slight discussion of the organization of nervous mat- 
 ter, showing how it is serviceable as an instrument. 
 A nerve fiber is not quite so simple a thing as 
 the descriptions in previous pages would indicate. 
 Only such descriptions were given there as were 
 necessary to the understanding of the processes 
 then being considered. Closer examination of nerv- 
 ous matter shows a nerve fiber to be a collection 
 of neurones, or nerve cells, with prolongations in 
 many directions and of varying lengths. From 
 many of these neurones there are further prolonga- 
 tions of nervous matter, filamentous in character, 
 called de7idrites by later physiological psychologists. 
 A succession of neurones, with their more or less 
 well-developed dendrites, placed in a line constitute 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 51 
 
 a nerve fiber, so called. Neurones in a nerve fiber, 
 even with well-developed dendrites, do not quite 
 touch each other, being always separated by in- 
 tervening tissue called neuroglia^ through which 
 nervous impulses must be conducted from the par- 
 ticular dendrite concerned in one neurone to the 
 nearest dendrite in its successive neurone in the 
 fiber. Since each neurone has many dendrites, reach- 
 ing in various directions as well as in the main 
 direction of the fiber, there is always danger at first 
 that instead of a straightforward transmission of the 
 nervous impulse along the line of the nerve fiber 
 most nearly concerned, there may be diffusion of 
 the impulse somewhat indiscriminately to neurones 
 in other fibers, leading to other brain centers (or 
 nervous centers). This diffusion of nervous energy 
 is precisely what does happen in the newborn child, 
 resulting in many seemingly irrelevant movements, 
 not directly related even to the preservation and pro- 
 longing of the physical life. It will be found, how- 
 ever, that nearly all of them more or less indirectly 
 affect physical health, by stimulating the circulation 
 of the blood and by increasing chemical action in 
 the blood and in the tissues. 
 
 Their greatest significance, nevertheless, is in 
 an entirely different direction, namely, as furnishing 
 the beginning for that course of nervous organiza- 
 tion which the soul takes up at this point to render 
 
52 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the body, especially the nervous system, the marvel- 
 ous instrument which it becomes for the expression 
 of the soul's activities of thinking, feeling, and 
 choosing ; and incidentally through such expression, 
 to lay the foundation for the soul's own development 
 in its moral attitude toward the universe. 
 
 It has already been seen that physical and chem- 
 ical forces, operating before birth, through the life 
 of the parent, have begun an organization of some 
 portions of the nervous system. Thus at birth the 
 child has a fairly well-developed set of afferent 
 nerve fibers and the beginning of some efferent 
 nerve fibers. Constant repetition of stimuli has in- 
 creased the capacity of these nervous fibers to 
 transmit nervous impulse by causing a growth of 
 dendrites from each neurone in many directions, but 
 mainly in the direction which nervous impulse has 
 oftenest traveled. The neuroglia intervening has 
 had its susceptibility to nervous impulse greatly in- 
 creased by constant transmission of such impulse 
 in definite directions. Organization of nervous mat- 
 ter has thus far proceeded by growth of dendrites 
 from neurones into and through the neuroglia to- 
 ward other dendrites extending from neighboring 
 neurones, thus increasing -the probability that nerv- 
 ous impulse will be transmitted definitely along 
 the line thus created, rather than along lines in 
 which the dendrites are shorter and the intervening 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 53 
 
 neuroglia less sensitive to the language of the 
 nervous impulse. The whole process before birth 
 has been under the direction of the life influence 
 of the parent, so that gradually the trend of nervous 
 transmission is set along lines which will best min- 
 ister to the well-being of the organism. Neverthe- 
 less at birth these lines of transmission are not so 
 well settled but that much seeming waste of nerv- 
 ous energy still takes place through diffusion. 
 The further organization of the nervous system 
 must now be delivered over to the physical and 
 chemical forces already at work within the system, 
 to the forces of the external world acting on the 
 sense organs, and to the self-activity of the infant 
 soul which is even now seeking to gain the mastery 
 of the body in order to make it serve spiritual as 
 well as physical interests. It is not here meant that 
 the soul is consciously seeking thus to use the 
 body, but only that its very self-activity is, under 
 motive whenever that shall come, the reason for 
 asserting its supremacy over matter instead of sub- 
 mitting longer to the direction and control of outer 
 forces. It was seen in the preceding pages that the 
 infant soul is fitted out at birth with sensory ap- 
 paratus connecting it with the material world ; and 
 that soon the young child will begin to aid itself 
 in this direction by gradually assuming control of 
 these physical organisms and processes. 
 
54 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 It is precisely this self-activity of the soul hereto- 
 fore described which comes now to its assistance. 
 Reasonable provision has been made for the con- 
 tinuance and improvement of the physical life, and 
 but little for the soul life. The reason is obvious. 
 Physical conditions and forces cannot compel atten- 
 tion or action from the soul. The soul's action 
 must be self-action, — none other could be soul 
 action. What these physical forces have done is to 
 arrange an apparatus which will attract the atten- 
 tion of the soul, and which, becoming more highly 
 organized through soul action, may thus serve as 
 the medium of expression, directing and correlating 
 the soul's activities so as to make them adapted to 
 soul life in a material world. And this is precisely 
 what we find these physical forces have done. A 
 partial organization of some parts of the nervous 
 system has already been accomplished at birth. 
 These same forces continue their work after birth, 
 no longer so closely under the surveillance of the 
 parental influence, but ready for more definite con- 
 trol by the soul. Continued and insistent repetition 
 of these physical forces, through sense organs, is 
 steadily making more and more definite and effi- 
 cient the lines of transmission of nervous impulse 
 through afferent nerves, through the various lower 
 nervous masses, such as the spinal cord and the 
 ganglia of the sympathetic system, and through 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 55 
 
 certain portions of the brain mass itself. More and 
 more easily and definitely do these influences pass 
 through these brain centers and out to organs of 
 motion. 
 
 As yet the main mass of the true brain has been 
 scarcely affected by these early acts of organization. 
 Being physical and not mental, — not intelligent, — 
 they have pushed themselves along lines of least 
 resistance rather than along intelligently chosen 
 paths of progress. But when the soul begins its 
 work of trying to know and appreciate the external 
 world it intelligently chooses the portion of the brain 
 mass which it will train to its service. 
 
 If the student will refer to the page on which we 
 discussed the process of reaching sensation^ and re- 
 fresh his memory upon that topic, keeping in mind 
 this intervening discussion upon organization of nerv- 
 ous matter, he will be in condition to follow the 
 discussion of the process of perception as based on 
 sensation. It will be remembered that sensation is 
 a blending of knowledge and feeling, an awareness 
 of molecular action in the gray matter of a brain 
 center caused by a nervous impulse transmitted 
 from a sense organ. As sensation it has no meaning ; 
 it is not related distinctly to anything nor discrimi- 
 nated specially from anything ; it is not at all inter- 
 preted, nor is it referred by the mind to any cause 
 nor attached to any object, except in the vague way 
 
56 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 indicated above. The moment that the soul, being 
 more and more noticeably solicited by continuous 
 and persistent repetition of the sensation, begins of 
 its own accord to study the sensations, it is forming 
 or gaining a percept by acting intelligently upon 
 the sensation. 
 
 There is a logical order in which these interpre- 
 tative acts occur, but the time difference is so slight 
 as to be imperceptible. However, when the series 
 is really completed a percept is formed. The per- 
 cept consists of the tracing of the sensation back to 
 its causes sufificiently to identify the new knowledge 
 (percept) as a mental correspondent to an attribute 
 of an object which, through one of the sense organs, 
 was able to cause the sensation. This is the way in 
 which we get our percepts, — as nearly direct knowl- 
 edge as we ever get of the external world. 
 
 At first perceptions are vague, as sensations are 
 vague at first, and for a similar reason; but there 
 is an added difficulty in perception, rendering first 
 perceptions more vague than first sensations. This 
 obstacle is the fact that the mind, in its efforts to 
 interpret, — to put forth self-active efforts to know, 
 — has no organized nervous medium through which 
 to act. Brain cells are susceptible to mental action, 
 as influence, but are wholly unorganized in relation 
 thereto; that is, they are untrained for this serv- 
 ice. It will be seen, therefore, that the first efforts 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 57 
 
 of the mind are more or less diffused instead of 
 being focused directly upon the sensation till it can 
 be understood. 
 
 It is now well known, however, that all intellec- 
 tual effort changes the organization of the brain 
 matter it tries to use. Therefore the portion of the 
 brain which the mind tries to use in these first 
 efforts to interpret or know, gradually changes its 
 constitution. Its neurones change shape and throw 
 out amoeba-like extensions in definite directions, 
 dendrites grow out as fibrous extensions of the neu- 
 rones, tending toward those growing out from the 
 adjacent neurones, till at length a better medium of 
 communication has been established for the trans- 
 mission of a new nervous force generated by incip- 
 ient thought. And when the channel of discharge 
 has been well established and the tendency to diffu- 
 sion has been overcome, efficiency is slowly obtained 
 by concentration on the sensation studied. 
 
 Through the first months of babyhood and the 
 first years of youth these efforts at organization of 
 new areas of the brain are taking place during every 
 moment of waking life. As purposive effort grows 
 stronger the channels of connection grow more effi- 
 cient and perceptions grow clearer, the improvement 
 in each case being infinitesimally small as one act, 
 but becoming noticeable at the end of millions of repe- 
 titions. So the child grows slowly to the knowledge 
 
58 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 of the attributes or qualities of things. These vari- 
 ous forms of knowledge are called percepts. His 
 gradual bringing of these attributes under the rela- 
 tions of cause and effect, whole and part, space and 
 time, and into objects — that is, into ideas which 
 are the counterpart of the objects from which they 
 come — is a slow and prolonged process; but it 
 does not differ materially from that described in the 
 formation of a percept. The mind has gradually 
 taken possession of a portion of the brain, organ- 
 ized it for definite use, and made it serve a pur- 
 pose in the soul's advancement. This it has done 
 through its primal attribute of self-activity or power 
 of initiative. 
 
 It is to be remembered that the self -active nature 
 of the mind and its supremacy over matter through 
 its power of initiative are just beginning to manifest 
 themselves. The soul has even greater conquests to 
 make. There are large areas of the brain as yet but 
 slightly in use, and the soul has large possibilities 
 before it in the development of its own powers of 
 thinking, feeling, and choosing. As soon as the soul 
 begins to learn the meaning of sensations and to 
 interpret them into percepts, thus becoming ac- 
 quainted with the external world, it finds many of 
 these objects serviceable to itself in various ways. 
 Sights, sounds, tastes, etc., gratify capacities of feel- 
 ing ; the intellectual exercises of interpretation are in 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 59 
 
 themselves pleasurable ; and an actual soul life, here- 
 tofore unknown, begins as the human being becomes 
 for the first time aware of the self as distinguished 
 from the objects of its study. 
 
 The next chapter, on Self-revelation, will have 
 for its theme this development of the soul through 
 spiritual uses of the external world, — that is, revela- 
 tion of the soul to itself. Here it is enough to see 
 clearly that the soul has the beginning of the need 
 of expression. The motives to companionship arise 
 with dawning self-knowledge, and companionship 
 can be based only on some mode of communication. 
 Some method of expression — some kind of lan- 
 guage — is needed to begin companionship. There 
 is much evidence to show that the first language 
 developed was a gesture language. We have seen 
 that without the intervention of the soul, spasmodic 
 action of the limbs of a child, particularly of the 
 hands and arms, is already arranged for through a 
 nervous system partially developed at birth. And 
 we have also seen that these spasmodic, uninten- 
 tional actions readily take place under the stimulus 
 of physical, chemical, and physiological forces. The 
 soul's initiative is noticeable only when some cor- 
 relation of these hitherto purposeless actions is 
 attempted in order to accomplish intended results. 
 The sensations of touch and sight, coinciding in 
 time and place, solicit strongly the attention of the 
 
6o EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 soul. Soon sight sensations alone suggest motion 
 for the purpose of supplementing these sensations 
 with touch perceptions, resulting in attempts to 
 direct or control the motion of the hand. But before 
 this new force — soul initiative in the form of resolve 
 — can do its perfect work upon matter and thus 
 express itself through motion of the hand (or other 
 organ) it must have a medium of nervous matter. 
 Portions of the brain are already susceptible in a 
 degree to such influence, and, by successive attempts 
 of the soul to express itself through motion, have 
 become a trained instrument for the transfer of this 
 soul force, as other parts of the nervous system were 
 previously fitted to transmit nervous force originated 
 in sense organs by external or physical forces. 
 
 Of course this training of the brain for soul uses 
 in self-expression is of a finer kind than the other, 
 as soul force in the form of resolve is a finer sort of 
 force than is light or sound or any other of the 
 forces manifesting themselves through the senses. 
 All forms of self-caused mental action, such as feel- 
 ing or thought or resolve (volition), are veritable 
 soul forces, capable of causing motion in nervous 
 matter, such as the brain. The word " causing " is 
 used here for lack of a better word ; it need raise no 
 philosophical discussion which its use philosophically 
 might inaugurate. The nervous impulse thus origi- 
 nated by mental action is transferable to muscle 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 6 1 
 
 quite as readily as are the nervous forces caused 
 from external stimuli. But this new kind of nervous 
 influence is directive in character, not merely spas- 
 modic or automatic ; therefore, as soon as it is trans- 
 mitted to muscle the tendency is toward regulated 
 or correlated action, since the stimulus has in it the 
 elements of purpose and accomplishment. Thus all 
 further organization of the brain coming from men- 
 tal action will always tend to make such brain 
 matter a better and better instrument for the trans- 
 mission of purpose or volition to all muscles that 
 need to work together toward the accomplishment 
 of an end. And when such purpose is self-expres- 
 sion through motion, the very muscles required for 
 such motion are all animated by the same stimulus 
 coming from the mind itself. Under such stimulus 
 the muscles work together, and the result is regu- 
 lated or correlated action. For the first weeks, 
 months, and years of the child's life the soul is 
 engaged in thus training certain parts of the brain 
 to become its instrument for the transmission of its 
 mandates to muscles everywhere in the body, till 
 gradually not only are new motions, previously un- 
 known to the infant, inaugurated, but those caused 
 by external forces are brought under control. Soon, 
 then, the body is dominated by the soul through its 
 control of the muscular system, gained by the use 
 of the brain which it has trained for its instrument. 
 
62 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 This training is most clearly manifest in those 
 motions which are made for the purpose of self- 
 expression, namely, by the hands, organs of speech, 
 etc. Indeed, the soul takes such complete control 
 of the body in this respect that the latter is but the 
 instrument for the constant expression of the states 
 of the former. This is accomplished most perfectly 
 in gesture and in written and spoken language. 
 
 Some of the most interesting problems in physio- 
 logical psychology lie in this field, — the mastery 
 by the soul of the organs of speech for purposes 
 of complete self-expression. Physiological psycholo- 
 gists have been greatly helped in many cases by 
 intelligent physicians who have been able, by the 
 study of conditions of the brain resulting from 
 accident, to give the true explanation of phenomena 
 whose causes could not have been reached through 
 the ordinary experiments of the psychological lab- 
 oratory. In fact, much of the higher organization 
 of the brain, under direct control of the soul for 
 purposeful uses, is so delicate in its character as to 
 elude even the microscope. Many of the actual 
 changes brought about in the brain cannot be seen, 
 and can only be inferred from other phenomena 
 which have been established as facts beyond doubt. 
 
 Many physiological psychologists refuse to be- 
 lieve in the existence of a spiritual entity, pre- 
 ferring to consider the soul as an aggregation of 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 63 
 
 mental phenomena caused by physical forces acting 
 through the nervous matter of the body. In its 
 baldest phases physiological psychology would deny 
 self-activity in all its forms, deny any power of spir- 
 itual initiative, and thus destroy all sense of respon- 
 sibility in the soul for its own action, overthrow- 
 ing at one fell swoop all basis for moral philosophy 
 and any recognition of worthiness or unworthiness 
 in human living. In this extreme it is sheer fatalism; 
 but fortunately for human progress, and especially 
 for educational philosophy, the latest investigations 
 in physiology itself do not support this view. There 
 is now abundant evidence, growing out of the study 
 of the brain, to show that some of the finest organ- 
 izations that take place therein cannot be pro- 
 duced by physical forces, but must proceed from 
 some other source. There being certain effects 
 clearly found which cannot, by the nature of the 
 case, be produced by physical causes, some other 
 cause must be supposed, or human thought upon 
 the matter must come to a stop. The latter is what 
 has happened with the better class of physiological 
 psychologists. They have traced out certain de- 
 velopments of the nervous system and certain phys- 
 iological results in the human body. They have 
 also noticed certain concomitant developments of 
 mentality going hand in hand with these physiolog- 
 ical changes. They have not dared in later years to 
 
64 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 say that the latter cause the former. Neither will 
 they admit that the former cause the latter. They 
 prefer to say they do not yet know their causes; 
 but they leave one with the impression that some 
 day the discovery will be made that physiological 
 forces actually cause mental action. They thus 
 endeavor to account for mental action without con- 
 fessing belief in the existence of any subject ex- 
 pressing this mentality. It will be noticed in this 
 case that they do not really decline to make a sup- 
 position, but merely prefer a physical theory to a 
 spiritual one. 
 
 Psychologists who believe in the soul as an en- 
 tity, capable, through its own initiative, of gaining 
 control of the body for its instrument, do so be- 
 cause of two reasons: (i) consciousness reveals 
 (indirectly) such a being, the subject of one's own 
 experiences, continuous in its identity through these 
 experiences; and (2) this is the only theory which 
 fully accounts for such soul action as is evidenced 
 by even physiological psychology. Since this theory 
 of the existence of a self-active soul fully and per- 
 fectly accounts for all mental and psychophysical 
 facts, and accords perfectly with consciousness, it 
 is entitled to full credence until overthrown by 
 wider knowledge which may better explain the 
 facts referred to above. It is believed by the writer 
 that no such better explanation is possible, and that 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 65 
 
 fuller knowledge will but more and more clearly 
 prove not only the existence of the soul as an entity 
 but its self-active nature as well. 
 
 It seems to the writer that physiological psychol- 
 ogists have been prone to state physical conditions 
 of mental action, and call them causes of the same. 
 Physiological conditions invite or solicit mental 
 action, but have no power to command or cause it. 
 The mind can take advantage of these conditions 
 if it chooses, as it usually does. It can also neglect 
 or decline to take advantage of them as opportuni- 
 ties of mental action, and can perform mental actions 
 of quite a different kind from those thus invited. In 
 this it proves its existence as an entity, and also its 
 own control of itself, by an initiative not originated 
 in the physical organism but resident in its own 
 nature. All education worthy of the name is based 
 on this self-active nature of the mind. All moral 
 distinctions rest here. All character development 
 has its mainspring here. All claim to kinship to the 
 divine by the human rests on this characteristic. 
 
 One more phase of this question seems to need 
 explanation before we pass to the corollaries or 
 inferences as to educational doctrine and practice 
 which are deducible from this discussion. It will 
 conduce to clearness, perhaps, to state first the 
 series of facts involved, and afterward to give in 
 condensed form the proofs for the position taken. 
 
66 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 It has already been shown that the soul, of its 
 own volition, soon after birth begins the examina- 
 tion of its surroundings, using its physical organism, 
 especially the nervous system, as its instrument. 
 Its first attention to molecular action in nervous 
 matter of sense organs gives it sensations. Further 
 activity results in perception. 
 
 The soul, however, is far from satisfied. It pro- 
 ceeds more or less purposefully at first, but with 
 deeper intent as it goes on, to discover the mean- 
 ings of these things by seeking out their relation- 
 ships of cause and effect, of whole and part, their 
 similarities and unlikenesses, and hundreds of other 
 relationships, — all of which constitute their signifi- 
 cance for the soul, their spiritual meaning, their 
 possibilities of service or hindrance to its develop- 
 ment. In the progress of these mental activities the 
 soul goes through a process of self-revelation; it 
 finds out its own capacity for pleasure and pain, its 
 possibilities of being influenced by motives of in- 
 finite variety, and is seized by a powerful desire to 
 communicate all this to other souls whom it finds 
 in similar mental states with similar relations to the 
 world of matter through similar nervous mechan- 
 isms. The first successful expression is doubtless 
 through gesture, using this word in a broad applica- 
 tion. The hand and the face play a large part in 
 this early communication from one soul to another 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 67 
 
 of those mental states which press for utterance. 
 But the crowning activity is reached when speech 
 is invented, — as it always is by souls but never by 
 animals. For this high function the soul chooses 
 certain parts of the brain and trains them, organiz- 
 ing them for this purpose. Scientists know the 
 exact portion of the brain which is used by the soul 
 in interpreting the meaning of sensations, percepts, 
 and things ; and likewise the portion specially used 
 in oral speech, or in written language, or in any 
 other form of self-expression. 
 
 It is a singular fact that while both lobes of the 
 brain are used in most elementary actions, espe- 
 cially those caused automatically by physical forces 
 acting through the senses, such is not the case in 
 the higher mental processes and in the actions re- 
 sulting from the nervous forces excited by them. 
 In these higher mental processes only one lobe is 
 used, — generally the one corresponding to the 
 most-used hand or the first-used hand in childhood. 
 In accordance with the well-known physiological 
 fact of the crossing of the nerve fibers leading to 
 the brain, this will, in each case, be the left lobe for 
 the right-handed person and the right lobe for the 
 left-handed person. This is the more easily ac- 
 counted for if we remember that the first pur- 
 poseful motion of the child is that of the hand. 
 The first reactive force arising from soul resolution 
 
68 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 passes back to the brain through the hand, and 
 thus begins that training of the connected lobe for 
 further usefulness. When the soul has active need 
 of expression and finds that other muscles must be 
 affected for this purpose, what can be fitter than 
 that it should use that portion of the brain which 
 has already received some training for expression. 
 As a matter of fact, all resolutions of the soul for 
 expression are sent to the necessary muscles for the 
 kind of expression decided upon, by means of the 
 lobe used first for expression by the hand. Different 
 portions of this lobe, however, are devoted to slightly 
 different modes of expression, such as oral expres- 
 sion, written expression, etc. 
 
 How all this has come to be known is an interest- 
 ing story. Not all the psychologists in the world, 
 of all varieties, working together, would ever have 
 accomplished the wonder. But the trained surgeon, 
 called to the consideration of pathological conditions 
 of the brain in connection with accidents or with 
 nervous diseases, has been able at last to get at the 
 facts which render these conclusions certain. At 
 first it was chiefly post-mortem examinations that 
 gave certain clues; but later the study of living 
 persons has enabled us to get at conclusions more 
 suggestive because drawn from the living subject. 
 
 Numerous cases have recently been found where 
 individuals have continued to live after certain 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 69 
 
 accidents to the brain have occurred. In some cases 
 the breaking down, through disease, of brain tissue in 
 certain locaHties has been followed by definite men- 
 tal disturbances, tending to substantiate the conclu- 
 sions above stated. Sometimes a clot of blood forms 
 in a particular spot in the brain, rendering that 
 portion of the brain useless, temporarily or perma- 
 nently, as an instrument of the mind. A clot of 
 blood in the oral-speech region has been known to 
 make a child ten or twelve years of age unable to 
 speak a single word. His mental or soul condition 
 remained practically the same, but one means of 
 expressing that condition had been cut off. He 
 could write his mental state, — his knowledge or his 
 wishes, — but he could not speak it. His difficulty was 
 not of the soul, but in the instrument. In the case 
 of this particular child, however, by slowly training 
 the same region of the other lobe of the brain, he 
 gradually learned to speak as well as before. He 
 had been delayed a little in training a new instru- 
 ment, but in no definite way had his mental state 
 been otherwise disturbed. Other cases have been 
 known where the power to interpret has been lost 
 by a clot of blood upon a definite portion of the 
 brain devoted to the use of the soul in its think- 
 ing. In the young this power is slowly regained by 
 the training of the corresponding part of the other 
 lobe. 
 
70 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 In all cases of mature persons these accidents are 
 irreparable, the brain substance having grown be- 
 yond its susceptible stage. Hundreds of these cases, 
 illustrating every phase of mental action referred to 
 in these pages, are recorded in medical works and 
 books treating of some phase of physiology or psy- 
 chology. They all point to one definite conclusion, 
 — that the nervous system in man is the immediate 
 instrument of the soul in its self-development in an 
 environment of matter. That these definite higher or- 
 ganizations of selected portions of the brain could not 
 have been brought about by physical forces is plainly 
 shown by the fact that both lobes of the brain are 
 alike open to all physical forces ; and as these forces 
 are unintelligent, they could in no way have selected 
 one, but would have organized both. An intelligent 
 something selected the part best fitted in each case 
 to serve the purpose intended. This choosing or 
 selecting can be done only by an entity which pos- 
 sesses initiative as well as intelligence. These latest 
 discoveries in physiological science give no encour- 
 agement to the materialist. They all point to the 
 spiritual nature of man, his body being the neces- 
 sary means of the soul's advancement while it lives 
 in a world of matter. 
 
 The author of this book is not especially con- 
 cerned here with any particular theory of the origin 
 of the soul, nor is he desirous of discussing needlessly 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 71 
 
 the relation of the soul and the body. He is trying 
 rather to state such conclusions upon these and 
 other disputed points in psychology as seem sup- 
 ported by reason and reputable authority, espe- 
 cially so far as these matters are relevant to a correct 
 theory and the successful practice of education. In 
 most cases the appeal has been made to concurrent 
 testimony of many eminent scholars and special- 
 ists. This is more particularly true in reference to 
 the physical nature of the human being, for here 
 the facts, so soon as discovered, are susceptible of 
 direct proof. In these cases it is mostly a matter of 
 well-equipped laboratories and skillful and patient 
 observers; but on the mental or spiritual side of 
 the subject there is less opportunity to present 
 matters to the senses for proof, or to exhibit conclu- 
 sive evidence to persons unaccustomed to deal with 
 the facts of the mental or spiritual life in their 
 habitual thinking. In such cases it has been the 
 author's design to appeal to the consciousness and 
 the reason of the reader. The attempt, then, is so 
 to state the facts of mental life as to rouse in the 
 reader's mind an appreciation which makes him feel 
 that he has himself had similar experiences, or so 
 to state the facts as to elicit from the reader the 
 comment, " This seems reasonable." When both con- 
 sciousness and reason can be made to bear upon 
 the same point, the proof seems doubly strong. 
 
72 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 Up to this point the claim to self-activity as 
 the primal characteristic of the soul, and therefore 
 the most important element of the mental life, — the 
 very corner stone of moral responsibility, — has been 
 supported by evidence furnished almost exclusively 
 by physiological psychologists. Step by step they 
 have proved in their laboratories this intimate rela- 
 tionship between the physical and chemical forces 
 of the world and the nervous tissues of the body. 
 Little by little they have discovered the way in 
 which these physical forces have organized the nerv- 
 ous system so that it will convey the nervous im- 
 pulses, which these physical forces have produced 
 in the nervous tissue, through neurone and dendrite 
 to the brain. They have shown that these nervous 
 impulses, or the molecular disturbances in the brain 
 which they produce, are the conditions under which 
 sensations and perceptions take place, although they 
 have not dared to go so far as to call either of these 
 activities 2, physical process. Having admitted them 
 to be mental in their nature, they still try to explain 
 them, however, by physical causes ; or, if they admit 
 the existence of mind, they sometimes try to con- 
 vince themselves that mind is nothing but the sum 
 of these physically caused mental phenomena, and 
 not in any case a thing in itself or an entity. A 
 sufHcient answer to this line of materialistic reason- 
 ing is the simple statement, verified at once by any 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 73 
 
 honest student out of his own experience, that our 
 mental life proceeds precisely as if it were the re- 
 sult of intentional, purposeful planning and execut- 
 ing by an entity or thing whose capacities might 
 be determined by examining the nature of the phe- 
 nomena themselves. The conclusion is, that what- 
 ever acts like an entity (or thing) is probably one. 
 However, therefore, the soul originates or however 
 it is constituted, the process of education must take 
 it as it finds it, and proceed to educate it toward the 
 highest and noblest results which its nature permits. 
 When we find the mental life to consist of activities 
 appropriate to a self-active spiritual being, we may 
 well conclude that we have to do in education with 
 just such a being. 
 
 The proof of this self-active nature of mind is 
 within the consciousness of each one who, having 
 reached the age of discretion, has examined carefully 
 the working of his own mind. Each of us has found 
 himself deciding courses of action for himself, know- 
 ing all the time full well that he could have chosen 
 differently if he had cared to do so. 
 
 This seems an appropriate place to refer to a 
 curious line of argument sometimes offered by those 
 who do not believe that the mind has any power 
 of self-action (self-activity), any actual power of in- 
 itiative, any freedom of will. The argument is a 
 specious one, though its fallacy is easily detected by 
 
74 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 an acute thinker, even if he is not a trained logician. 
 The argument referred to is that the mind is in no 
 sense free, because its every act is controlled by 
 necessity of some kind ; that what is commonly called 
 choice is merely giving way to the strongesi motive. 
 If the mind must follow the strongest motive, it is 
 under force or necessity to do so, and cannot be 
 free to choose. 
 
 The fallacy lies in the unwarranted meanings put 
 into certain words. As a matter of fact, the very 
 essence of motive is an appreciation of value, — a 
 felt value. The highest motive then is the highest 
 felt value, and this depends entirely on the mind's 
 own action in appreciating worth or value. The 
 very essence of freedom, or initiative, is to be able 
 to appreciate so deeply certain values that desire of 
 attainment will cause choice and consequent action. 
 To say that the mind is compelled or forced or 
 necessitated thus to choose, is to misuse these 
 words, that is, to change their meaning during the 
 argument. 
 
 The real fact is that the mind is so constituted 
 that it naturally perceives distinctions of value and 
 naturally and voluntarily chooses highest values, — 
 not because it must, pushed by an outside force, 
 but because it is urged by its own nature or con- 
 stitution to choose the highest good. This kind 
 of compulsion is of the very nature of freedom, — 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 75 
 
 precisely what we mean by the power of initiative, 
 and exactly what is meant in the best use of the word 
 "self-activity." The mind is free or self-active be- 
 cause it can and does respond to motives. Education 
 can change its sense of values, thus changing the 
 power with which different things appeal to it as 
 motives, and in this way it can eventually change 
 the course of conduct. By a continuation of this 
 process character is produced and established. The 
 great possibility of education rests on this nature 
 of mind, that it is compelled by its own nature and 
 not by an outside force to choose in accordance 
 with the strongest motive. The compulsion of a 
 motive is a leading and not a driving force. Since 
 the mind yields to the stronger motive, and since 
 the mind itself makes all its motives and determines 
 which is the stronger motive, the mind does it all, 
 and is therefore free at every step. It is of the 
 nature of spirit or mind to be thus free. Hence 
 every compulsion of the mind's own making is but 
 further evidence of the mind's natural and inborn 
 freedom. 
 
 The argument just referred to against the exist- 
 ence of actual self-activity (that is, innate freedom 
 to choose one's course of action) is of the same kind 
 as the argument we often hear against the same 
 condition in the case of Deity himself. It is thus 
 said that since by his very nature God is self-active, 
 
76 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 then he is compelled to be self-active, and being com- 
 pelled to be self-active, he is not free to be self -active. 
 Using other words, the argument would be stated 
 thus : God is free by his very nature ; he is therefore 
 compelled by his very nature to be free. Therefore 
 since he is compelled to be free he is not really free. 
 Of course one easily sees the fallacy in this logic; 
 the meaning put into some of the words varies in 
 the different propositions, — a fatal defect in any 
 reasoning process. 
 
 The same argument might be thus stated with 
 reference to the human soul. It is the nature of the 
 spirit to be free. The soul is spiritual by its nature 
 and is therefore compelled to be free ; hence, being 
 compelled to be free, it is under compulsion and 
 cannot be really free. It is to the credit of most 
 sane people that their common sense leads them 
 easily to see the fallacy in such argument. But a 
 few who delight in verbal gymnastics have in all 
 ages preferred to believe the conclusion reached in 
 this way. 
 
 In referring in previous pages to the evidence of 
 the consciousness that each one has of his own essen- 
 tial freedom, the intention has not been to assert the 
 unqualified truthfulness of all reports given in con- 
 sciousness. There is need of the same care and 
 scrutiny here as is needed elsewhere to discern the 
 false from the true; but it may well be asserted 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 77 
 
 that when due tests have been applied to the reports 
 of consciousness, the final result is nearer to absolute 
 truth than any other knowledge attainable by human 
 means. Even all the knowledge which the scientist 
 reports so dogmatically with reference to the spiritual 
 world must be reported through consciousness before 
 it becomes knowledge. Some materialistic scientists 
 have so far been misled by their prejudices as to 
 assert that knowledge of the external world is more 
 reliable than knowledge of the mental world as re- 
 ported to each one in his own consciousness, over- 
 looking the fact that in both cases we have only the 
 report of consciousness as the final proof. 
 
 If, therefore, all the evidences of self-activity were 
 lost, each one of us could, if his attention were suffi- 
 ciently called to it, trust his consciousness as to his 
 own essential freedom. So fully will he trust his 
 consciousness in the matter that he will continue 
 to plan what he intends to do and apply means to 
 accomplish his own plans, thus proving practically 
 that he believes in his own sufficiency to plan action 
 and carry it out to the accomplishment of his own 
 ends. Furthermore, he acknowledges that he is re- 
 sponsible by his very feeling of worthiness when he 
 has accomplished worthy things, and by his feeling 
 of remorse when he has done wrong. Thus does 
 the practical action of each person overthrow the 
 neatly planned sophistry of the professional logician. 
 
78 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 Consciousness gives still further evidence of this 
 universal sense of freedom of initiative, in that every- 
 one knows directly, through consciousness, that after 
 he has chosen a course of conduct in accordance with 
 the stronger motive he may be challenged or dared 
 by another person to change his course of action. 
 He knows full well that it rests with himself whether 
 or not he will consider this dare or challenge to con- 
 tain a stronger motive than the one governing his 
 original decision ; and he knows also that, if he likes, 
 he may change his course to coincide with the chal- 
 lenge. Thus he knows himself to be free even to the 
 extent of power to be whimsical if he so chooses. 
 
 It is to be carefully noted that what is meant here 
 by choosing a course of action does not imply also 
 the carrying out, in physical ways, of the action 
 chosen. There may be physical reasons why this is 
 impossible, but this fact does not affect in any way 
 the mental act of deciding. It is this mental state, 
 and not its outside accomplishment, that chiefly 
 affects moral responsibility and determines to a con- 
 siderable extent the moral condition of a person. 
 This power we have here been describing — the 
 power of free mental choice — is of supreme impor- 
 tance in the education of the future citizen and man, 
 since he is thus to be shown that it is entirely pos- 
 sible for a person to live a pure life in the midst of 
 surrounding vices. One does not need to choose the 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 79 
 
 surrounding vice to be his substantial good, but 
 may go on indefinitely affirming his constant rejec- 
 tion of it, thus preventing it from becoming any 
 part of his mental condition. It is true that one 
 may also give way and choose the evil instead of the 
 good, but this negative freedom is only the natural 
 correlative of the freedom to do right; and all this 
 but offers the opportunity for education to give such 
 enlightenment as shall lead one to value rightly the 
 good, the true, and the beautiful, and thus to use 
 these as motives in life, while seeing clearly the lack 
 of permanent value in the evil, the false, and the 
 ugly. The chance to fail is but the opportunity to 
 succeed in a high and worthy way, — a way so high 
 and worthy that it could not be had at all except as 
 the correlative of the chance to do wrong. 
 
 The self-activity, then, treated in this chapter is 
 the power of the mind (or soul) to respond to mo- 
 tives, thus leading to freedom in choosing, and so 
 to moral responsibility. This is the fundamental 
 controlling fact of all psychology, so far as psycho- 
 logical principles are helpful in education. All 
 right methods of teaching grow out of this prin- 
 ciple and its correlates. School organization, so far 
 as it is to be helpful in carrying forward the edu- 
 cational process, must properly regard the self-active 
 nature of the child. Self-government can be realized 
 politically and socially only by persons whose powers 
 
8o EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 of initiative have been developed and trained and 
 regulated by high motives or ideals. 
 
 With this principle kept well in view, education 
 resolves itself into the self-active process of becom- 
 ing acquainted with the world of matter and the 
 world of spirit ; of so sensing the values of the differ- 
 ent elements of knowledge thus gained that right 
 motives may be discerned and set up as ideals; of 
 responding to ideals until conduct is rightly directed 
 and the sturdy qualities of perfected character are 
 produced by the soul's fine activities. 
 
 The following chapters will deal with the theo- 
 retical and practical problems involved in such an 
 educational process. 
 
 In closing this chapter on Self-activity it may be 
 said in general that modern education, and especially 
 the " new education " so called, has always theoreti- 
 cally claimed to be founded on the principle of self- 
 activity. But in application there has been wide 
 divergence of practice among teachers. A doctrine 
 so fundamental is peculiarly susceptible of misinter- 
 pretation. A few instances may be mentioned here 
 by way of illustrating both the fundamental character 
 of the principle and its liability to misapplication in 
 practice. 
 
 First, perhaps, in importance and prominence is 
 the kindergarten. From the time of Froebel till the 
 present day it has been claimed as a fundamental 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 8 1 
 
 doctrine of kindergarten philosophy that the self- 
 active character of the child should be safely guarded. 
 The methods of the kindergarten are carefully 
 planned to develop rather than dwarf the child's 
 power of initiative. Everywhere the child is to be 
 led to appreciate values so as to prefer the good, the 
 true, and the beautiful ; he is then to be allowed 
 frequent opportunities to exercise his power of choice 
 and to execute for himself his own plans. But the 
 ever-present kindergartner sometimes allows her own 
 energy and her own initiative to take the place of 
 these same qualities in her pupils, so that she be- 
 comes each day more and more a necessity to the 
 children, both in their work and in their play. While, 
 therefore, the kindergartner succeeds in making the 
 kindergarten a very popular institution, she some- 
 times gradually enervates the power of real initiative 
 in the children. From day to day they become more 
 helpless if left alone, and more and more dependent 
 on some one for plans and for stimulation toward 
 their execution. While children so treated progress 
 happily and rapidly in many ways, they are moving 
 steadily toward a day of tragedy, — a day when cir- 
 cumstances will require that they shall be self-active, 
 both in planning and in executing. Such children 
 call constantly for stimulation of an artificial nature, 
 and are slow to become interested naturally in occupa- 
 tion of the hour through a sense of accomplishment. 
 
82 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 Much of the criticism against the kindergarten, espe- 
 cially by teachers of primary grades, is accounted 
 for by the fact that many kindergartners have failed, 
 as described above, in the practical application of 
 this principle of self -activity. It goes without saying 
 that the true kindergartner so applies this principle 
 as to make the children day by day more self-reliant, 
 inventive, and successful. 
 
 A similar misapplication of the principle of self- 
 activity was common a few years ago in primary 
 and even in intermediate grades. I refer to what 
 was known as the " development method " of teach- 
 ing. In this method the teacher always took the 
 lead in each new topic, using questions in such a 
 way as to lead the child gradually from known facts 
 to the related unknown facts of the new lesson. The 
 teacher's question supplied the trend of thought, 
 the grade of ascent, and the height of the step to be 
 taken at each advance ; while the child was required 
 to do sufficient thinking to discern the relations in- 
 volved and to attain the desired knowledge. It was 
 the proud boast of the teacher that he could teach a 
 child new truth in this way without telling him any- 
 thing; it was implied that the child should think it 
 all out by himself. The claim was set up that this 
 method of teaching led the child to logical habits of 
 thought, and that he remembered more completely 
 and perfectly what he learned in this way than he 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 83 
 
 did what was merely told him by his teacher. But, 
 strange to say, it was later discovered that pupils 
 taught exclusively by this method gradually became 
 helpless when deprived of the framework or form of 
 procedure furnished by the teacher's questions. To 
 preserve and develop the child's power of initiative, 
 he must be required to invent ways and means of 
 doing his mental work, and so become more and 
 more self-helpful and self-reliant as his education 
 proceeds. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SELF-REVELATION 
 
 In the preceding chapter self-activity is spoken of 
 as the primal or distinguishing attribute of a human 
 being. Sharp distinction is there drawn between 
 forms of partial self-activity, as seen especially in 
 plant life, and the full form exhibited in the human 
 spirit. It was shown that moral responsibility attaches 
 itself to that form only which is characteristic of the 
 human being. Partial freedom, of the kind found in 
 plants and animals, can give no ground for moral 
 responsibility. The plant must begin action when 
 the conditions are supplied, and must confine its ac- 
 tions within the limits prescribed by the conditions. 
 The human spirit has the power to begin its actions 
 when appropriate conditions are supplied, but it 
 also has the power to refuse (actively) to abide by 
 the limitations suggested by the supplied condi- 
 tions. It has the power, indeed, to act in some 
 other way than that for which conditions are sup- 
 plied, in this case furnishing for itself its own causes 
 of action. 
 
 Even solicitation from the outside may not secure 
 
 compliance from the self-active, free spirit. The very 
 
 84 
 
SELF-REVELATION 85 
 
 suggestion from outside sources for a special course 
 of action may be regarded as reason for an opposite 
 course. The soul sets its own value upon reasons or 
 conditions offered, and proceeds to act as it will in 
 view of these self-estimated values. This constitutes 
 action from motives or ideals, and such action is 
 always self-action, — free ; that is, induced by motives 
 self-created as opposed to action compelled by an 
 outside force. This value, which becomes motive, is 
 not a reasoned value primarily, at least, but rather a 
 felt value. Whatever presents a felt value to the 
 child will influence through motive his subsequent 
 or consequent action. Since the human being is free 
 to judge values, he is free to accept or reject motives, 
 and therefore still free in his action. The teacher is 
 able to teach — that is, to direct to a degree the mental 
 activities of the child — by presenting values in such 
 a way that the child feels and perceives such values 
 and surrenders himself freely to them as motives to 
 action. The teacher usually speaks of this process 
 as " creating interest." It is a fundamental condition 
 for all teaching, however much it may have been 
 abused and parodied in the modern school. The true 
 teacher soon becomes aware that the human soul 
 may be solicited, encouraged, stimulated, urged, and 
 even challenged to action, but never commanded or 
 compelled. This perfect freedom, it will be kept in 
 mind, belongs to the spiritual nature only of the 
 
86 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 human being. The physical part necessarily partakes 
 of the limitations belonging to matter everywhere. 
 
 It has now been sufficiently pointed out that the 
 human infant is potentiality — possibility — self- 
 activity — supplied with a body as a means of con- 
 nection with the material world. This constitutes a 
 human being at birth. It is true that there are limi- 
 tations placed on the spirit by its connection with a 
 material body, but there are compensating advan- 
 tages, at least, for spiritual life in a world of matter. 
 Indeed, we cannot conceive how a spirit would live 
 at all in a world of matter without this means of con- 
 nection through its nervous system and the sense 
 organs. At any rate, if such existence is possible, it 
 has no place in a discussion of the educational process 
 in this world of combined material and spiritual con- 
 ditions. It has already been stated that the education 
 of the human being is to be attained only through 
 its own free action in thinking and feeling and choos- 
 ing, — the only kinds of action of which a soul or spirit 
 is capable. It has already been commented upon, too, 
 that whatever of training is needed for the body, in 
 order that it may become a better instrument for the 
 use of the soul in human living, may properly be 
 included in the scope of education. In fact, it is 
 inconceivable that the spirit should secure perfect 
 education for itself in the world without correspond- 
 ing development of the body. Certainly many of the 
 
SELF-REVELATION 87 
 
 most educative influences brought within the soul's 
 reach come through bodily organs and functions. 
 
 One cannot know what solicitations to action may 
 be offered to a pure spirit, that is, a spirit without a 
 body ; but the first solicitations that come to a human 
 being to begin its actions of thinking, feeling, and 
 willing, come through the sense organs of the body. 
 Through the eye bright colors and beautiful forms 
 solicit the action of the mind or soul, and in due 
 season, and of his own volition, the child reacts upon 
 the objects which thus make their appeal. Moving 
 color seems, first of all, to make such vibration or 
 disturbance of nervous tissue as to secure the atten- 
 tion of the infant soul. We can scarcely believe that 
 the first attention is intentional in any fair sense. 
 However, all the mental actions of an infant are 
 vague, as all the actions of its body are evidently at 
 first entirely reflex. But many repetitions of the 
 solicitation result in the soul's getting a felt value 
 (or pleasure) from the action of attention. Here 
 is the first appearance of motive in the life of the 
 young human being. The felt value tends to secure 
 the vaguest kind of attention, which in its turn 
 increases the felt value of the experience and gradu- 
 ally changes the latter somewhat by introducing the 
 first trace of distinction between the soul which 
 feels and the something which offers the occasion 
 of the experience. 
 
88 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 The first soul activities are therefore vaguely inter- 
 fused processes of feeling, thinking, and choosing, no 
 one of them sufficiently differentiated from the others 
 to be as yet definitely discriminated and named. 
 Much repetition increases the intensity of such 
 action, until there is for the moment a perceptible 
 predominance of some one of these three elements 
 of soul action. As the intellectual element grows 
 more intense and clearly marked, some knowledge 
 of the object is obtained ; as feeling (usually, at this 
 stage, pleasure or pain) increases and grows more 
 intense, the motive value or pleasure value of the 
 object becomes plainer and plainer. As these two 
 processes grow stronger and stronger there is greater 
 and greater reason for giving more definite attention, 
 until soon the attention itself takes on a distinctively 
 voluntary character, and the act of choice has been 
 fully exercised. The child has chosen to give atten- 
 tion as solicited. 
 
 The union of these three processes in this way, 
 through many repetitions, serves to develop the first 
 vague sense of self-consciousness, that is, conscious- 
 ness of self as separate from or different from other 
 things. The sense of value which is the basis of this 
 distinction is of course exceedingly vague at first ; but 
 many repetitions, through the same sense or other 
 senses, develop this power to discriminate and esti- 
 mate value through feeling (probably at first mainly 
 
SELF-REVELATION 89 
 
 in the form of sensation) very rapidly. Through the 
 senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing, as well as sight, 
 the child is solicited to give more and more of his 
 active attention to the objects whose attributes yield 
 themselves to him in the combined process of feeling 
 and knowing; till at last he begins to discern the 
 line of demarcation between the objects which thus 
 attract his attention, and himself, the sentient subject 
 of such experiences. There can be little volition till 
 this distinction has been established, and pleasure is 
 recognized as a state of self or myself. The distinc- 
 tions referred to here are extremely vague for many 
 months, and in some cases for years, of the life of 
 the young child. 
 
 In Book XLV of " In Memoriam," Tennyson 
 gives the best poetic statement of this psychological 
 development in self-consciousness that I have ever 
 seen in print: 
 
 The baby new to earth and sky, 
 
 What time his tender palm is prest 
 Against the circle of the breast, 
 
 Has never thought that " this is I " ; 
 
 But as he grows he gathers much, 
 
 And learns the use of " I," and " me," 
 And finds " I am not what I see, 
 
 And other than the things I touch." 
 
 So rounds he to a separate mind 
 
 From whence clear memory may begin. 
 As thro' the frame that binds him in 
 
 His isolation grows defined. 
 
90 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 With this clear demarcation between one's self and 
 the other things of the universe, self-revelation may 
 fairly be said to have begun. This stage marks 
 a marvelous advance in human development. In fact, 
 this is the first significant hint of personal immor- 
 tality — a being, distinct in its individuality, capable 
 of mastering its environment so as at last to create 
 for itself a spiritual environment to which it may by 
 constant striving keep itself forever fairly well adapted. 
 
 Self-revelation, however, is not fully developed, — 
 only just begun. We have already seen two elements 
 of the soul's activity which make possible self-appre- 
 ciation, in the high sense in which the word is used 
 here. These are (i) an intellectual discrimination 
 between the self and other things, based on a differ- 
 ence in their attributes ; and (2) a felt sense of value 
 to the soul in these various things, when their attri- 
 butes have been found out. Not only are things 
 found to be different from the self as individual 
 things, but some of them are found to be helpful to 
 the soul and others hurtful to the soul, as it exercises 
 its powers upon them. This point needs to be clearly 
 understood. Whenever the real life of the soul — its 
 real life development as a spiritual entity — is helped 
 forward by its knowledge of the attributes of things, 
 these attributes, or the things furnishing these attri- 
 butes, are recognized as being helpful to the soul 
 which occupies its thoughts and feelings with them. 
 
SELF-REVELATION 91 
 
 But if thinking and feeling these attributes retard 
 the soul's true development, then the soul soon 
 learns to consider these things as self-hurtful. This 
 is another way of saying that the soul's real develop- 
 ment is dependent upon what it thinks, how it feels, 
 and what it chooses or does. 
 
 It is, of course, a long time before the soul has 
 any clear distinctions or strong convictions in regard 
 to such matters. It is during this early stage of 
 development of the sense of real values — the percep- 
 tion of what is really and truly helpful to the soul in 
 its own education — that the teacher and parent have 
 their greatest opportunity. The most casual remark 
 upon such matters by one who is loved and respected 
 by the child will often turn the balance in favor of or 
 against certain standards of value about which the 
 child is more or less doubtful. This is especially true 
 in the province of the conscience and as regards all 
 standards of conduct, but it is also true in other 
 processes of thought and action. 
 
 However, nature early takes a hand in developing 
 this sense of spiritual values for the child, and it is 
 merely the privilege of parent and teacher to be co- 
 workers with nature in these early years. The child 
 lives his physical life in the midst of potent forces, 
 each, through his sense organs, seeking to gain his 
 attention. Every color, form, taste, odor, fragrance, 
 smoothness, roughness, hardness, softness, or other 
 
92 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 attribute mastered through the senses soon comes 
 to be appreciated by the soul as answering a felt 
 spiritual need. This in turn becomes a self-revelation 
 of the soul to itself, disclosing its capacities or pos- 
 sibilities of enjoyment. As perception grows clearer 
 and as these attributes are seen to inhere in objects, 
 the objects themselves become of interest to the 
 child. He seeks acquaintance with them till he finds 
 what attributes they possess and to what uses for 
 himself he may put them. The very enjoyment of a 
 beautiful color or a significant form or a graceful 
 motion may in itself prove to be a matter of soul 
 growth by answering a felt need of the spirit for 
 nutriment. But it does more than this, — it makes 
 the person conscious of his own power of enjoyment. 
 Every new case of a gratified need of the soul is a 
 new self-revelation, until little by little the capacity 
 for enjoyment is exercised in so many ways and 
 finds its gratification in so many things that the ex- 
 ternal world becomes to the child the unlimited 
 source of countless pleasures. It is devoutly to be 
 wished that the school might keep this sane and 
 helpful relation between the child and external 
 nature unbroken, for the enjoyment of nature is a 
 part of the great life development, which in a semi- 
 conscious way his whole being is urging forward. In 
 this way the child has begun to conquer his environ- 
 ment for spiritual uses, and the sense of pleasure 
 
SELF-REVELATION 93 
 
 and increasing power gives him an elation of mind 
 which is of higher grade than the satisfaction of 
 hunger or thirst or any other purely physical need. 
 The material world is beginning to answer a felt 
 need of the soul. 
 
 The child does not occupy his entire time, however, 
 in mastering the external world of matter. He early 
 gets pleasure by sharing his experiences with others, 
 and the joys of companionship open other possibili- 
 ties of himself as the subject of activities which 
 gratify a felt need — a spiritual need of the develop- 
 ing soul. In companionship both with those of his 
 own age and with teachers and parents the child is 
 finding out what others think, and how they feel 
 and act, and what their standards of conduct are. 
 The teacher and the parent are important parts of 
 the child's environment, exceeded in value only by 
 the companionship of other children. Real growth 
 is forwarded more rapidly and healthily by right 
 companionship than by any other force that the 
 school can organize and use. It is true that acquaint- 
 ance with the external world is important, but chiefly 
 as a means to intelligent participation with other 
 persons in the institutions of civilized life. In this 
 companionship the child feels his own life expanding, 
 and soon he comes to value most highly the inspi- 
 rations to right living which come to him from this 
 source. He begins to feel himself an individual, a 
 
94 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 personal force, and he exults in the growth which 
 comes to him naturally through his spiritual mas- 
 tery of the world. His own free activities furnish 
 him with interests and motives. It is the business 
 of the school to keep his interests diversified and 
 his enthusiasm unabated. 
 
 Thus far we have traced the growth of self-activity 
 into self-consciousness in its initial stages only. The 
 world is wide. From the condition of awakening 
 self-consciousness, or the beginning of self-revelation, 
 to the condition of a wise, thoughtful, sane, serene, 
 well-poised, capable man or woman is a long jour- 
 ney. Completely developed self-consciousness, that 
 is, complete mastery of the universe for use in life 
 development, would include: 
 
 1. A knowledge and appreciation of all the capaci- 
 ties and possibilities of culture with which a human 
 being is endowed. 
 
 2. A knowledge of all the attributes of all the 
 other things in the universe. 
 
 3. A knowledge of all the ways in which any or 
 all these attributes of all the other things in the uni- 
 verse could be made to minister to the welfare of 
 the human being. 
 
 Our courses of study will naturally include but a 
 small portion of this all-inclusive schedule, but a 
 human being grows in self-revelation precisely as he 
 works toward the point here indicated. He may well 
 
SELF-REVELATION 95 
 
 be called a person of liberal education, however, 
 before he has proceeded far along the way. 
 
 As an illustration of the manner in which self- 
 revelation grows as our education proceeds, — as we 
 master the world of knowledge, — and how life de- 
 velopment proceeds as intelligence increases, let us 
 study for a moment the ways in which a child is 
 affected in succeeding stages of growth by so simple 
 a thing as an orange. The child's mastery of what 
 the orange means in its fullest ministry to his life 
 development takes many years, proceeding as edu- 
 cation or circumstance brings the subject in its suc- 
 cessive phases before his attention. Perhaps, at first, 
 the moving orange attracts his infantile attention. 
 The motion of the yellow sphere wins his notice, 
 and the color gratifies a need of his spirit, giving a 
 real pleasure, though probably a slight one. There 
 is without doubt an artistic value in orange color, 
 which makes it attractive even to an uneducated 
 eye. The shape, too, meets a need of the soul, giving 
 a sense of completeness which is restful. By touch 
 he gets the idea of the roughness of its surface. The 
 contrast with other surfaces develops discrimination, 
 and the exercises of comparison and contrast are a 
 source of growing power and efBciency in the child's 
 mental life ; thus, since all normal mental action is 
 in itself pleasant, the result is gratifying. By taste 
 he gets an answer to a felt need, which at this age 
 
96 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 is no less strong than if the need were purely a 
 spiritual one. When the orange is found to satisfy 
 hunger and thirst, its usefulness is further established, 
 and it is placed in the child's category of things 
 which answer promptly to felt needs of his nature. 
 These gratifications are increased through the years 
 as he finds the orange healthful as food. This fact 
 raises questions of permanent supply, and methods 
 of culture interest him. His thought of other people's 
 needs will turn his attention to the transportation 
 and distribution of the fruit. The beauty and fra- 
 grance of the flower gratify aesthetic tendencies un- 
 touched by the attributes previously named. His 
 interest rises high at the sight of a well-cultivated 
 orange orchard, and the delicate beauty of flower 
 and tree easily suggests spiritual beauties, which 
 adorn the inner life. As his spiritual life develops 
 and love comes to typify its highest, purest, and 
 holiest moments, he sees the significance of outward 
 beauty as the sign of inward purity, and he recog- 
 nizes the fitness of the sentiment which places the 
 orange blossom in the bridal wreath. Thus the 
 orange has ministered to his spiritual development 
 from the time when he met it on the lower plane of 
 the senses till it entrances him with visions of happy 
 lovers and bridal processions. 
 
 However, as we have seen before, the child is not 
 limited to the material world for stimulation of his 
 
SELF-REVELATION 97 
 
 mental or spiritual life. He has the whole field of 
 companionship with personalities of his own kind, 
 with the resulting sympathies and inspirations that 
 belong to human intimacies. The most significant 
 things in the world are persons. Nature study will 
 fail of its best results in the schoolroom or else- 
 where if it be not made the means of a better inter- 
 pretation of humanity and a fuller measure of human 
 sympathy. We visit the Old World not chiefly for its 
 scenery, though much of it is beautiful, but rather 
 because it is there that human history has been made. 
 We go there to see the places where men and women 
 have lived and loved and struggled and conquered. 
 It is the human element that makes places sacred. 
 And so it is at home. Everything else is chiefly 
 means for making it possible for people to associate 
 together in the most fitting way. The child is edu- 
 cated through companionship. He meets and asso- 
 ciates with a person who, through his actions and 
 his speech, manifests certain attributes. If these 
 attributes, in the degree shown, impress the child as 
 worthy, or as desirable, he straightway changes his 
 standard to suit the new knowledge, and he is power- 
 fully stimulated to emulate the characteristics noted. 
 By his own efforts the child has an additional reve- 
 lation of his own powers as he finds himself attain- 
 ing some degree of the admired characteristics. His 
 own need, gratified, is transformed into a new power. 
 
98 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 and his soul has grown. In other words, he has 
 entered upon a new hfe on a higher level. 
 
 If he meets some one who sympathizes with him 
 justly and deliberately, he instantly recognizes this 
 sympathy as a universal need of the human being, 
 and finds himself capable in time of responding in 
 like manner to others. His whole nature thrills as 
 he witnesses here and there sympathy with the un- 
 fortunate, and he soon establishes bonds of connec- 
 tion with others through this universal element of 
 human companionship. When he sees acts of real 
 kindness he is quick to yield admiration, though he 
 has never before been fully aware of the human 
 need in his own soul. Every element of noble char- 
 acter, as it finds fit expression in his presence, 
 strikes a corresponding note of approval, gives a 
 sense of gratification, and develops an honest pride 
 in the nobility of our common humanity. 
 
 Of course, I do not mean that all these things 
 are consciously worked out in the mind of a child 
 from a single set of suggestions. I mean rather that 
 unconsciously at first, and semiconsciously at best, 
 these effects are produced, till little by little a child 
 comes into an understanding of his human inherit- 
 ance. He has had the possibility of his nature 
 revealed to himself, and has thus far become self- 
 conscious, using this term in its best sense. 
 
 It goes without saying that while an environment 
 
SELF-REVELATION 99 
 
 of noble persons will make this revelation of nobility, 
 an environment of immoral associates will reveal 
 the possible depth of evil which is the natural correl- 
 ative of the noblest human nature. It is the purpose 
 of the school to furnish an appropriate environment 
 of persons as well as of things. 
 
 The foundation has now been laid for a discussion 
 of the doctrine of interest as a motive for education. 
 The discussion, especially of mediate interest, will 
 trench a little upon the theme of our next chap- 
 ter, but it is thought better to include a full dis- 
 cussion here than to divide the topic between two 
 chapters. 
 
 We have seen that the soul grows steadily in the 
 appreciation of value in objects as its knowledge of 
 their useful attributes increases. This felt or ap- 
 preciated value is the basis of interest, as the term 
 is used in education. Literally, we are interested in 
 a thing when we believe it concerns us. We find 
 out that it concerns us when we discover that its 
 attributes are such as will gratify some element of 
 our nature. We are more deeply interested if, with 
 immediate gratification caused by the object, there is 
 present with us an expectancy that this gratification 
 will be prolonged or enhanced by our continued at- 
 tention to the object, either from the contemplation 
 of attributes already discovered, or through new 
 ones yet to be disclosed. While this state of present 
 
lOO EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 gratification and the expectancy excited are both in- 
 ternal, or subjective to the mind feeling them, they 
 extend outward to the object whose attributes cause 
 them. We are then said to be interested in the 
 thing whose attributes cause the subjective states of 
 pleasure and expectancy. The things in which we 
 may thus become interested are as numerous as are 
 the objects of the physical world outside us and of 
 the mental and moral world within us. But the in- 
 terest itself is a subjective thing, — a felt gratification 
 or a felt expectancy. The gratification is two-sided 
 in a way, being partly the gratification coming from 
 the satisfying of a felt need of the nature, and partly 
 the gratification of a natural desire for action of all 
 normal powers. This very practice which the mind 
 has, with its intellectual power, in finding out the 
 attributes of an object, yields a kind of gratification, 
 — that which follows the right exercise of any 
 capacity or power. 
 
 To repeat, then, interest as a state has three 
 elements : 
 
 1. Gratification or pleasure due to normal action 
 of one's powers in investigation. 
 
 2. Gratification of a felt need of the soul by the 
 attributes discovered in objects. 
 
 3. A feeling of expectancy that continuation of 
 the investigation will prolong or enhance the grati- 
 fication named. 
 
SELF-REVELATION lOi 
 
 Therefore, when I say that I am interested in a 
 thing, I mean precisely that my mind, through some 
 of its powers, is apprehending one, or more, of the 
 attributes of the object; and that this attribute, 
 through being thus apprehended, is giving satisfac- 
 tion to me ; and also that there is in me an expect- 
 ancy that the object will, through this or other of 
 its attributes, continue to afford me pleasure. To 
 illustrate : Let a horseshoe magnet be placed before 
 a child who has heretofore known nothing of its 
 peculiar capacities or attributes. At first sight the 
 object has no special interest for him. Why? Be- 
 cause those attributes of the iron which become ap- 
 parent on first notice are not by their nature adapted 
 to gratify in a satisfactory way any of the child's 
 sensibilities. The color is not particularly pleasing ; 
 in size, shape, or weight it does not gratify any sense 
 of wonder nor any delightful fancy of the soul; it 
 yields no pleasurable sensations to any sense; it 
 satisfies no longing aspirations; it appeals to no 
 sense of order in the universe, no feeling of the sub- 
 lime, no impression of novelty even. Although the 
 capacity to be impressed or gratified is resident in 
 the mind, and these common attributes of the iron 
 are known by the mind, none of them is adapted to 
 start up the feeling of gratification. There is, accord- 
 ingly, no interest felt. But this piece of iron has not 
 yet manifested all its attributes, because as yet no 
 
I02 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 condition has been fixed which would allow or cause 
 it to do so. Now place some iron filings on the 
 table and pass the magnet near or over them. The 
 magnetism manifests itself as a power drawing these 
 filings to the magnet and causing them to adhere with 
 considerable tenacity. Here is an attribute which 
 by its own character is fitted to minister to the 
 wonder-loving sense of the child, to his innate love 
 of order, to his fundamental notion of cause and 
 effect, to his own feeling of personal power, and 
 withal to his sense of pleasure in the unexpected. 
 At once, on beholding this strange power in so 
 unpromising an object, the sense of pleasure begins 
 and a state of interest is developed. The feeling, 
 wholly internal to the child, is a self-gratification, 
 but it is extended outward and connected to the 
 wonderful power of the magnet as its cause. 
 
 These gratifications are, in the main, pleasures. 
 Indeed, the pleasurable element is always present 
 with the expectancy, in true forms of interest, so far 
 as this state of mind is available in education. It is 
 in this respect to be carefully distinguished from 
 those states of fear or terror which fix the attention 
 and develop states of expectancy of other than pleas- 
 urable gratifications. In true interest the action of 
 the mind is solicited by the object whose attributes 
 cause the gratification, and thus attention is caused 
 through interest. Interest and attention then react 
 
SELF-REVELATION 103 
 
 upon each other, every added degree of attention 
 disclosing new attributes which increase interest, 
 and each added degree of interest soHciting and 
 increasing the attention. 
 
 The element of gratification which attends the 
 normal activity of one's powers or capacities is 
 founded on nature. It is the pure pleasure which 
 always attends proper action of normal and healthy 
 organs or faculties, whether physical or mental. This 
 is a law of nature. The organ or faculty is made for 
 certain uses, — the eye for seeing, the ear for hear- 
 ing, the hand for handling, the muscle for contract- 
 ing or relaxing, the intellect for cognizing and 
 reasoning, the sensibility for loving and hating, the 
 will for deciding. Each power or faculty, physical 
 or mental, has its appropriate function, is adapted 
 to the doing of some special kind of acting. The 
 health, happiness, prosperity, development, and satis- 
 faction of each power all lie in doing naturally, fully, 
 and freely that which it is adapted and intended to 
 perform. A complete state of interest contains all 
 three of the elements named above. A state of en- 
 thusiastic interest has all three of them to a high 
 degree. The playfulness of children rests about 
 equally on all these sources of pleasure. Every 
 faculty of the child, — his very muscles, his eyes, 
 ears, fingers, toes, his intellect, his sensibilities, — are 
 all in such natural and harmonious relation to one 
 
I04 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 another and to his environment that each movement 
 answers to a felt need of action, and every element 
 of knowledge serves a use in satisfying a capacity of 
 enjoyment. In all competitive games the exercise is 
 usually in itself agreeable ; but a higher sense of en- 
 joyment, hence a deeper interest, centers around the 
 gratification of the native desire to excel, to conquer, 
 to be first among one's fellows. The boy's absorption 
 in the game lasts so long as the exercise in itself 
 continues to give pleasure or the hope of enjoyment 
 of victory remains to lure him on. 
 
 Action for the sake of action, that is, action as 
 pure enjoyment, is a characteristic of infancy and 
 childhood. Action for the sake of a purpose is the 
 characteristic of youth and manhood, — the result of 
 education and a mark of culture. In the infant, 
 action is almost or quite automatic, — certainly with- 
 out conscious purpose, — in most cases, even, caused 
 by external forces, and therefore without even con- 
 scious satisfaction. A need of the physical system 
 may be met, but not a felt need. The child has as 
 yet no felt interest. Soon he awakes to the pleasure 
 of action both of body and mind, and then he be- 
 comes aware of the fact that action answers to a 
 felt need of himself, is a method of self-expression, 
 and hence interesting because thus satisfying. Soon 
 this action of body and mind, especially of the 
 mind, secures for him the attributes of things, — the 
 
SELF-REVELATION 105 
 
 qualities of food, the rich colors of beautiful clothes, 
 or flowers, or the sky, — and a response to a felt need 
 of the soul produces satisfaction. At this point the 
 second element of interest is introduced, namely, in- 
 terest in things because their attributes have a felt 
 value — give an appreciated answer to a need of the 
 self. As this element increases, the enjoyment of 
 mere action, while perhaps not growing less, is cer- 
 tainly becoming relatively less noticeable. At any 
 rate the enjoyment of the knowledge itself as it 
 answers to the need is capable of so great develop- 
 ment that it soon becomes the prominent element. 
 Thus it is that we become interested in things, in 
 the actions of others, and in whatever furnishes at- 
 tributes that serve the uses which give pleasure or 
 satisfaction. We may now be said to have interests, 
 that is, things which furnish us satisfaction, with 
 which we like to concern ourselves, which attract us 
 and solicit and receive our attention and call forth 
 effort under tension of the gratification which these 
 things produce, and the expectancy of continued 
 gratification which they promise. 
 
 In all this development of immediate interest 
 there is little conscious direction of effort toward an 
 end or ideal, but rather the spontaneous undivided 
 action of the whole soul under the inspiration of 
 present satisfaction. This present satisfaction is of 
 three kinds, as already described, namely, pleasure 
 
I06 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 of normal action of our powers, gratification of the 
 sensibilities through the enjoyment of the attributes 
 of things, and expectancy of continuance or advance- 
 ment of the gratification. All of these are imme- 
 diate. There is no lapse of time between the action 
 and the enjoyment of such action, that is, the enjoy- 
 ment is in the action itself ; in other words, there is 
 no lapse of time between the appropriation of the 
 attribute and the pleasure which such appropriation 
 gives. The whole self is bound up in the acts and 
 the enjoyments. The person has found himself — 
 has expressed his immediate nature in these very 
 acts which have yielded him his natural satisfaction. 
 While, as we have seen, interest as a state or 
 condition is always internal, we have also seen that 
 it invariably extends itself out toward, and expends 
 itself upon, some object, — some definite recipient, 
 embodying the attributes which first gave the grati- 
 fication and which now develop expectancy. When 
 the number of things in which one thus feels an 
 interest has enlarged, through more extended knowl- 
 edge, the number of one's interests has correspond- 
 ingly increased. Hence it is manifest that one's 
 range of interests is somewhat definitely related to 
 the scope of his knowledge, since it is impossible 
 that he should feel interest in anything upon which 
 he has never employed his powers, or whose attri- 
 butes have never gratified any need of his mind. 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 07 
 
 It therefore follows that so far as he extends his 
 acquaintance with things, he enlarges the probability 
 that he will discover more attributes which furnish 
 him enjoyment, that he will consequently increase 
 the number of his interests, and that finding himself 
 in touch with more of the elements of his environ- 
 ment, he will be enabled to live more richly and to 
 appropriate to his own gratification a larger share 
 of the things of the universe. 
 
 Many writers, both in this country and in the Old 
 World, have recently laid great stress upon the proc- 
 ess of enlarging the range of interests as a part of 
 education, to the end that the educated person may 
 know life on many sides, may be less dogmatical 
 and more liberal ; in fine, that he may be broad- 
 minded, seeing things through the magnifying glass 
 of a large and rich experience. But there is always 
 danger of a narrow interpretation of what consti- 
 tutes true interest. In many cases teachers ex- 
 pend their entire thought upon the limited scope of 
 immediate interest, and that restricted to material 
 things. It would seem sometimes from this state of 
 the case as if the whole work of education were to 
 be restricted to finding what will please the child 
 and then assisting him to gratify his present pro- 
 pensities. A moment's reflection will show us how 
 utterly unworthy this view of education is. The very 
 possibility of education itself lies in the capacity to 
 
lo8 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 take on a new habit of mind, to create new ideals, 
 and in them to find the capacity for the develop- 
 ment of new powers of enjoyment. With these new 
 capacities come new possibilities of gratification, — 
 the possibilities of establishing new lines of interest. 
 
 The mark of civilization is the power to appre- 
 ciate and use what can be of no interest to the 
 savage. The end of education is not to leave man a 
 gratified savage, but to develop him into an enlight- 
 ened and ennobled human being. To do this his 
 trend of interest must be changed and the range 
 of his interests enlarged. Thus it is not alone the 
 business of the teacher to find out what will interest 
 the child, but rather to try to interest him in that 
 which is worthy of his capacities and destiny. 
 Doubtless the process must begin with present in- 
 terests, but it must surely terminate in the devel- 
 opment of a set of interests that are worthy of an 
 exalted being, born in the image of God and de- 
 veloped into a fitness for association with noble 
 personalities. 
 
 We must therefore look to something more than 
 the development of present interests; we must 
 create new ones and develop new capacities to ap- 
 preciate, — new possibilities of becoming interested 
 in whatever is worthy in every province of human 
 life and human endeavor. This looks to the devel- 
 opment of what is technically known as mediate 
 
SELF-REVELATION 109 
 
 interest, that is, interest in something which is not 
 in itself gratifying, but which may be the means of 
 obtaining eventually a higher order of satisfaction. 
 To appreciate this fully we must, to some extent, 
 contrast immediate and mediate interest. Only 
 partial treatment of mediate interest will be given 
 here, since it will receive further notice in the 
 chapter on Self-direction. 
 
 The kind of interest which I have thus far been 
 describing is immediate, spontaneous; it wells up 
 out of the spirit like the waters of a copious foun- 
 tain ; it comes directly from the gratification which 
 things give to us personally, and centers itself upon 
 the things whose attributes cause it. The child who 
 should live his childhood and youth under the con- 
 trolling force of interest of this kind would preserve 
 his childlikeness, his spontaneity, his heartiness, and 
 his openness to the truth. He would contract the 
 habit of giving his whole attention wherever his im- 
 mediate interest might for the moment lead him; 
 work to him would have much of the character of 
 play. He might become a great student and even a 
 great scholar, but hardly a great character. Some- 
 thing more than the following out of immediate 
 interest is needed to develop strength and stability 
 of character. This immediate interest is supreme in 
 the childhood of a human being, but it will hardly 
 serve as the proper training for youth and manhood. 
 
no EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 Were it the destiny of the child always to remain 
 a child, and were his environment always what it 
 should be, there could be nothing further needed 
 than to develop intensely the line of immediate in- 
 terest. Were there never any vicissitudes of life 
 requiring the exercise of higher virtue and stronger 
 application of will, there would be less need to de- 
 velop interests of any higher sort. School education 
 could then be carried on by making everything as 
 attractive as possible, and whatever required study 
 or effort could be foregone. It is true that we 
 should have no character; in its place we should 
 have only vegetative and animal life, — spontane- 
 ous, irrational, unrestrained life. 
 
 All of us will agree that manhood and woman- 
 hood mean much more than this: they mean the 
 development of character and will, the making of a 
 thoughtful manly or womanly person out of every 
 child. For this we must look to a different kind 
 of interest. 
 
 As has been stated in an earlier part of this chap- 
 ter, the things in which we may become interested 
 are as numerous and diverse as are the objects of 
 the outer world and of the inner world. Not alone 
 do the things of the physical world serve to gratify 
 us, but the things of the mind and heart as well. 
 These classes of things differ widely in one respect, 
 however, especially when viewed with reference to 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 1 1 
 
 the development of interest in them, namely, that 
 some of them interest us as ends in themselves be- 
 cause we find in them the attributes which cause 
 direct satisfaction, while other things are chiefly in- 
 teresting to us because we view them as a means 
 toward an end of even deeper satisfaction and enjoy- 
 ment. It is not strictly true, perhaps, that we feel a 
 real interest in these mediate things which are used 
 as means ; we rather endure them because they are 
 the means to reach that in which we have a true 
 interest. 
 
 It is the province of education to transform this 
 endurance into genuine interest whenever possible 
 (and desirable), and in any case to reduce the degree 
 of repugnance by throwing over it a glory derived 
 from the ideal which lies in the achievement at the 
 end. This involves, as has been said, the gradual 
 transformation of the simple, innocent, irrational, 
 physically active, mentally volatile child into the in- 
 telligent, rational, cultivated person of high ideals and 
 developed will ; and between these two extremes lies 
 the whole range of our daily teaching, with its neces- 
 sary devices, its temporary defeats, its final victories, 
 much of it unconscious effort and unconscious tui- 
 tion, but as a whole directed by a more or less 
 well-understood philosophy of education. 
 
 It is true that many teachers merely fall into line 
 with the thinking that some one else has put into 
 
112 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 courses of study and plans of work. Even when they 
 do their best to carry out the regulations, it is purely 
 in a mechanical way. To such teachers no philoso- 
 phy of education appears either in plan or method. 
 There is a favorite theory that all that is needed to 
 make the child grow into a cultivated person is time ; 
 that the school is simply a safe place of detention 
 during the growing period. Without ignoring nature 
 as a factor, it is sufficient to notice that grown-up 
 children are not greatly superior to young children ; 
 and that what we need is a type of man or woman 
 capable of coping with the growing complexity of 
 modern life. Noble as nature is and salutary as is 
 its effect upon the growing human being, its best 
 results accrue only to those who, besides obeying 
 physical conditions and laws, live in an environment 
 of institutions, — a spiritual state of exalted compan- 
 ionship with noble human natures, under restrictions 
 which are little appreciated and less liked by the 
 uncultivated man. In other words, a course of edu- 
 cation must comprise a training in a knowledge of 
 the humanities and of human institutions, including 
 the necessity of law and order in the community, 
 and of self-control, none of which things can the sav- 
 age man in any fair sense appreciate, and many of 
 which are mere means to higher ends, appreciated 
 only by cultivated minds made sensitive through the 
 long-continued process of refinement brought about 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 1 3 
 
 by culture. It is thus a large part of education to 
 acquaint the pupil with his spiritual environment, — 
 the order of civilization into which he is born, — to 
 explain to him the value of the immense wealth of 
 his spiritual inheritance, and thus to build up within 
 him a standard of life in harmony with his nature 
 and destiny. 
 
 To live up to the high standard of life just de- 
 scribed, in the midst of a civilization still holding 
 many of the crudities and evils of savagery, requires 
 that each of us shall daily do many things which in 
 themselves are not only not pleasurable, but which 
 are positively distasteful. In and of itself much of 
 our work is pure drudgery, while much of it requires 
 us to bear large responsibilities, to endure petty an- 
 noyances, and to do disagreeable things. It is impos- 
 sible that we should feel real interest in these things 
 through the gratification of any power of ours or 
 through any original attribute of theirs. There is 
 therefore no motive to do these things unless one 
 can be found which is so related to these acts as to 
 constitute for the time being a valid, vicarious inter- 
 est. The end sought must not only justify but also 
 glorify the means. The contemplation of the ideal 
 to be achieved must give a pleasure akin to that felt 
 in its actual attainment, in order that this pleasure 
 shall accompany the doing of the drudgery, gliding 
 at last into the glorious realization of the end made 
 
114 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 possible by the dull drudgery, till the mind can no 
 longer distinguish the limits of each, and the whole 
 is fused into one glorious sense of accomplishment. 
 The transformation is complete when this attribute 
 — the relation of means to ends — has been clearly 
 seen ; then the means itself, though it was at first 
 drudgery, is now loved for one of its own attributes, 
 namely, this very capacity to achieve desired ends. 
 Immediate interest in the means is now developed 
 in place of vicarious or mediate interest. 
 
 We are supported and assisted in this matter by 
 the influence of custom, habit, and wont upon our 
 physical organs and mental powers. Frequent repe- 
 tition sets the organs for easy action in like manner 
 again, and disposes the mind to offer less opposition. 
 Automatic action frees the mind for a fuller contem- 
 plation of the ideal, and wearies it less with the cog- 
 nizance of details. We are also frequently pressed 
 into unwelcome action by the pain of present condi- 
 tions. The hungry person strives to secure food, less 
 perhaps for the expected pleasure than from the hope 
 of relief from present suffering. In any case it is a 
 form of the ideal, — always the real motive in which 
 our actual interest centers, — an ideal to be realized 
 only by intermediate steps which in themselves have 
 no interest till it is developed through the cognizance 
 of their value as means. Happy is he who can so live 
 that the effulgent glory of his ideal life is thrown 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 1 5 
 
 backward till it lights up all the pathway of his actual 
 life. His ideal is the magnetic pole of his existence. 
 He will drudge for ten hours a day, if need be, so that 
 he may found his ideal family life and keep it sweet 
 and pure under the shadow of his own vine and fig 
 tree. He will march with steady step to the cannon's 
 mouth, at the call of his patriotic ideal, counting loss 
 of life or limb as a mere incident in the series of 
 movements by which civil and religious liberty are 
 established. He will counsel together with his neigh- 
 bors, foregoing his personal preferences to the end 
 that the social order may be unbroken. His interests 
 are so set in the best things that he cannot stoop to 
 the mean or low, and the fine sense of gratification 
 coming from the realization within himself of a high 
 grade of manhood compensates for laborious efforts 
 and frequent disappointments in external purposes. 
 The perfection of culture is to think clearly, to aspire 
 nobly, to drudge cheerfully, to sympathize broadly, 
 to decide righteously, and to perform ably. The un- 
 developed child can do none of these things. The 
 undeveloped germ of the possibility to do these 
 things is his by native endowment. The province of 
 education lies between these two extremes. To un- 
 derstand the philosophy of education we must study 
 the child as he is, to get our point of starting ; but 
 we must also study the possibilities of man, as he 
 has expressed himself in history, literature, art, and 
 
Il6 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 achievement, or we shall fail to get the other point, 
 which sets our course and gives direction to our 
 educational effort. 
 
 In view of the consideration thus far brought for- 
 ward as evidences of growth or development, it seems 
 appropriate to enlarge a little upon the higher ranges 
 of culture implied as possibilities, but not discussed 
 in the elementary phases thus far considered. Initial 
 stages of growth imply but do not always illustrate 
 what is possible at maturity. Therefore, to study the 
 child as he is and to develop methods of education 
 to suit his present state or stage of growth, without 
 considering what he may become, is a great mistake. 
 Before a man can " run the race set before him " to 
 the best advantage, the goal must, to some extent at 
 least, be known. Before he can even start, advan- 
 tageously, the main direction toward the goal must 
 be known. So, in education, child study has done 
 well to fix the starting place ; but the goal, that is, 
 the final or highest aim in education, can be seen 
 only by those who give attention to the later stages 
 of man's development. What man may do and 
 become when he has grown to maturity and has 
 developed his powers, has become enlightened and 
 has learned to cooperate with his fellows, is of equal 
 importance with the facts of his life as a child. His 
 power to create literature and art, to formulate 
 sciences, to build beneficent institutions, and to 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 1 7 
 
 share in the reflex influences for good to himself 
 which flow to him through his participation in insti- 
 tutional life, — all these things must be taken into 
 account as indicating the final goal of educational 
 effort. Thus it is that one who would fully under- 
 stand the philosophy of education, that is, the nature 
 and method of education, must be willing to con- 
 sider questions usually included in social and political 
 economy,history, science, art, religion, and philosophy. 
 
 The finest figure of speech in all literature, it seems 
 to me, representing this possible unlikeness of results 
 to beginnings in growth, is that used in Mark iv, 
 " First the blade, then the ear, after that the full 
 corn in the ear." Who is there, seeing only the corn 
 in its blade stage, would ever dare predict the golden 
 grain of maturity? Only those who have carefully 
 observed every stage of growth, and who have, by 
 reflection on the information thus obtained, discov- 
 ered something of the law of development, are able 
 in new cases to predict the kind of grain, when as 
 yet only the leaf or blade is visible. The ultimate 
 standard of education, therefore, can be determined 
 properly only after a study of man's higher possibil- 
 ities and achievements. 
 
 Nor is it any excuse that these final aims of edu- 
 cation are difficult to determine. Our attempts to 
 find out and record for use the true nature of man 
 as an educable being are not necessarily a failure 
 
Ii8 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 because we cannot know all about man, nor because 
 as yet we are unable to prove logically all our beliefs. 
 Our knowledge is incomplete rather than necessarily 
 wrong. A light but dimly seen is better than total 
 darkness, provided, of course, that the light, dim as 
 it is, shows the direction toward the goal. No one, 
 however, is free to follow a dim light when a brighter 
 and better one may reasonably be had. 
 
 These facts are, it seems to me, a sufficient justi- 
 fication for continuing the study of man's higher 
 nature in attempts to discover something of his des- 
 tiny. Only thus can we devise methods of education 
 which shall assist him to realize his higher possibili- 
 ties. It must be admitted that there are educational 
 methods, based on low ideals of man's nature and 
 possibilities, which often result in arrested develop- 
 ment. Many immediate ends of education (for ex- 
 ample, industrial education in the trades) are right 
 if they be understood as belonging to the immature 
 stage of development, but they become wrong if 
 regarded as finalities in themselves rather than as 
 tools for use in further or higher development. 
 
 At first these final or higher standards of educa- 
 tion seem unrelated to the topic of the growing self- 
 revelation of which we have been speaking, but a 
 few considerations will, I think, show the close con- 
 nection and the important relation. To begin with, 
 an appreciation of these higher capacities comes to 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 19 
 
 one, if at all, through introspection of one's self and 
 observation upon others, with consequent reflection ; 
 and each attempted observation, and each conclusion 
 or reflection, is validated in consciousness in its very 
 cognition or recognition. So soon as the student 
 appropriates these higher possibilities as his own^ 
 they are seen to be related to him in a self-helpful 
 way; and so they are a part of the culture implied 
 in widening self-knowledge, that is, self-conscious- 
 ness, — the capacity which marks the higher educa- 
 tion of the individual. The professional teacher, 
 therefore, must ponder these capacities which he 
 himself feels, and which are capable of revelation to 
 pupils, as a valid part of his study of educational 
 standards. When thus thoughtfully reviewed, self- 
 consciousness in a cultivated, mature teacher reveals 
 the standards toward which he must ever guide his 
 pupils. The teacher who sees the highest individual 
 development as a possible achievement in each and 
 all will never be wholly satisfied to teach in accord- 
 ance with lower ideals. 
 
 In a preceding chapter I commented on the recent 
 tendency of physiologists to call themselves psychol- 
 ogists. Curiously enough, they seem to have been 
 led to assume this name because, as they assert, 
 there is no psychology (that is, no science of the 
 spiritual life), but only physiology (science of the physi- 
 cal life). The more reasonable procedure would have 
 
I20 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 been to deny the realm of psychology, if that seemed 
 an essential step, but still to retain the name " physi- 
 ologist" as representing the only phase in the study 
 of man that they consider valid. The paradoxical 
 nature of their position seems to me to consist in 
 first claiming to have demolished completely the 
 whole structure of psychology, and then wishing to 
 be known as physiological psychologists. 
 
 Within the last ten or fifteen years a still more 
 absurd attitude has been assumed by a class of physi- 
 cists toward the more fundamental conceptions of 
 philosophy, which they have declared nonexistent. 
 The physicists cover the same ground as former 
 philosophies covered, but introduce new tests for 
 truth, — the tests applied in laboratories for the facts 
 of material science. This attempt to apply physical 
 tests to spiritual facts results in ludicrous distortions 
 of the truth. Perhaps the most ludicrous example 
 of these is the attempt to apply physical tests to 
 consciousness, thereby apparently proving that psy- 
 chology and philosophy are not valid because con- 
 sciousness, on which their facts are based, is not 
 reliable. But if the physicist would but take notice 
 of the origin of those established facts in the physi- 
 cal sciences to which he has successfully applied his 
 laboratory tests of counting, weighing, and measur- 
 ing, he would discover that all of them were first 
 validated in his own consciousness; else how did 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 2 1 
 
 they get into his laboratory? It seems to me that 
 should such a scientist succeed in proving that con- 
 sciousness is not reliable because it does not submit 
 itself to his physical tests, he would prove far too 
 much for his own comfort. He is like the small boy, 
 who, intent on destroying the beauty of a fine tree, 
 determined to saw off its most conspicuous branch. 
 He did so, but he made the mistake of sawing off the 
 branch between himself and the tree. He disfigured 
 the tree somewhat, it is true, but his own personal 
 appearance was not improved by the incident. 
 
 In all this discussion of self-revelation there is 
 always the implication of a self who becomes con- 
 scious of his own experiences and thus makes valid 
 his growing knowledge. Scientists have attacked 
 the validity of this conception of self, saying that 
 there is no such thing as a self or entity. It is stated, 
 first, that consciousness does not affirm a self; and 
 second, that if it did, it would not do to trust the 
 verdict, since consciousness is not reliable. The 
 second of these contentions has, it seems to me, 
 been sufficiently answered by showing that the sci- 
 entist is inconsistent in claiming validity for his 
 knowledge of the material world, which is just as 
 necessarily validated in consciousness as is knowl- 
 edge of spiritual facts. That is, facts of science are 
 equally dependent with spiritual facts upon con- 
 sciousness for their proof of validity. But the first 
 
122 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 statement needs further consideration. Doubtless, 
 technically, there is truth in the statement, since a 
 person cannot be conscious of anything except his 
 own condition. He cannot, in this strict sense, be 
 conscious of any fact of science, but only of his con- 
 dition or experience in the knowing of the fact. So 
 the scientist is in the same difficulty in getting a 
 start with his knowledge of physical facts as is the 
 psychologist in getting a start with his knowledge 
 of the self. But the important fact in the case is 
 that consciousness, in registering an experience, 
 always registers it as my experience. Consider this 
 fact a moment. 
 
 Were you ever left in doubt as to whose experi- 
 ences appear in your consciousness ? Does not con- 
 sciousness affirm them to h^your experiences ? Even 
 the scientist cannot interpret sensations except as 
 he knows them to be his own^ and he constantly 
 asserts that he has discovered this or that, still 
 affirming the entity as the thinking agent. Precisely 
 what consciousness does show me is my experience^ 
 and that it is my experience. From this point to the 
 affirmation of the spiritual entity that possesses the 
 experience is but a single step in reasoning, which 
 everybody takes, just as Descartes did; so that it 
 is common to speak (as a mere figure of speech) as 
 if it were directly shown in consciousness. The fact 
 that everybody takes this step in reasoning is shown 
 
SELF-REVELATION 123 
 
 by the presence in all languages of the personal 
 pronoun in the first person. From this universal 
 reliance on consciousness as the fundamental means 
 of knowing anything, the scientist moves to the 
 external world, studying it in accordance with the 
 universal laws of thought and the special laws of 
 matter ; the psychologist pursues the study of men- 
 tal phenomena in accordance with the universal 
 laws of thought and the special laws of spirit ; and 
 each is entitled to be judged by persons versed in 
 the special laws of the special subject as well as 
 in the universal laws of thought applicable to all 
 provinces. 
 
 The scientist passes quickly from the considera- 
 tion of sensations to that part of the subject in which 
 the special laws of investigation are counting, meas- 
 uring, weighing; and he soon becomes fascinated 
 with the accuracy of these tests. His attention is 
 easily absorbed by the special laws — those domi- 
 nant in the details of scientific study — to the ex- 
 clusion of those universal laws of thought which 
 condition all knowledge. He is prone to forget that 
 the superstructure, however well built, is in the end 
 no safer than the weakest place in its foundation. 
 The man who built his house on the sands may have 
 built as good a house as did the man who founded 
 his upon a rock, but the outcome was different in 
 the two cases. 
 
124 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 The brilliant discoveries of modern science dazzle 
 us by their splendor and amaze us by their practical 
 value; but if natural science has any place in the 
 curriculum of the school, it is not for either of these 
 reasons chiefly, but rather because the truths involved 
 in these discoveries profoundly affect human experi- 
 ence. For this reason they do have a place in the 
 curriculum of the school, as no well-informed person 
 will deny, — least of all the psychologist, who under- 
 stands how valid and final are these conclusions, as 
 vouched for by consciousness. It is not his place to 
 doubt or even neglect the discoveries of the scien- 
 tists. He knows that their conclusions, so far as 
 they are valid, must harmonize with his own dis- 
 coveries or displace them. He knows well that when 
 there is a conflict, the best-supported conclusion 
 must be accepted till a better one than either is 
 found ; but at the same time he remembers that the 
 scientist, when he has reached higher ground and 
 has expressed his conclusion in a more highly gen- 
 eralized form, himself sees harmony where before he 
 proclaimed conflict; as witness the numerous cor- 
 rections which scientists have had to make as a con- 
 sequence of new discoveries. The scientist should 
 be the humblest of men, considering the number of 
 times he has overthrown his own so-called finalities. 
 So, meanwhile, the psychologist re-tests his own con- 
 clusions and bides his time till the scientist shall 
 
SELF-REVELATION 125 
 
 have more fully perfected his researches. The psy- 
 chologist is not disposed to call the previous state- 
 ment of the scientist an error, but rather to think of 
 it as partial knowledge ; and he looks forward to the 
 time when the full circle of scientific truth shall be 
 seen instead of the small arc which alone is now 
 visible. 
 
 The psychologist is usually more tolerant of the 
 conclusions of the scientist than the latter is in ref- 
 erence to the beliefs of the former ; yet the psychol- 
 ogist may well insist that he has as much right to 
 his belief as has the scientist to his, when the sub- 
 ject of inquiry is one which is subject only to the 
 universal laws of thought, or to special laws applica- 
 ble in the sphere of spirit. For instance, a recent 
 scientist has asserted that science has discovered 
 that the living reaction in any one-celled animal is 
 the same in kind as that in a single cell of the human 
 brain; and that inasmuch as a higher and higher 
 grade of reaction has been reached by evolution 
 through infinitesimal steps of progress, there can be 
 no place between the life force of the amoeba and 
 that of the human being where there is any change 
 in kind ; and that, therefore, if the spiritual ele- 
 ment in the human being is an entity, then in the 
 amoeba also the life force must be an entity, instead 
 of being, as the scientist maintains, only an attribute 
 of the amoeba. The final conclusion, therefore, was 
 
126 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 that the something which the psychologist calls the 
 human spirit is, after all, only a property or mani- 
 festation, and not an entity. 
 
 Now, as a matter of fact, this argument is falla- 
 cious for two reasons : first, the mode of reasoning by 
 which the conclusion is established violates the very 
 laws which operate in the province of natural science ; 
 and second, it also violates the laws which domi- 
 nate in the province of spirit. As to the first, it was 
 contended in the argument that since it cannot be 
 shown at what particular degree of development the 
 energy found in an amoeba changes into self-con- 
 sciousness, no such change can have taken place. 
 The fallacy in this reasoning is evident when we 
 remember that changes in kind quite as great as 
 are here supposed, are constantly occurring in natu- 
 ral science. For instance, a chemist takes a few 
 atoms of hydrogen and a few atoms of oxygen, in 
 certain proportions, and puts them first into physi- 
 cal relations. In these relations each of these ele- 
 ments manifests its own properties. The chemist 
 then changes conditions so that the hydrogen and 
 oxygen unite chemically. So far as the chemist is 
 yet able to report, there have been three kinds of 
 change of infinitesimal degrees: namely (i) a change 
 in distance, the atoms of each substance approach- 
 ing those of the other until they come within insen- 
 sible distances ; (2) a change of position among the 
 
SELF-REVELATION 127 
 
 atoms of the two substances ; and (3) a loss or gain 
 of energy. But the chemist admits that he now has 
 a new substance with properties unHke the proper- 
 ties of either oxygen or hydrogen. He accepts this 
 new substance as different in kind from the ele- 
 ments of which it is composed, because it manifests 
 different properties. He does not affirm that it can- 
 not be a new substance because the changes by 
 which it was produced from oxygen and hydrogen 
 were of infinitesimal degrees. He does not feel com- 
 pelled to say at what particular one of these infini- 
 tesimal degrees the new substance was formed ; it 
 is enough that the new substance is found to be 
 new by chemical tests. 
 
 Now, as to the second reason, the psychologist 
 accepts the scientist's statement that the life force 
 in the amoeba is unconscious, or that it has not yet 
 been proved to be conscious ; but the psychologist's 
 consciousness affirms the human spirit to be self- 
 conscious. If it came from the amoeba through in- 
 finitesimal degrees in the development of evolution, 
 he does not feel compelled to name the degree at 
 which the change into self-consciousness took place. 
 He tests the result by spiritual tests, just as the 
 chemist tests his result by chemical tests. 
 
 I have already shown that all knowledge must be 
 referred to consciousness for its validity; also that 
 consciousness reveals my mental experiences and 
 
128 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 affirms them to be mine; but it also reveals much 
 more than this. While consciousness does not directly 
 reveal a self as an entity, it does something else 
 quite as important, — it reveals directly the exact 
 nature and much of the significance of our conscious 
 experiences. It is in these revelations, through con- 
 sciousness, that the educator must find valid ground 
 for the construction of a correct and helpful theory 
 of education. This theory will be seen to be grounded 
 in the nature of the being to be educated, and it 
 will take note of the relationship of this being to 
 all phases of thought, feeling, and action; thus it 
 will range for its subject matter, as I have already 
 said, through the provinces of art, science, litera- 
 ture, history and sociology, religion and philosophy. 
 Every teacher whose self-consciousness has been thus 
 awakened to his own possibilities in these higher 
 fields of human experience will try to reveal to his 
 pupils some vision of this wider range of human life, 
 even while teaching the most elementary subjects. 
 
 I have previously called attention to the fact that 
 the ideals or aims of education, to be in any sense 
 final, or even in any high degree authoritative, must 
 take into account all possible achievements of man 
 in his higher spiritual capacity, as involved in insti- 
 tutional life ; and that the school studies which refer 
 to this phase of man's nature take a wide range, 
 including especially art, literature, history, economics 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 29 
 
 (social and political), philosophy, and religion. In 
 recent years development in the physical and natu- 
 ral sciences and their applications seems to have 
 outrun or somewhat overshadowed development 
 along those lines more definitely founded on the 
 spiritual experiences of the human race. There are 
 doubtless good reasons for the present supremacy 
 of the physical sciences, not merely because of the 
 strong appeal which these branches have made 
 through their industrial and commercial application, 
 but because of the accurate and systematized think- 
 ing which such study demands. This attitude does 
 not, however, release the teacher from the obligation 
 to reveal to pupils their own spiritual possibilities. 
 In its organized aspects the complete revelation can 
 occur only to the university student, but in its more 
 elementary forms it may begin in the kindergarten 
 or the primary grades. It has seemed proper, there- 
 fore, to discuss here more fully than has been done 
 hitherto the exact nature of these higher capabilities 
 and their consequent possible achievements, to the 
 end that the teacher may see how the humanities 
 are of slow development but of supreme importance 
 in the self-revelation to the child of his own nature 
 and capabilities. 
 
 In opening up this subject more fully, it is to be 
 noted at once that many experiences of life cannot 
 be defined or even described perfectly to persons 
 
I30 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 who have not lived through them. All human ex- 
 periences, no matter how diversified, are the actual 
 blendings of the activities of knowing (in some of its 
 various forms), of feeling (in some of its numerous 
 variations), and of willing (in some of its aspects); 
 but the relationship or ratio of these elements is a 
 shifting factor, now more and now less of one or an- 
 other factor; or now one and now another variety 
 of each. The complexities of human life or human 
 experience are made possible by the varying ratios 
 and shifting varieties of these three fundamental 
 elements of mental or spiritual experience. No one 
 of these strands of human experience is ever wholly 
 separate from the others, even in its vaguest degrees, 
 or even wholly distinguishable from the other two. 
 However, one of them may exist in such violent de- 
 gree in connection with such slight degrees of the 
 others as to seem for the moment separate and dis- 
 tinct, or as to seem to be for the time the only element 
 in the experience. In such case, however, a close ex- 
 amination will always disclose the presence of the 
 others in lower or higher degree. The dominance 
 of one such line or kind of experience has given 
 separate names to mental processes that are really 
 complex, though for the moment they seem to be 
 simple and separate. In some cases these different 
 names for different states are sufificiently clear for 
 ordinary description ; but, by the nature of the case, 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 31 
 
 kinds and degrees are so lacking in definiteness as 
 to leave large place for misunderstanding and full 
 opportunity for argument and discussion. 
 
 Moods dominated by thought (or knowing) in 
 some of its forms are most exact in their character- 
 istics and limits, and are therefore most frequently 
 noted and most readily comprehended. They are 
 easily analyzed and described, and admit of the 
 application of definite terms to an extent utterly im- 
 possible with moods dominated by feeling or action. 
 Though it has always been possible, therefore, for 
 students of mathematics and natural science to reach 
 substantial agreements as to facts and their mean- 
 ing, artists, philosophers, and theologians, as well as 
 men of action, have often lacked a common standard ; 
 for science has always been more definite than art, 
 religion, ethics, and history. Furthermore, objects of 
 knowledge were, first of all, natural or external or 
 material things, whether in the individual or in the 
 race; so knowledge by the senses came early in 
 human experience, as it does now in the individual 
 experience of the child. 
 
 The first words were applied to material objects, in 
 all languages. In many other and later departments 
 of human experience, instead of inventing new ele- 
 ments of language, as we doubtless should have 
 done if these experiences had been definitive in char- 
 acter, we still speak of them metaphorically in the 
 
132 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 language orginally applied to external matters. Re- 
 garding many varieties of deep human experience 
 we yet must speak in parables or by means of anal- 
 ogies. Throughout the wide range of religious ex- 
 perience, and in spiritual things generally, the very 
 complexity of human activities, together with the 
 shifting ratios of thought and feeling, has often dis- 
 turbed inquiries after the truth. In thought, also, 
 especially in the act of the mind as it passes from 
 the premises to the conclusion, one has been obliged 
 to concede the premises as being vague in limits 
 and undetermined to some extent in their content. 
 In no one thing, perhaps, has this striking peculiar- 
 ity of human experience been more marked than in 
 the study of that phase of human life involved in the 
 experience known by the term " faith." This has been 
 thought of in many cases as being purely a matter 
 of feeling, and has thus been greatly discredited by 
 devotees of scientific thought. The mathematician, 
 for instance, has never granted a definite place in his 
 calculations to this idea of faith, because the experi- 
 ences involved in it do not lend themselves easily to 
 mathematical computations. The scientist has even 
 denied the validity of faith as a shaping instrument 
 of human aspirations, because he too has become in- 
 fatuated with the thought of experiments, especially 
 in their mathematical forms of computation. In 
 these later days mathematics and natural science 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 33 
 
 have seemingly formed a compact or a close corpo- 
 ration, since the field of science has proved the best 
 application for the abstract science of space and 
 number. The fact is that faith is not wholly feeling, 
 but is a complex of thought, feeling, and will, feeling 
 being perhaps for the moment dominant, and will 
 being as nearly passive as that experience may ever 
 be. But the true nature of faith will never be under- 
 stood except when one appreciates that it is merely 
 an extension of thought transformed into feeling 
 and tinctured with will ; and therefore that faith 
 never arises without having been preceded by special 
 thought. 
 
 It is perhaps well to notice that in all the regions 
 of inquiry where thought itself cannot go, except by 
 slow and painful advances, the human spirit still in- 
 quires and wonders and investigates. The confi- 
 dence begotten in scientific laws, through our study 
 of them in determinate provinces, easily leads one to 
 extend them beyond the realm of thinking experi- 
 ence, resulting in certain experiences of confidence 
 or conclusive belief which are of the exact nature of 
 faith. In so far as this faith is mere confidence, it is 
 feeling ; but in so far as it is related to the operation 
 of law and is the conclusion of reasoning, it is intel- 
 lectual in its nature; and in so far as it directs 
 aspirations and controls action, it is of the nature 
 of will. 
 
134 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 No more remarkable application in any province 
 of thought for this peculiar form of human effort, 
 resulting in the transformation of thought into feel- 
 ing and will, is perhaps known than that involved in 
 one's belief in the universality of the law of gravita- 
 tion. The intellectual comprehension of the facts of 
 gravitation and of the law governing this force is 
 precedent to the belief in its universality; that is, 
 there is some quality in this law, some peculiarity in 
 its nature, that operates in the human soul to create 
 an experience which begins in reasoning but ends 
 in a wholly indemonstrable belief. The scientist him- 
 self in this, his own province, yields to the confident 
 belief, because of the singularly convincing character 
 of the knowledge out of which it has grown, though 
 he recognizes perfectly the utter impossibility, by the 
 very nature of the case, of gathering data which hold 
 in them the force of the conclusion. He is com- 
 pelled to believe, not by the nature of the facts ad- 
 duced, but by the nature of the law or principle 
 which seems to be operative among the facts them- 
 selves. Men have gathered in this instance enough 
 of the facts to suggest to them the law itself. They 
 have then tested the law in numerous instances. But 
 the scientist is just as certain of his conclusion with 
 respect to the instances not yet summoned as he is 
 with respect to those in which he has actually found 
 the law illustrated and supported. This sort of 
 
SELF-REVELATION 135 
 
 reasoning and this sort of conclusion are not of the 
 kind especially prevalent in mathematics or in con- 
 crete science. The conclusion rests rather on a form 
 of probable reasoning, but, in the instance cited, a 
 form of probable reasoning which transforms the 
 element of probability into the element of certainty 
 in the conclusion. 
 
 No more striking instance can be offered of the 
 exercise of faith by reason of the lack of doubt in 
 the conclusion. The same man who, as a scientist, 
 gives himself up wholly to the force of such reason- 
 ing, may have no similar feeling of faith in many 
 practical and religious questions merely because he 
 has never studied the facts on which such conclu- 
 sions are based. If one has not studied carefully 
 enough to have seen with full vision the compulsion 
 which lies in these facts and in the laws which they 
 obey, one cannot get the force of compulsion in the 
 conclusion. One must deeply and definitely have 
 lived these experiences through, and must have 
 tested their meaning in one's own consciousness. 
 Neither will one get such confidence in probable 
 reasoning until one has long practiced it and has 
 learned to detect the fallacies which so easily enter 
 into it through mistakes in the premises on which 
 it is founded. 
 
 Now a great many people have never studied them- 
 selves. As children they had profound experiences 
 
136 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 in sensations. These experiences soon led them 
 to certain conclusions with regard to the exter- 
 nal world. In these same years they were having 
 inner experiences in the thoughts and emotions 
 belonging to the inner life; but the volatility of 
 childhood is not conducive to profound meditation 
 on spiritual things. The child is easily led away to 
 more practical experiments on material things. Soon 
 the young student is taken into the laboratory where 
 definite experimentation is made upon the outer 
 rims of his sensational experiences ; and having his 
 time occupied with this line of work and the mathe- 
 matical studies and computations induced thereby, 
 he grows a one-sided individual unless his teachers 
 — parents and school-teachers in the institutional 
 life — take occasion to excite his interest in the 
 things which cannot be tested in physical labora- 
 tories. He needs to be led to feel not sensations 
 alone, but emotions as well ; and to have aspirations, 
 and to contemplate ends and achievements of a 
 social nature. He needs to have his power to reason 
 exercised constantly in that sort of probable reason- 
 ing on which the great issues of his inner life rest. 
 If a person will give in this way definite attention 
 to the study of his own nature, especially to his 
 emotions, his volitions, his aspirations, and his hopes, 
 he will soon come to have a large body of intuitive 
 information which is just as valid as the same kind 
 
SELF-REVELATION 137 
 
 of information, regarding sensations, from which we 
 start in all experimentation in science. Intensely in- 
 teresting as this sort of thinking is when once a 
 person has mastered its elements, it does not attract 
 the child as do those more demonstrative appeals 
 through the senses. And reasoning by probability 
 rarely gives to young people full confidence in con- 
 clusions, because they are as yet unable to determine 
 the full nature of the inner experience out of which 
 this reasoning grows. 
 
 Another reason why people do not believe more 
 fully in the uncertain and undemonstrated is because 
 they have never fully distinguished between the 
 force of positive as against negative evidence. In 
 things which may be seen or handled or proved 
 by physical experiment, one easily leaps over small 
 gaps in reasoning, and believes; but in more dis- 
 tinctly spiritual experiences these intuitions are hard 
 to get unless one is a close student of himself; 
 and where the evidence requires a fine discrimina- 
 tion of spiritual qualities, the mind easily becomes 
 clogged with negative forms which block the way to 
 belief. This is especially true with regard to the 
 facts of the inner life. For instance, many people 
 say they have no such experiences as other people 
 describe ; and, in fact, they have not, chiefly because 
 they have not made the required effort. They do 
 not study themselves, nor move themselves to a 
 
138 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 plane high enough to gain knowledge in this way, 
 and on this negative evidence they base their belief 
 that there are no such experiences. The positive 
 evidence of one actual experience is worth all the 
 negative evidence that the ages could produce. It 
 is for this reason that progress in the finer elements 
 of human living must wait on the poet, the prophet, 
 and the seer. 
 
 It is evident that the only way to find out about 
 yourself is to study yourself. This must be done 
 through intuition. In other words, you must make 
 a direct study of what you find yourself to be 
 doing. If you find yourself loving or hating the 
 ignoble or the noble ; if you find yourself longing 
 for all good things and embodying the good in 
 action ; or if, on the other hand, you find yourself in 
 the grasp of wickedness, you are really getting at 
 the question of your own possibilities and your own 
 true nature; and out of it all you should seek to 
 discover something at least of the possibilities of 
 your higher life and of the nature of the eternal 
 progress toward perfection. 
 
 It is this very capacity for perfection that makes 
 temptation possible. Moral evil does not exist as a 
 thing in itself, but is always involved in some ques- 
 tion of human action. The human being holds within 
 himself a partial revelation of his capacities, and 
 these capacities at once show his possible grades of 
 
SELF-REVELATION 139 
 
 achievement, according as he exerts himself with 
 more or less energy. He gratifies this or that capac- 
 ity, he finds certain facts in self-revelation as a result 
 of such action, and little by little there develop in 
 him the first elements of a standard of conduct. No 
 matter how elementary this standard may be, it 
 makes its appeal to him, so that a certain spiritual 
 satisfaction results from conforming to it, and a cer- 
 tain degree of remorse attends any failure in realiza- 
 tion. Here are the first elements of a moral being, 
 — the revelation of a capacity including freedom of 
 the will. Variations in the exercise of these capacities 
 show differences in achievement, resulting in develop- 
 ment, and finally make clear the difference between 
 higher and lower ideals as affecting standards of 
 conduct. This brings about absolute freedom of 
 the individual in choosing action that shall tend to- 
 ward the realization of the higher standard or shall 
 tend toward the realization of the lower. Moral evil 
 is the deliberate choice to do anything less than the 
 highest which one's self-revelation has shown to be 
 possible for him. 
 
 Now in order that action shall be good, and there- 
 fore worthy, it must be voluntary good action ; but 
 voluntary good action can only be secured when 
 there has also been the possibility of bad action. 
 The various standards of achievement brought to 
 one's notice through self-revelation furnish the 
 
I40 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 opportunity for one's choice ; and the self-activity of 
 the human being, which is his primal essence, gives 
 the human being the power for such choice. Moral 
 right and wrong, then, or moral good and evil, come 
 into existence not as separate creations, but as con- 
 nected with choice and consequent action in the 
 human being. In view of these ideals of life and con- 
 duct there is no other way in which moral evil can 
 exist in the world. The possibility of evil is merely 
 the possibility of doing less than one is urged to do 
 by his own best ideals or at least by his highest pos- 
 sibilities. One must of course include here the con- 
 stant attempt at perfection of these ideals, and the 
 impulse to keep pace with the self-revelation of his 
 own capacities. It cannot be otherwise in a state of 
 existence where all that is good and high and noble 
 is finally to be developed. There is no mystery 
 about the existence of evil so long as men and 
 women have not yet risen to a stage of life in which 
 they uniformly choose to do the best they know. 
 Remember it is not the evil that is necessary, only 
 the possibility of evil. Before we have reached per- 
 fection it is inevitable that we shall sometimes vol- 
 untarily seek to do that which is below our own 
 conception of right, but we shall eventually forsake 
 evil for good by choosing always to do the best we 
 know. Then the possibility of evil will remain as 
 now, a positive force in the world to keep us good ; 
 
SELF-REVELATION 141 
 
 though under such circumstances no one would seek 
 to practice it. Be sure, then, that while evil is not a 
 necessity, the possibility of evil is ; and until we have 
 reached a high grade of perfection this possibility 
 of evil will entrap many of us. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it is in these self-revealing 
 experiences, furnishing standards of conduct which 
 make an insistent appeal to us, urging us toward 
 their realization, that a life higher than that of the 
 brute becomes possible to us. Bound up with the 
 same fact, however, is the further fact that in the very 
 existence of this possibility of a life higher than that 
 of the brute is involved the possibility of a life lower 
 than that of the brute. The temptation to evil is 
 always involved along with the inspiration toward 
 the good. No animal ever starts a saloon, because 
 he drinks for the purpose of satisfying a physical 
 need ; and he therefore drinks only to satisfy this 
 need. Man associates fellowship of a higher grade — 
 human companionship — with his drinking, and there- 
 fore drinks not merely what will quench his thirst, 
 but what he thinks will promote companionship. 
 Again, the beast eats to satisfy his appetite; man 
 eats for fraternity's sake, and is liable to become 
 a glutton. 
 
 The ethical and religious life, therefore, is a move- 
 ment upward on an inclined plane by our own moral 
 energy; while relaxation will mean not only going 
 
142 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 back to the original level of animal life from which 
 we started, but on down to the bottomless pit, which, 
 figuratively speaking, is the other edge of the inclined 
 plane of progress toward perfection. The royal pre- 
 rogative of man — spiritual growth toward spiritual 
 perfection — is the correlate of possible backsliding far 
 down below animal life (unmoral life) to immoral life. 
 The method of right progress, then, is first to find 
 all the good in yourself and to meditate on that; 
 and then, forming ideals of your own goodness and 
 out of your very best experiences, to hope on and 
 aspire to the best. Become as good as possible by 
 doing all that you know now you ought to do, and 
 you shall thereby find out what more you need to 
 know in order to do the next duty. One step at a 
 time is the law of spiritual progress. Those and those 
 only shall come to know the will of the Father, who 
 do his will as far as they understand it at any par- 
 ticular time. Doing God's will is the only means of 
 perfecting our spiritual sight or spiritual insight, to 
 which we must trust for further spiritual knowledge. 
 A constant self-revelation of capacities will give a 
 clearer vision of ideals, and these in turn will prompt 
 to right action. Right action will again make a 
 deeper and more profound self-revelation, which will 
 again elevate ideals, and these again will make a 
 more profound appeal for right conduct. But this 
 seeming circle of activities is in no sense a circle, 
 
SELF-REVELATION 143 
 
 but rather a spiral, which is merely a new figure for 
 what I have just called the inclined plane of spiritual 
 progress. 
 
 What I wish to make plain is that faith in good 
 things, noble possibilities, high professions, will grow 
 steadily with the close study of the best within your- 
 self, — your best thoughts, your best resolutions, your 
 best actions. You will soon become convinced that 
 a being who can have such noble thoughts as you 
 find yourself having, such unselfish feelings as you 
 find yourself possessing, and do such heroic things 
 as you find yourself capable of doing, is per se a being 
 of genuine worth. This knowledge of your own 
 nature and of the nature of your own powers will 
 convince you of the greatness of your spiritual pos- 
 sibilities; and while you also discover that there is 
 much desirable evidence still lacking, you will find 
 your faith in this goodness, your confidence in all 
 good things, steadily growing. In the end you will 
 come to have faith in yourself as good, and in God 
 as the acme of goodness, with all the certainty of 
 your belief in the force of gravity, and for the same 
 reason ; namely, because you have found out the 
 nature of your own self, of your own powers, and of 
 the laws of action by which you accomplish your 
 ends. You have seen goodness in finite forms and 
 can easily extend your belief in it to a high degree, 
 — even beyond your experience, even to ideals of 
 
144 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 God himself. And what I wish to make especially 
 plain is that this faith in yourself and faith in God 
 and your belief in immortality are just as natural and 
 reasonable as your faith in the unproved facts of the 
 law of gravitation. It is verified in its essential steps 
 by the same certainty of consciousness ; and if you 
 have pondered it as long a time and as earnestly as 
 you have at one time or another pondered on the 
 nature of gravity, you will, by the very structure of 
 your own mind, come to a surety and certainty of 
 faith as great as in the latter case. 
 
 Furthermore, as you find yourself growing more 
 and more like your conception of God himself, as it 
 is your privilege to do, you will more and more fully 
 understand God, and more and more you will become 
 able to have communion with him, as you have already 
 become able to have communion with your human 
 friends. Then such communion will give you refresh- 
 ment of spirit, just as you receive inspiration from 
 companionship with your dearest friends ; and it will 
 be known to you by the same tokens of satisfaction 
 as come from association with them. In this way 
 your belief in the good, and in God, will become a 
 faith which it will be impossible for the adversities 
 and trials of life to shake. And just here is the true 
 basis for a belief in individual immortality. The first 
 condition for individual immortality is that there shall 
 be something worth preserving. I know persons 
 
SELF-REVELATION 145 
 
 whose natures have become so well developed toward 
 perfection that they impress one with a sense of their 
 undying capacity for life. They seem cut out for 
 eternity, and my highest conception of heaven is to 
 be with such and the God who represents in himself 
 the infinite perfection of which they are the finite 
 conception and illustration. 
 
 Following the self-revelation of capacities in human 
 progress, resulting in faith in the goodness and pos- 
 sible perfection of one's own nature, and the urgency 
 of one's ideals in achieving the best through choos- 
 ing the higher course of action, comes the self-reve- 
 lation of responsibility. The beginnings of this 
 self-revelation occur when one first realizes his free- 
 dom to choose among his ideals, but its higher 
 stages await the higher development of true insight 
 into moral questions. The sense of responsibility is 
 a distinctly human trait. No human being can feel 
 it with any clearness or force who does not at the 
 same time feel his power to direct his own course of 
 action. A brute animal, with no sense of freedom, 
 following only his instincts, feels no moral responsi- 
 bility. Neither can such a being feel true remorse. 
 It is reserved for men and women, who are conscious 
 of their own powers, to feel also the need of acting 
 up to their possibilities; and for them is reserved 
 the right to fall below the proper standard of con- 
 duct if they choose. It is a distinctly human attribute, 
 
146 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 then — this sense of obligation on the one hand to 
 do right, and on the other the feehng of regret or 
 remorse for conduct which does not measure up to 
 our ideals. 
 
 Like all other capacities of the human soul, this 
 power to feel that if we choose our own course of 
 action we are accountable to some higher power for 
 the results of such action, is susceptible of cultivation. 
 In the first place, although the feeling itself is native 
 to all of us, the particular form which it will assume 
 in any case is dependent on education. In no other 
 human faculty is there more difference among men, 
 due to its culture or lack of culture. In the second 
 place, one's feeling of responsibility or accountability 
 is quite dependent on the precedent recognition of 
 one's free agency. No one is responsible for the 
 results of an action which he is compelled to do, nor 
 can he really feel remorse for such results. He may 
 feel sorry, but he cannot rightly feel guilty. It is 
 true that one may become guilty by allowing him- 
 self to be compelled, which is but another way of 
 consenting to the wrong; and this again is but 
 another way of choosing inaction when positive 
 action is demanded by the circumstances. 
 
 Many people strive to free themselves from the 
 sense of responsibility by merely wishing for the 
 right, when circumstances call for positive action. 
 Many pray fervently enough, " Thy will be done on 
 
SELF-REVELATION 147 
 
 earth as it is in heaven," without feeling the conse- 
 quent necessity for offering themselves as active 
 agents to see that God's will is done upon earth by 
 at least a few people. One is reminded in this con- 
 nection of the experience of the aged negro who 
 prayed that the Lord would send him some poultry 
 for his Sunday dinner. After the lapse of several 
 Sundays without any answer to his special pleading, 
 he changed the form of his prayer and asked that 
 God would constitute him the agent to bring the 
 chickens. He reported that his active prayer was 
 soon answered. 
 
 After the sense of responsibility has been de- 
 veloped, and a tendency to act in accordance with 
 this feeling has been established, there is still great 
 need of intelligent direction. Just what things one 
 shall feel responsible for, and just what action one 
 shall take, — all this is quite dependent on one's edu- 
 cation. A large and liberal knowledge of things and 
 their relations to human welfare is essential to right 
 feeling and action in this respect. A misguided or 
 ignorant person may have a deep sense of responsi- 
 bility, and may feel a strong moral requirement to 
 do the worst of actions, merely because he does not 
 really know what is truly right or wrong in the 
 premises. In case he refuses or neglects opportuni- 
 ties to learn better, and to find what is the true 
 nature of such action, his character will be injured 
 
148 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 to the extent of his neglect. It is through such 
 neglect generally that bigotry of every kind is devel- 
 oped. All religious persecutions have grown out of 
 this misdirected sense of responsibility. When John 
 Calvin ordered Servetus to be burned at the stake, 
 it was from no lack of the feeling of responsibility, 
 but rather from lack of proper direction of his zeal. 
 Many of the theological views then held have been 
 greatly modified by the larger knowledge of our 
 time; and were John Calvin alive to-day he would 
 probably rejoice as much in the freedom and liberty 
 of modern knowledge as did any of those thousands 
 gathered at Geneva on the four hundredth anniver- 
 sary of the birth of the reformer. He would doubtless 
 feel the same obligation that we feel to act in view of 
 the knowledge of our time. While his zeal might re- 
 main the same, its direction would be more intelligent. 
 To those of us who are teachers this matter of 
 responsibility raises a grave question. In modern 
 homes children do not feel the sense of mutual obli- 
 gation as they were formerly taught to feel it by the 
 circumstances of their home life. Then there were 
 duties in the home for all, even the youngest mem- 
 bers of the family having certain parts of the work 
 for which they were held responsible. This share in 
 the work of the household developed a trustworthi- 
 ness not so well brought out by any substitute yet 
 found. I feel that the modern school, called upon as 
 
SELF-REVELATION 149 
 
 it Is to supply so many deficiencies of the modern 
 home, has as yet found no means of developing and 
 directing this sense of reciprocal responsibility rest- 
 ing on the members of the smaller social wholes, 
 like the family and the school and even the immedi- 
 ate community; and I greatly fear that as a result 
 we are failing to develop to the full that sense of 
 trustworthiness so essential in the good citizen. 
 
 I mean to speak here mainly, however, of the 
 religious aspects of this question, especially of the 
 accountability which we owe to our own nature and 
 to the divine author of our lives, for our conduct. 
 In the account of the murder of Abel, as told in the 
 fourth chapter of Genesis, the poetic narrator of the 
 event represents Cain as first lying directly in his 
 answer to the question which God put to him, 
 "Where is Abel thy brother? " " I know not." This 
 lie might have been the result of a sudden fear or 
 confusion. A lie is often to be judged leniently, if 
 uttered when one's better nature is momentarily 
 inactive, and is often easily forgiven if promptly 
 repudiated when one's higher powers resume their 
 sway. But Cain did not stop with this direct lie. 
 He knew well the basic principle on which he was 
 being judged. He had accepted all life's privileges, 
 but assumed none of its obligations. Hence his 
 sneer — "Am I my brother's keeper?" It is the 
 world-old, age-long sneer of the selfish heart. 
 
I50 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 " Am I my brother's keeper ? " The question is 
 as old as the race. It is an outgrowth of pure selfish- 
 ness and is absolutely opposed to the spirit of the 
 Christian religion. 
 
 The Christian religion recognizes man's freedom 
 or power to do wrong if he chooses, but seeks to lead 
 him of his own free will to do right. When man 
 seeks to do right he is early met by the question of 
 responsibility. The very phrase " seeks to do right " 
 implies that he is choosing his way, and that he 
 thus voluntarily enters the network of relationships 
 involved in human life. If he were suddenly to quit 
 choosing, he would soon die of starvation, and his 
 further responsibility, as to this life at least, would 
 be canceled. His willful continuing to live is prima 
 facie evidence of his deliberate choice to enter upon 
 the responsibilities which human life entails; and 
 this voluntary living is the phase of life I am try- 
 ing to discuss here. 
 
 In the first place, then, the matter of responsi- 
 bility is at heart a personal one, because it is the in- 
 dividual person in each case whose will is essentially 
 free, making the assumption of responsibility not 
 only possible but inevitable as well. 
 
 It is because man is capable of higher things 
 than the brute can do that he finds responsibilities 
 attaching to his conduct not found in relation to 
 the actions of lower animals. As I have said once 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 5 1 
 
 before, the brute animal never gets drunk, because 
 he drinks to satisfy a physical need. He therefore 
 drinks the liquid which will satisfy thirst, and he 
 stops when his thirst has been quenched, since there 
 is no longer any motive to cause him to drink. But 
 man, besides having a physical thirst, which under 
 normal conditions cool water will satisfy, has a social 
 longing, a capacity for friendship and friendly com- 
 munion, which he proceeds to gratify — not satisfy. 
 Drunkards are social products. No animal was ever 
 a drinker of intoxicating liquor because of his own 
 unaided act. An animal can be outwitted by man 
 and made drunk, can even be induced to cultivate a 
 taste for intoxicants ; but this never happens to the 
 animal through his own nature. It happens to a 
 human being through the indulgence of a higher 
 capacity than the animal has, a capacity which is 
 thus seen to hold lower as well as higher possibilities. 
 The great difficulty lies in the fact that the motive 
 to action is largely social, but the real responsi- 
 bility rests with the individual human soul. We are 
 prone to shift the responsibility to the same province 
 in which we find our motives, and to charge upon 
 society our individual sins and failures. This tend- 
 ency to refer our sins to society is the essence of self- 
 ishness and is directly opposed to the Christian spirit. 
 Because life without companionship is mere exist- 
 ence, we insist on utilizing companionship, asserting 
 
152 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 at the same time that we are not our brother's keeper. 
 We thus profit by the advantages of society without 
 being wiUing to assume to the full the responsibilities 
 involved in such uses of social opportunities. 
 
 It is the glory of the human being that while his 
 temptations, as we have seen, come mainly from his 
 higher nature, his individual freedom and his power 
 of initiative are able, under the inspiration of the 
 Christian faith, to keep him unspotted from the world 
 while living in unrestricted companionship with 
 human kind in a social order far from perfect. It is 
 possible for him to meet at every turn the full meas- 
 ure of his responsibilities, and through his own initi- 
 ative to keep his conscience clear and his soul pure, 
 since no soul can be corrupted except by its own con- 
 sent. Resistance to temptation secures the double 
 recompense of purity of soul and growth of power 
 and character. 
 
 On the other hand, the selfishness which leads us 
 so easily to throw off obligations is closely related 
 to carelessness. Indeed, it seems to me that care- 
 lessness in regard to personal obligations is but a 
 passive form of selfishness, more persuasive than 
 direct selfishness because less obtrusive and less 
 repulsive in its outer aspects. In no way perhaps is 
 this elemental selfishness exhibited more commonly 
 than in our habitual carelessness in respect to the 
 influence of our daily life and example upon our 
 
SELF-REVELATION 1 5 3 
 
 companions. From the Christian point of view 
 nothing can be more important; and yet how few 
 of us have ever considered fully the nature of per- 
 sonal influence or the methods by which it reaches 
 others. Many seek to dominate others by force of 
 character or through what we call a " strong per- 
 sonality." Everywhere, by intention or by seeming 
 accident, this subtle force of personal influence 
 permeates all society, directing human action and 
 shaping human character. It is almost impossible 
 to catch, fix, and name this thing, which in action is 
 recognized as personal influence. Doubtless in a 
 last analysis it is character^ — what one really is; 
 but before this character can move one to imitation 
 or the opposite, it must become known to that other, 
 must indeed become a sort of idea or ideal, capa- 
 ble of inspiring action in the life of that other. One 
 who would influence another by his character must 
 not ovAy possess character, but he must succeed in 
 getting his character into the consciousness of others. 
 Character is dynamic only when it has transformed 
 itself into an ideal in the mind of some other person. 
 Then it causes action in the life of that other, — 
 action for which we are partly responsible because 
 we in our lives, that is, in our expression of our 
 character, have furnished the motive. I have said 
 partly responsible, for the receiving party is partly 
 responsible also for the way in which he has 
 
154 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 interpreted our character and wrought it into the 
 warp and woof of his own Hfe. I shall not try to fol- 
 low the subtleties of this analysis further at this time, 
 but rather content myself by showing how com- 
 pletely this personal influence enters into all social 
 contact and so becomes a shaping influence in all 
 life ; and by discussing some of the commonest 
 ways in which our characters — yours and mine — 
 enter into the lives of others ; that is, how character 
 gets into action, how it transforms itself from a 
 static something, to be enjoyed by one's self, into 
 something dynamic, compelling the attention of 
 others, and through this attention, growing into an 
 ideal which develops in the consciousness of that 
 other, soliciting and almost compelling imitation. 
 
 I disclaim here any discussion of the mysterious. 
 I am not talking about telepathy nor any of its kin- 
 dred theories. There may be a system of long-dis- 
 tance transmission of spiritual influence by a means 
 quite in advance of the wireless telegraph or the 
 wireless telephone. Indeed, I am quite inclined to 
 believe in such possibilities, but I am not now dis- 
 cussing them. When Jesus lived upon earth he 
 lived with the common people and used the common 
 means of communicating his thoughts and feelings 
 to others. It is true that the disciples had a loving 
 fancy that helpful influences came from his simple 
 person. The woman who touched but the hem of 
 
SELF-REVELATION 155 
 
 his garment believed that thus she should be made 
 whole. But Jesus explained fully the true nature of 
 the case when he said to her, " Thy faith hath 
 made thee whole." It was her conception of his 
 character, received through ordinary channels, and 
 her belief, that is, her own attitude to this knowl- 
 edge, which became the active influence in renovat- 
 ing her life. We shall find it always true that the 
 active force is the conception of our character which 
 has somehow got itself fastened into the conscious- 
 ness of the other person, whether this be a true 
 representation of our character or not. 
 
 All this makes the study of the methods of trans- 
 mission of this subtle but powerful force — personal 
 influence — so much more interesting and impor- 
 tant. You may rest assured that it all lies within 
 the easy range of the senses and such other powers 
 as are exercised on information gathered through 
 the senses. More than by all other ways, perhaps, 
 your character is manifested to others by what you 
 say in connected speech, — by speaking or writing, — 
 since it is in this way that you manifest most defi- 
 nitely and forcefully your thought, which, after all, 
 is doubtless the essence of your character. That 
 was no chance expression of Holy Writ, "As a man 
 thinketh in his heart, so is he." One's strong, defi- 
 nite, deliberate thought, touched with kindred emo- 
 tion, more than anything else gives force to his 
 
156 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 character; and its expression in connected speech 
 shows the essence of character better than any other 
 method. It is this vital connection of thought with 
 life as a very determining factor, and therefore its 
 close relation to character both as a formative factor 
 and as an exact indicator, that makes the expres- 
 sion of thought in language so sure a revealer of 
 character. 
 
 The most casual observation shows that language, 
 both spoken and written, but especially spoken lan- 
 guage, is greatly aided by incidental factors, more or 
 less intimately associated with language. So that, 
 besides what one really says as to his thoughts and 
 feelings, his intentions and determinations, he con- 
 stantly reveals the finer shades of his opinion by the 
 way he acts, by the tones of his voice, by gesture, by 
 the way he dresses, the way he walks, the way he 
 rises up and sits down, the way he comes in and 
 goes out, and by the minutest variations in these 
 manifold and varied activities. Every motion made 
 is a help to the complete revelation of self; and the 
 expert reader of character is simply he who has 
 learned to interpret rightly these multiform signs 
 which each of us is manifesting every moment of 
 his waking existence. While we are thus influenc- 
 ing others, we in turn are leaning upon the charac- 
 ter of others, and are being influenced both by the 
 traits we admire and imitate and by those we dislike 
 
SELF-REVELATION 157 
 
 and avoid. Each of us is an electric battery of influ- 
 ence, sending out along the lines of easy conduc- 
 tion the subtle influence which shapes the lives of 
 other people; but we are also living in a perfect 
 network of similar batteries, from which we are all 
 the while receiving formative influences that react 
 powerfully upon us and modify our own character 
 from moment to moment and from day to day. 
 
 I have already called attention to the fact that 
 the force which goes out from us to influence an- 
 other is not necessarily our character as it really is, 
 but rather that other's conception of what it is. In 
 reality, it is his own conception of us which he likes 
 or dislikes and hence imitates or avoids. It so hap- 
 pens, then, since different persons have different 
 means of knowing me, and since each one brings to 
 such knowledge his own bias or prejudice, no two 
 people have exactly the same conception of me. It 
 therefore results that my influence upon the lives 
 of different people is totally different as they have 
 gained differing conceptions of me. There are, there- 
 fore, as many different mes or selves as there are 
 people who know me or partially know me, and I 
 multiply my power for good or evil in the lives of 
 other people as I extend my acquaintance. You 
 are doubtless familiar with the experience of hav- 
 ing people give differing impressions of the same 
 person, depending on their opportunity of really 
 
158 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 knowing the person and on the bias of mind which 
 each brought to the interpretation of his character. 
 There is thus not merely one self for each of us, but 
 thousands of selves, as our thousands of acquaint- 
 ances have conceived our character; and each of 
 these selves is an active worker, forming to some 
 extent, however small, the final characters of those 
 who have known us. What they admire in us they 
 imitate, under the law of attraction, and so they 
 gradually become like us in those special ways. It 
 is the old story over again, of the little flower which 
 lived in a dell, from between the rugged sides of 
 which it could see but a small patch of blue sky by 
 day and a single star by night; and as it looked 
 upon the blue sky by day and the single star by 
 night and longed to be with them and like them, its 
 petals gradually grew to be blue and its heart turned 
 to gold. Whether or not this story tells the exact 
 process by which the bluebell came into existence, 
 it at least expresses the law of human evolution and 
 character growth. How heavy the responsibility of 
 each of us to see to it that our influence over others 
 is sane and wholesome ! 
 
 The influence that we exert over others divides 
 itself for our thought into two parts: (i) that which 
 we exert intentionally, of set purpose, and by selected 
 methods, and (2) the unconscious influence given out 
 by unintentional revelations of our character. 
 
SELF-REVELATION 159 
 
 The most conspicuous example of personal in- 
 fluence exerted intentionally is the work of the 
 teacher. So extensive is this theme and so profound 
 and far-reaching is its philosophy that great institu- 
 tions are created for the purpose of teaching this 
 philosophy, and years are spent in its acquisition. 
 The school itself as an institution exists for the pur- 
 pose of giving vitality to this outgoing of our per- 
 sonal influence. But each of us is also unconsciously 
 exerting this influence unintentionally. Two people 
 cannot meet in the most casual fashion without in- 
 fluencing each other to some degree. Though they 
 speak of nothing more exciting than the weather or 
 the state of the crops, or the tariff, both of them 
 acquire a new trend in life, however slight and brief 
 the change in direction may be. We are ourselves 
 often unaware of certain changes in our opinion, 
 beliefs, or hopes, and even when we recognize the 
 change we may be entirely unconscious of its source 
 and inspiration. 
 
 And now what is the lesson of it all for our prac- 
 tical living ? Just this in brief: Life is partly at least 
 what we choose to make it. Character is the chief 
 thing. Our human obligations are best met by en- 
 tering joyously and courageously into the community 
 life about us, and by keeping ourselves alert and 
 sensitive to the touch of the spirit. With Jesus 
 Christ as our ideal, and an active effort for the 
 
l6o EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 realization of this ideal in ourselves, there is little 
 danger that we shall fail to meet fairly the obligations 
 of the highest life. This full development of the sense 
 of responsibility brings with it a sense of perfection 
 in life that will tend to make us more just and more 
 charitable to others. Idealism in religious life will 
 give us the power to put ourselves in the place of 
 another, and thus to see things from the standpoint 
 of that other. This is the basis of all sympathy. 
 This is what enabled Jesus to enter so completely 
 into the lives of those about him, to understand 
 their motives, and to account for their actions. He 
 was able to see the difference between sin and a 
 sinner — to denounce a person's sin and at the same 
 time to love the sinner. It enabled him to see how 
 much alike all people are in fundamentals, and how 
 differences are often almost entirely in nonessentials. 
 The person without religious imagination is neces- 
 sarily narrow and bigoted in his beliefs. He cannot 
 see how things can properly occur to any one else 
 except in the precise way in which they have oc- 
 curred to him. His experience would set the law 
 for the experience of others. It is as if a resident of 
 Detroit should go to Chicago by way of the Michigan 
 Central Railway and straightway proclaim that the 
 only road leading into Chicago is by way of Detroit. 
 He might then instruct the residents of Cleveland 
 that if they wish to visit Chicago they must in some 
 
SELF-REVELATION i6i 
 
 way get to Detroit, from which point they will have 
 a plain way to their destination. With his narrow 
 experience of travel and without imagination he can- 
 not see the straight road from Cleveland to Chicago, 
 but must insist upon fastening his own limitations 
 upon every other traveler. This illustration is no 
 whit more ridiculous than others we might draw 
 from the religious experiences of many people. Be- 
 cause a man has been led to Christ through a form 
 or rite of some particular church, he sets up this 
 particular rite as a necessary means or step in the 
 religious experience of all Christians, instead of 
 seeing it in its true light merely as a special means 
 in his individual religious life, to be replaced in the 
 case of others by means as different from this as the 
 other person's individual characteristics and experi- 
 ences are different from his. 
 
 Sameness of destination does not mean sameness 
 of way, but rather such difference of way as the 
 starting points may make possible or desirable. 
 Persons who already live near the destination and 
 on the plain highway thereto must not judge too 
 harshly those who were born farther away, or amidst 
 obstructions which make the journey slow and pain- 
 ful. Complete self-revelation will sound the death 
 knell of religious bigotry. Already, ideal religious 
 cooperation begins to seem possible. Religious ideal- 
 ism is enabling us to put ourselves in the place of 
 
l62 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the other person, to see things from his angle of 
 vision, to infer his motives from his experiences, 
 and lastly to sympathize with him in his efforts in- 
 stead of judging him by his achievements. Its height 
 will be reached when we can pray for all sinners as 
 Jesus prayed for his persecutors, " Father, forgive 
 them, for their sins are largely the result of igno- 
 rance," — or, as Jesus said it, "they know not what 
 they do." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SELF-DIRECTION 
 
 The preceding chapter was mainly devoted to 
 the discussion of the growth of the human being 
 from the unconsciousness of infancy through self- 
 revelation to the self-consciousness of mature and 
 developed manhood and womanhood. 
 
 The process begins with the child in the mental 
 mastery of the objects about him, whether these be 
 things or persons. As he learns the attributes of 
 things or persons, the activities employed and the 
 gratification in the use of the knowledge acquired 
 are the natural means of awakening and developing 
 certain capacities of the soul, which previous to such 
 exercise were more or less latent. The growth into 
 self-consciousness through self-revelation, then, is 
 growth in the knowledge of things, a clearer notion 
 and a deeper appreciation of our own powers and 
 capacities, and a fuller insight into the ways in which 
 the things of the universe may be helpful in forward- 
 ing our life development. As a necessary part of 
 this growing or developing of the soul comes a 
 clearer and clearer distinction between the self as 
 a free, active power and the other things of the 
 
 universe which make up its environment. 
 
 163 
 
1 64 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 This distinction, vague at first, becomes clearer at 
 each access of knowledge and with each deeper 
 appreciation of one's capacities, till at last the self 
 becomes an individual, differing by its attributes 
 and capacities from all other things in the universe, 
 though sustaining numerous relations of likeness 
 with them all. This sense of individuality, this feel- 
 ing of selfhood, accompanied by a sense of power 
 and worth, is the evidence of true growth from im- 
 maturity toward maturity. It is in this way that 
 the child rounds himself " to a separate mind, from 
 whence clear memory may begin." The developing 
 memory, which goes hand in hand with all further 
 development of self-consciousness, serves to give 
 continuity to the feeling of personality, resulting in 
 a more decided feeling of selfhood. The student 
 thus comes to feel that he is a person with a history, 
 and he may now begin to conceive of a destiny. 
 
 It is clear that growth in self-consciousness is 
 never one isolated line of development; it is the 
 cause and accompaniment of other related lines of 
 development, all bound together by the complex 
 activities of the developing soul. The unity of the 
 soul as an entity or thing underneath its complex 
 activities, tends to keep all lines of development 
 properly related, though there is much left for 
 teachers to do in preserving the balance of the soul 
 activities which are intended as educative influences. 
 
SELF-DIRECTION 165 
 
 At first all special direction must come from with- 
 out, — from teachers, parents, and friends. But the 
 goal to be reached is self-direction. For this the 
 growth in self-consciousness constantly prepares 
 the way. With the distinction between one's self and 
 other things made clear to consciousness, and with 
 memory of the past that is known to be reliable, one 
 is ready naturally to contemplate his destiny. In a 
 semiconscious way this process begins with the 
 dawning of self-consciousness, but it lingers a little 
 in its growth, since it is dependent on memory and 
 imagination. 
 
 Both self-consciousness and self-direction are the 
 necessary outcome of self-activity, but self-direction 
 is a higher form of development than either of the 
 others. Self-direction cannot precede self-conscious- 
 ness, but it accompanies it, or follows so closely that 
 the difference of time is not appreciable. The order 
 is more a question of logic than of definite time. The 
 soul cannot direct itself till it has gained material out 
 of which to construct ideals or standards, — goals of 
 effort, however temporary or imperfect these may be. 
 To make right standards, a person's experience must 
 be liberal and his knowledge extensive. One must 
 be familiar with many provinces of human thought 
 and human experience. 
 
 We begin ideal-making as soon as we have ac- 
 quired a little knowledge and a few memories, but 
 
1 66 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the character of our ideals changes as our education 
 proceeds. The higher ways of culture imply the re- 
 combination of worthy knowledge and feeling into 
 various ideal forms under the guiding hand of pur- 
 pose. An ideal represents a state or condition or 
 purpose unrealized, but it does not follow that the 
 condition or plan or purpose is unrealizable. In fact 
 most ideals are realizable, at least in part. Progress 
 is but the successive realizations of what were at 
 first merely ideals. Boy hungry is a present con- 
 crete condition, it may be. Boy eating an apple or a 
 cooky is perhaps at present an ideal condition ; but 
 the chances are that what is now an ideal will within 
 a few minutes be fully realized, the very attractiveness 
 of the ideal having stimulated invention of ways and 
 means for its realization. Thus does the ideal become 
 a motive, — the only reliable appeal that can be made 
 to a self -active, self-conscious being. Such a being is 
 always by his nature setting goals, laying plans, form- 
 ing purposes. His own developed capacities urge him 
 on. The soul's own sense of worth when once aroused 
 makes it long for the realization of a higher self. 
 
 All plans, intentions, purposes, hopes, are but ideals 
 awaiting realization. All life of a high order is but 
 the realization of what was at first a dimly seen ideal 
 of some enthusiast. Ideals are essential to progress. 
 Great ideals lead to great achievements. Themisto- 
 cles could not sleep after he had seen the trophies in 
 
SELF-DIRECTION 167 
 
 the Ceramicus. Lofty aspirations and ardent long- 
 ings fired his imagination and urged him to prepa- 
 ration for heroic endeavor. The patriotic examples 
 of his countr)^men became his standard of conduct, 
 around which he gathered the halos of glory fur- 
 nished by his excited imagination. The longing for 
 like glory to theirs was a stronger motive force within 
 him than could be supplied by any power from with- 
 out. Thus self-activity and self-consciousness supply 
 the conditions for self-direction through the knowl- 
 edge and the susceptibilities which they furnish. 
 Self-consciousness and self-direction merely repre- 
 sent higher and higher forms of culture of the self- 
 active human soul. 
 
 The elements of material out of which ideals are 
 made, are precisely the knowledge (of attributes of 
 things) which the self-consciousness has mastered 
 and stored in the memory. As has already been 
 pointed out, ideal-making begins as soon as a few 
 ideas have been experienced and remembered ; but 
 it is only after a large experience with the facts of 
 the world of matter and with the incidents of social 
 companionship, that one has the materials for those 
 ideals of life and conduct which play such a conspic- 
 uous part in the higher culture of character. More- 
 over, the elements of our experience are seldom used 
 by us in the construction of ideals without first being 
 greatly altered. If a human being could image only 
 
1 68 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the past, he could not provide for self-culture beyond 
 the standards of the past ; but the mind has the na- 
 tive power to change its remembered ideas in many 
 ways. The power or capacity of the mind to make 
 those changes was once called imagination, as if it 
 were some separate part or power of the mind. Per- 
 haps the name may yet be applied to it, provided 
 care is taken to understand the nature of the proc- 
 ess thus named or described. The process is one 
 of mingled intellect, feeling, and volition, — just such 
 complexity as is everywhere seen in mind action, but 
 peculiar in the proportion of the various ingredients. 
 It is not necessary for our purpose here to analyze 
 sharply this process, but rather to note what is ac- 
 complished by the mind acting in the special form 
 spoken of as imagination. 
 
 Remembered ideas may, under appropriate circum- 
 stances, be recalled precisely as at first experienced. 
 Such recalling is commonly called recollecting ; and 
 the name memory is perhaps the most common name 
 by which such composite power as this implies is 
 known. For it must be noticed that there is here 
 much more than an ordinary matter of intellectual 
 action. There is also a revival of the feeling of value 
 which was set on the idea when first mastered, to- 
 gether with such longings of the soul as were inspired 
 by such values. Now, all these, as revived, are sub- 
 ject to changes of specific kinds. If the remembered 
 
SELF-DIRECTION 169 
 
 idea is from the material world, it may be changed 
 as to its color or form, its size, density, taste, odor, 
 or any other attribute or characteristic belonging to 
 it as an object. If it be a mental fact, such as a 
 thought or a feeling or a choice that is remembered, 
 it may be changed in its intensity or in its duration ; 
 it may be attributed to some other mind ; or it may 
 be changed in any other of thousands of possible 
 ways. These changes modify the original values set 
 upon these ideas, and they now in their new form 
 arouse a new set of longings. In fact, the remem- 
 bered and changed idea has become a totally new 
 factor in the mental life of the person. Thus the 
 future use of a remembered idea is quite dependent 
 on whether it is to be used in its original or its 
 idealized form. 
 
 A second possibility is of still greater significance 
 in the mental life, so far as the creation of new stand- 
 ards of life and conduct are concerned. For the 
 mind may now take any one of the many possible 
 idealized forms of an idea and use it with either 
 original or idealized forms of other ideas, to make a 
 new complex or composite idea or ideal. The result- 
 ing creation is entirely new, not only unlike any idea 
 that ever before existed, but unlike any of the ele- 
 ments of which it is made. The builder takes wood 
 and stones, bricks and mortar, iron and glass and 
 paint, and puts them into such relations to one 
 
I70 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 another that a house is created, — a thing utterly un- 
 like wood, or stones, or bricks, or mortar, or iron, or 
 glass, or paint. It is a new creation made out of these 
 other things, by using them in certain definite pro- 
 portions and relations. In fact, the architect's mind 
 had used the ideas of these same articles in an ideal 
 construction, resulting in an ideal house, even before 
 the builder could proceed to put the real articles into 
 the same relations and construct a real house. And 
 before the architect made any ideal combination of 
 these remembered ideas of his of wood and stones 
 and bricks and mortar and iron and glass and paint, 
 he changed these remembered ideas into dimensions 
 and relations unlike any forms in which these ideas 
 had previously existed in his mind. Otherwise he 
 would not have produced a new house. And should 
 he in the future use these same remembered ideas 
 again, changing but a single one of them in a single 
 particular, the result would be still another house 
 different in certain respects from the other. Thus 
 we see the limitless changes possible in so simple 
 a thing as an ideal of a house. 
 
 When we come to the construction of an ideal of 
 character or conduct, the process is infinitely more 
 complex and difficult. Yet it is precisely these ideals, 
 shaping the inner life and revolutionizing charac- 
 ter and conduct by the new longings and efforts 
 which they produce, that concern us so much in the 
 
SELF-DIRECTION 171 
 
 educational process, — especially the higher phase of 
 education in which the student is prepared to take 
 his place in human society as a self-governing, self- 
 directing, law-abiding member of his community. 
 
 Looking backward we see that however unlimited 
 the mind may be in changing its remembered ideas 
 preparatory to the creation of ideals, it is absolutely 
 dependent on experience for its materials. These 
 experiences are deepened and enriched by the self- 
 appreciation which they produce, even while the self 
 begins to aspire to be more than it is at a given 
 moment. Thus the self recalls, revamps, and recom- 
 bines its actual experiences as a means of opening 
 up possible or ideal experiences, which, luring one 
 on to realization, give precisely the new experiences 
 which the higher culture demands. In this way the 
 endless process of soul growth goes on. Education 
 is never static ; it is always a process, always a be- 
 coming; and the self, permanent as to its identity, 
 changes as to its condition and worth with each 
 passing experience. 
 
 A person's ideal, seemingly simple as it is, is rarely 
 obtained from one source or at one time. It is, in 
 reality, almost infinitely complex. For instance, our 
 ideal of beauty in human form is never a mere copy 
 of any one whom we have seen. Certain features, 
 especially pleasing, have been gathered from one 
 person, other features from another. Eyes and 
 
172 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 mouth may be taken from one, complexion from 
 another, form from still another. Probably none 
 of these is used until it has been idealized, that 
 is, changed to harmonize with our preferences. At 
 last, however, when each has been changed to suit 
 our existing standard of taste, all are worked over in 
 accordance with the laws of relative proportion into 
 a whole which satisfies our esthetic judgment. A 
 great artist, who is to paint an ideally beautiful 
 woman, doubtless has his artistic sense greatly stirred 
 by seeing beautiful women; but the final picture 
 which he produces is far from being a likeness of 
 any woman that he has ever seen. 
 
 A story is told by Vasari, in his work " The Lives 
 of Great Painters, Sculptors, and Architects," which 
 illustrates in a humorous but striking way the reli- 
 ance placed by imaginative minds upon real life and 
 experience for stimulation to the creative power. 
 The story concerns Leonardo da Vinci, who painted 
 his celebrated picture of the Last Supper on the 
 wall of the little refectory of the convent of Sta. 
 Maria Delle Grazie, at Milan. It seems that the 
 Duke of Milan had engaged the artist to decorate 
 the walls of this room, without stipulating as to what 
 he should choose as decorative material or as to the 
 length of time he should devote to the work. When 
 Leonardo was seized with the desire to represent 
 adequately the great theme presented by the Last 
 
SELF-DIRECTION 173 
 
 Supper, he examined diligently the Biblical account, 
 supplementing this by a study of such tradition as 
 had been handed down with reference to the event. 
 He also made careful studies of the character of 
 each person he was to portray; for while each face 
 was of course necessarily ideal, he desired to have it 
 express as well as it might the prominent character- 
 istics of the person represented. He painted the 
 picture over and over, erasing at times all of it and at 
 other times such parts as failed to satisfy his exact- 
 ing standard. In order to stir his creative powers 
 he often spent whole days mingling with the people 
 in public places, getting suggestions from faces 
 which he saw there. In many cases, after such a day 
 spent in the study of faces, he was able to complete 
 one or another of the figures about the table. At 
 last only two faces remained incomplete, — Judas 
 Iscariot's and the Master's. Again there was a long 
 delay. The painter would sit by the hour looking 
 intently at his picture; then, suddenly seizing his 
 hat, he would rush to the street and peer into the 
 faces of the passing throng. 
 
 Now it happened that the old prior who had 
 charge of that part of the convent could not under- 
 stand these delays. He was merely eager to see the 
 walls properly decorated. His easily satisfied stand- 
 ard of taste would have been fully met by any one 
 of the half dozen attempts that had been destroyed 
 
174 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 by the artist after they had neared completion. Be- 
 sides, the prior wished to use the refectory, and he 
 thought the painter might as well finish his work 
 and allow the room to be refurnished for use. So he 
 reported to the duke how things were going and 
 asked that the duke would urge Leonardo to com- 
 plete his work, adding that, so far as he could see, 
 the work was practically finished already; but that 
 if that madman were left to himself he would prob- 
 ably destroy it all and begin over again, as he had 
 often done before. The prior went on to complain 
 that the artist did not work half of his time ; that he 
 often sat for the space of an hour without lifting his 
 brush ; that he acted strangely upon the street, peer- 
 ing into the faces of passers-by until he had pro- 
 voked comment. He ended by expressing the idea 
 that the crazy fellow was not fit to be intrusted 
 further with the work. 
 
 The duke, seeing that the prior had no real com- 
 prehension of the situation, determined to have some 
 enjoyment from the misunderstanding, so he called 
 the great painter to task in regard to the progress 
 of his labors, and contrived to have the prior present 
 during the interview. The duke told Leonardo in 
 the presence of the prior what the latter had said, 
 and asked what defense the artist had to offer. After 
 due consideration, and several glances at the guilty 
 prior, Leonardo said that for the most part the 
 
SELF-DIRECTION 175 
 
 complaints were well founded. The work had pro- 
 gressed slowly for many reasons. In the first place, he 
 had been unable to satisfy himself as to the grouping 
 of the figures involved in the Last Supper. Further- 
 more, he had found great difiiculty in getting his 
 mind to work freely in devising appropriate expres- 
 sions on the different faces of the apostles so as to 
 indicate in each case the fundamental traits of char- 
 acter. He said that in many cases he had been 
 obliged to study a large variety of human faces be- 
 fore he could find sufficient suggestion for his work. 
 But now, happily, all were done, with the exception 
 of two, — Judas Iscariot and the Master. He had 
 been unable to find anywhere a face suggesting the 
 degree of evil and treachery which he desired to 
 express in the face of Judas Iscariot; but now that 
 he had been enabled to study the face of the old 
 prior, he believed that part of his difficulty was re- 
 moved and he should be ready to work rapidly, for if 
 he did not soon satisfy himself elsewhere, he could at 
 least use the face of the prior for that of Judas. He 
 added that he scarcely hoped to find any human 
 face that could suggest the ineffable grace and beauty 
 he desired to depict in the face of Jesus ; and there 
 are art critics to-day who aver that the face of the 
 Master was never quite completed. 
 
 However interesting the methods by which great 
 artists obtain the material for their ideals, and the 
 
176 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 ways in which they are influenced by their own 
 ideal creations, we are here more concerned with 
 the influence of ideals upon the common life of the 
 common people. Of all the forms of this influence 
 the teacher is most concerned with the right de- 
 velopment of those ideals which act as motives to- 
 ward the control and direction of conduct. Here 
 as elsewhere each person is dependent on experi- 
 ence for his material for a beginning. The student's 
 acquaintance with the world of matter — with the 
 attributes of material objects — furnishes his mind 
 with analogies with which to represent in creative 
 concrete form many inner experiences which no 
 language yet invented can directly express. Never- 
 theless, transformation or idealization of these ex- 
 periences gives even fuller opportunity for expression 
 of spiritual ideas. Besides, one gets directly from 
 other people the suggestions which enable the mind 
 to transform and use the millions of spiritual ideas 
 represented in common daily life. One person sees 
 another perform a common act of kindness, and 
 already the creative mind has suggested acts of 
 kindness a thousandfold more kind. A friend per- 
 forms an act of heroism, but the mind outruns the 
 fact and is suddenly conscious of higher and higher 
 degrees of heroism. So throughout the whole cate- 
 gory of existence: experience furnishes the bare 
 suggestion in the form of a fact, but the creative 
 
SELF-DIRECTION 177 
 
 function of mind has already leaped beyond the 
 bounds of the actual, and the urging of the ideal 
 over the real keeps us full of a divine discontent 
 with our present poor attainments. The creative 
 power, which thus transforms the actual into the 
 attractive possible, delights in enhancement. What- 
 ever now is, might be in higher degree and in greater 
 glory. On the other hand, the low and the bad sug- 
 gest lower depths of vice and misery. Everywhere 
 there is enhancement, — the province of the possible. 
 In these exaggerated forms of good and evil our 
 ideals have large influence in shaping our conduct. 
 They enchain our attention and rouse our spirits to 
 action, by which we rise or fall in the scale of being. 
 If we follow noble ideals, albeit afar off, some of the 
 effulgent glow interfuses itself with our experiences. 
 Before we have fully realized our allegiance to the 
 shining ideal, we have already begun to grow like it. 
 Human nature is such that the individual naturally 
 tends to become like what he sees oftenest and 
 admires most. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SELF-REALIZATION 
 
 The process by which a self-active being, that is, 
 a person, enlarges his experience (becomes self-con- 
 scious, — receives his self-revelation) until he is ca- 
 pable of directing his life toward worthy ends, and 
 is disposed to make the most of his opportunities 
 (in other words, becomes self-directive), is properly 
 called self-realization. This means the making actual 
 what was possible in the very nature of the individual. 
 
 The laws which govern this transforming process 
 are the principles of method in education. The 
 studies which we have thus far made of the human 
 being, whose essence is self-activity capable of be- 
 ing transformed by education into self-consciousness 
 and self-direction, show man to be a perfectible be- 
 ing. The nature of man, therefore, hints at his des- 
 tiny. When this destiny is once seen as perfection, 
 it is compelling in its nature, and it somehow sets 
 itself up in our half-conscious thought as the aim of 
 education, however vague its meaning may still be 
 to us. It soon makes more or less clear its inclusive- 
 ness, till we see, at least dimly, that all the thousands 
 
 of subsidiary, subordinate, and temporary aims, so 
 
 178 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 179 
 
 far as they are worthy, marshal themselves in due 
 order and relation within its scope, and the limits to 
 which each subordinate aim should be subjected, be- 
 gin to be rightly manifested. It also makes clear 
 to us how completely the method of education is 
 dominated by the aim of the process, and how thor- 
 oughly the aim of education is involved in, deter- 
 mined by, and limited through the essential nature 
 and the consequent possibilities of the being to be 
 educated. The perfection referred to here is no 
 more a static thing than is the process of education 
 itself. Perfection is merely the " highest attainable 
 degree of excellence," — a condition of a person 
 which is as changeable as environment itself. The 
 self is permanent only as to its identity, but change- 
 able as to its condition, following in this respect an 
 always receding ideal. Our ideal of perfection itself 
 is subject to constant improvement. It is because 
 this ideal is movable that we are permitted to speak 
 of such an idea as " perfection." 
 
 This chapter on self-realization therefore properly 
 resolves itself into a discussion of the aims of edu- 
 cation and the methods of education, as these are 
 indicated by the nature of the educable being, and 
 by the environing conditions under which such edu- 
 cation must be carried on. The very meager previous 
 discussion of the characteristics of human nature will 
 make frequent back reference and some repetition 
 
i8o EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 necessary. In the narrow limits set for the discus- 
 sion it is the writer's intention to make the whole 
 suggestive rather than exhaustive and formal. 
 
 In the early stages, as we have seen, the child 
 is unconscious, moved by outside forces resulting 
 in reflex activities. Soon, dawning consciousness ar- 
 rives, and semiconsciousness gives a narrow range 
 to interests which rouse self -activity. New interests 
 follow the development of innate but hitherto unfelt 
 capacities. With enlarged experience and remem- 
 bered knowledge from many fields, the child ac- 
 quires a many-sided interest, or rather a great 
 diversity of interests. He is pulled this way and 
 that by these sometimes conflicting interests, thus 
 exhibiting the volatile characteristics of immature 
 persons. With widening self-consciousness (that is, 
 knowledge of the self and the world in relation to 
 each other) and ripening judgment, discrimination 
 among these interests leads to a more enlightened 
 view and a more consistent and unrestricted line of 
 daily living; until, as he approaches maturity, he 
 unifies this great variety of interests into a more 
 or less clear and consistent ideal of life or guide to 
 conduct. It is evidence of a high grade of culture 
 when one becomes so dominated by a worthy, well- 
 unified ideal that one leads a consistent, ener- 
 getic, and well-ordered life. Most persons are merely 
 dominated in succession by things which appeal 
 
SELF-REALIZATION i8i 
 
 temporarily to them with great intensity; or they 
 fall into steady or consistent conduct on a low level 
 of worth or worthiness. 
 
 There is no doubt that any education which seeks 
 to fit for helpful, hopeful living must balance one's 
 powers, enlarge and enrich one's experience, and 
 thus develop large, sane, hopeful views of life and the 
 world. The individual then finds it possible in the 
 course of his own development to unify all this 
 varied and rich experience into ideals which shall 
 act as powerful and ennobling motives, resulting in 
 purposeful action and achieving further self-develop- 
 ment or self-realization. Any teacher who wishes 
 his work to be of permanent value must pursue that 
 work in view of the way in which the human being 
 naturally grows into the appreciation of his own 
 powers and his own destiny. One who wishes, then, 
 to continue in useful activities in any calling or 
 profession, must find in his experience some great 
 steadying body of knowledge, resulting in a serene 
 belief in the worthiness of his cause and a profound 
 faith in the beneficence of human life. Then he will 
 form ideals of life and conduct which will energize 
 his powers and worthily direct his actions. In such 
 way he becomes a sane, vigorous, helpful worker, 
 whose vocation is a further means of self-develop- 
 ment to him, and will be a beneficence to all about 
 him. For work is never successful in its higher 
 
l82 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 aspects unless it arise from the inspiration of great 
 beliefs. Indeed, the results of one's work are already 
 predetermined by the belief one holds about the dig- 
 nity or value or need of such work. One's nerves 
 and muscles are readily palsied by indifference or 
 strengthened by enthusiasm. In fact, everywhere, 
 one's point of view gives form to one's ideal. " Is a 
 mile much } " asked a boy of his father. " That de- 
 pends," said the father, " on circumstances. If one 
 is riding in a sixty-horse-power automobile, a mile 
 is a short distance; but if it is the last mile of a 
 Marathon race that is under consideration, it is 
 much longer." 
 
 Sometimes there is a moral significance involved 
 in the point of view. Diogenes was sitting in his 
 traditional tub, eating his frugal meal of boiled cab- 
 bage, when one of the king's courtiers with his suite 
 of followers came by his domicile. " O my friend 
 Aristippus ! " said Diogenes, " if thou hadst learned 
 to live on cabbage, thou wouldst not have to flatter 
 kings." " O my friend Diogenes ! " replied Aristip- 
 pus, " if thou hadst learned to flatter kings, thou 
 wouldst not have to live on cabbage." It is a differ- 
 ence of point of view. I have already said that true 
 ideals of education will always be found to be identi- 
 fied with true ideals of life. When a man has to 
 some extent determined on the purpose of life, — 
 what he shall live for and what it is possible for him 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 183 
 
 to accomplish, — it will appear certain to him that 
 he must be educated for efficiency in such living. 
 Doubtless it was some such thing as this that Her- 
 bert Spencer meant when he enunciated, in that 
 notable definition of his, that one must be educated 
 for complete living. Life is so diversified in its aims, 
 achievements, and possibilities, that its purpose al- 
 most defies inclosure in definition ; so it is with the 
 purpose of education. One may speak here in glit- 
 tering generalities, but seldom with accuracy and 
 precision. Happily, since definitions of ideals are 
 chiefly for inspiration, one can do much in this direc- 
 tion without being compelled to strive for absolute 
 accuracy. It is, I think, unquestionable that final 
 or ultimate aspects of human life must be founded 
 on human possibilities, — that is, life shall mean all 
 that it is possible for man to achieve for himself. 
 This implies full knowledge of all the powers and 
 capabilities of man, — not man as at present de- 
 veloped, but man as he may be when he has run the 
 full course which God through evolution has planned 
 for him. And so education should follow the same 
 trend, and should in a way prepare for achieving life 
 to the limit in any age or stage of development. 
 
 In the case of the individual being, one must re- 
 gard the limitations of the stage of development and 
 other facts of present environment. So in education, 
 our efforts must turn to what is possible as well 
 
1 84 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 as to what is desirable. Long and patient study of 
 man's nature, physical, mental, and spiritual, will 
 eventually point, even if somewhat vaguely, to the 
 realization of the marvelous issues of his possibili- 
 ties ; and vague as is such evidence, it will serve as 
 one point in a long line of perspective which shall 
 help to show the trend of movement by which man 
 has advanced and is advancing and may advance to- 
 ward perfection. To have thus the ultimate ideal of 
 human perfection as the aim of education, vitalizes 
 effort, develops enthusiasm, and shows the general 
 direction of educational effort, though it be granted 
 that much desirable definition is lacking. 
 
 Such ideals are necessary to give general direction 
 to effort, but it must be admitted that ultimate or 
 final ends in education, as in life itself, are not usually 
 effective or definitely impressive to young students 
 or to average teachers. Therefore, subordinate or 
 intermediate aims must be set up. These subordi- 
 nate aims are like stakes set up between the observer 
 and a far-off goal to show the direction of immediate 
 movement. It is evident that one could not know 
 where to set up the near-by stakes unless the goal 
 had been first fairly well established. And, given the 
 goal, there is still needed a full survey of the inter- 
 mediate territory before the best avenue of immedi- 
 ate advance can be known. These subordinate ideals 
 are way stations, so near to the point of starting, in 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 185 
 
 many instances, that the journey there seems easy ; 
 yet they are so situated that the distance covered is 
 in the right hne toward the goal, and not in some 
 other direction. Subordinate aims, to be effective, 
 must be easily and almost immediately realizable ; 
 which is but another way of saying that the next 
 way station must be in full sight from the starting 
 point. But such a way station may readily be regarded 
 as a terminal point by the easily satisfied passengers ; 
 and students need to be guarded against thinking of 
 subordinate ends as ultimate ideals. These way sta- 
 tions must be seen for what they really are, namely, 
 temporary landing stages, incident to the onward 
 movement toward finalities, — toward the highest 
 and best. 
 
 We come now to the question, What is this highest 
 and best in life and in education toward which all 
 effort must be directed ? Frankly, no one yet knows 
 fully. So long as there is uncertainty here, all sur- 
 veys of the intermediate ground will be full of con- 
 flict and doubt, — that is, they will be more or less 
 tentative. But, fortunately for education, much new 
 knowledge about finalities in this province is being 
 discovered, and soon we shall have a unity of belief, 
 if not an entire agreement, as to the exact location 
 and nature of the ultimate ideal ; or at least a prac- 
 tical agreement as to the general direction in which 
 education must move in order to reach perfection as 
 
l86 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 its goal. We are doubtless now in no worse condi- 
 tion in this respect as to education than were the 
 great explorers in regard to the poles of the earth. 
 Until lately no one had reached either pole, yet the 
 exact location and true nature of both were fairly 
 well known. There is little difficulty in determining 
 the general direction which must be taken by the 
 explorers, but there is still infinite discussion of 
 detail as to routes and resting places for surveying 
 parties. Explorers know fairly well where they wish 
 to go, but they seem to be involved in more or less 
 confusion during the journey. So modern research 
 in psychology, philosophy, social economy, and other 
 related studies have fairly well located the final ideal 
 of education in the perfection of the individual, elu- 
 sive and mystifying as this term remains. 
 
 Individual perfection does not necessarily mean 
 individualism ; for the highest good of the individual 
 can be achieved, not in seclusion, but in social and 
 cooperative activities. It is fully within human nature 
 to be social, or even to be sociable; but no society 
 can rise higher in its ideals or results than is made 
 possible by the character and training of the indi- 
 vidual units of which it is made up. The coopera- 
 tive principle which underlies society is a marvelous 
 force for multiplying and magnifying the good in the 
 individual ; and this principle itself, being grounded 
 in human nature, is involved in human culture. So 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 187 
 
 the best test yet discovered by which the interme- 
 diate and temporary standards of education may be 
 examined is the standard of the greatest good to the 
 individual as a moral person. This standard is still 
 maintained, too, in its essentials, if we say the great- 
 est good to the greatest number of individuals ; but 
 it must be always the good or the perfection of the 
 individual. There is nothing else worth perfecting. 
 I am sure that future study and discovery will not 
 necessitate the setting up of a different standard 
 from this individual good or perfection, but I feel 
 that future discovery will fill these terms with 
 greater significance and outline their meaning with 
 more definiteness. 
 
 We have here, then, an ideal of education suffi- 
 ciently definite to direct present action, and suffi- 
 ciently comprehensive to include all the variables 
 involved in human development for all time. This 
 is the final standard by which to judge all educa- 
 tional work, — its practices, schemes, and suggestions. 
 In every case, while trying to achieve immediate edu- 
 cational aims, nothing must be done or permitted 
 which will tend to dwarf the original powers of the 
 child, or retard or pervert in any way his final achieve- 
 ment of the highest which his nature and environ- 
 ment make possible for him. In everyday, practical 
 life many things that we are compelled to do for the 
 gratification of immediate needs are in themselves or 
 
l88 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 their results stultifying to our higher powers and de- 
 structive to our highest possibilities. These are the 
 limitations of environment in practical life placed on 
 our perfectible human nature. This retardation may 
 come from the obstruction of our powers by neces- 
 sary but monotonous routine; sometimes, however, 
 and perhaps more frequently, from the gradual lower- 
 ing of our ideals of life by the common, possibly the 
 brutalizing details of daily living. The boy who found 
 a silver dollar in the dust at his feet never saw the 
 stars again, but rested in the hope of greater suc- 
 cess on the lower plane thus emphasized in his life. 
 It is important to note that striving for the highest 
 personal or individual good is never of the nature of 
 selfishness, but is always altruistic in character. That 
 such action results in the highest good to the indi- 
 vidual actor, who, for the moment, has forgotten 
 selfish ends, is also within human nature, and is a 
 part of its natural development. The old theory that 
 all human motives are grounded in selfishness has 
 persisted so long only because, in the course of the 
 argument, two separate meanings are fitted into the 
 middle term "selfishness." The English language 
 needs another adjective which, while it shall express 
 the personal element indicated by the adjective 
 selfish^ shall have none of the exclusiveness of that 
 word. All this will become clearer in the years to 
 come, when the psychologist and the philosopher 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 189 
 
 shall have found out more about the nature of man 
 and the possibilities for development by individual 
 effort and social cooperation ; and so the moral and 
 spiritual standards of man's life will be more and 
 more definitely named. 
 
 Education must seek to realize such an ideal for 
 every person in every community. But our busy 
 workaday world is concerned with practical results 
 and intermediate standards, and only the few see 
 fully the importance of ultimate standards. In the 
 meantime, it is our business to help to the realization 
 of these more immediate ideals, all the while trying, 
 however, to realize them in such a way as shall still 
 leave open the pathway for each individual to seek 
 his own higher interests when opportunity shall offer. 
 And above all, it should be the office of those of us 
 who have set apart our time for such study, to pre- 
 vent wrong standards from being set up at inter- 
 mediate stations, always insisting that immediate 
 standards, even while made prominent, should mark 
 some progress on the right way. Wrong standards 
 not only lead to activities that do not educate rightly, 
 but prevent activities toward other and better ideals. 
 Many immediate ideals may be right in themselves, 
 but if realized, they tend to make us forget that there 
 is anything higher or farther on. It is the teacher's 
 office to keep the public reminded of the larger hope 
 and the truer aim. 
 
I90 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 I have already suggested that ultimate ideals are 
 not so immediately effective as are some less com- 
 plete but more immediate ones. Their function is 
 rather to form a general basis on which to build all 
 minor theories ; to furnish the ground for growth of 
 conviction and an undying belief; to create a great 
 faith which shall slowly but surely guide all action. 
 The belief in the perfectibility of man and the essen- 
 tial nobleness of his nature tends to keep one's mind 
 serene in the midst of the necessary irritations of 
 one's daily teaching. It is this that makes one un- 
 willing to give way too easily to less noble ends and 
 less exacting standards of work. But one must ana- 
 lyze the great ideal into its elements and seek to 
 realize these smaller aims in due course, so that 
 each effort in itself shall tend in the right direction, 
 and cooperating with all others, help in the end to 
 the realization of the highest. The course of study, 
 as planned for the various grades of a school system, 
 is such an attempt to analyze the great ideal into its 
 components, and to select and arrange in due order 
 of immediateness those ideas of human experience 
 which, when mastered, constitute the process of 
 education. 
 
 Such an analysis proceeds until the veriest minu- 
 tiae are specified and the exact order of progress is 
 indicated ; until the first-grade teacher is furnished 
 with hundreds of immediate problems, whose mastery 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 191 
 
 by the pupils will constitute the realization of many 
 immediate and subordinate ideals. Nor does the 
 primary teacher always consciously think out the 
 realization of these minor ideals for the little child. 
 It is enough that the great ideal has produced 
 in her an abiding faith in all higher things, and 
 has set the whole machinery of her mind and na- 
 ture in time and tune with the higher harmonies. 
 Then she will unconsciously put into the smallest 
 act of teaching the quality that makes it of infinite 
 worth. With such a teacher the problem of two 
 times two takes on something of the character of 
 the eternal verities, akin to the laws by which the 
 stars move in their courses. It is when the primary 
 teacher has no such clear conception of ultimate aims, 
 and no such abiding faith in the highest destiny of 
 her pupils, that she rests in these preliminary ideals 
 and descends to unworthy methods in teaching the 
 multitudinous details of her daily program. It is 
 when the teacher has no such vision that she finds 
 her work drudgery, and makes learning a weariness 
 of the flesh for her pupils. 
 
 After this general outline of the relation of self- 
 realization to the preceding ideas of self-activity, 
 self-revelation, and self-direction, it is proper to enter 
 into a closer and more logical analysis of the theme. 
 It is evident that the first steps of self-realization 
 have to do with the home and school life of the 
 
192 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 child. What the early stages of self-realization shall 
 be, therefore, are conditioned not alone by the 
 nature of the child, but also by the character of 
 the home of the child and the school in which he 
 receives his early formal education. We are here 
 especially concerned with the school ; but the char- 
 acter of the school is largely determined by the 
 ideals or aims of education held by the teachers and 
 by the methods which they employ in their work. 
 This makes it apparent that at this point of the 
 discussion it is necessary to enter into a careful 
 analysis of educational aims and of the various 
 methods of using the subjects of study, which be- 
 come in this way the means by which the teacher 
 realizes the aims which he holds, and thus furthers 
 or retards the self-development of the pupil. 
 
 In this analysis the attempt will be made to ex- 
 plain how the various so-called immediate aims may 
 be unified into one aim by higher and higher gen- 
 eralization ; and further, there will be an attempt to 
 show that each branch of subject matter studied in 
 school has a special function which no other subject 
 is so well fitted to serve, in the self-realization of 
 the pupil, though it is not intended to make this 
 phase of the subject a matter of prolonged discus- 
 sion. This suggestion of the special culture value 
 of each subject of study does not have any refer- 
 ence to the old-time view of psychology, in which 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 193 
 
 the mind was considered as made up of so-called 
 faculties. This will all be kept clear in the mind of 
 the reader by a reference to the chapter on The 
 Point of View. 
 
 I have already spoken tentatively of the final or 
 ultimate aim of education for any individual as the 
 achievement of the highest good or his personal per- 
 fection^ well realizing at the time the vagueness of 
 these terms. I have also said that such statement 
 of an educational ideal has in it little of inspiration 
 to the average student or teacher; and that only 
 when it is interpreted in its details, that is, in the 
 subordinate ideals or elements of which it is made 
 up, does it become effective in actual learning or 
 teaching. It seems appropriate here, therefore, to 
 attempt a detailed analysis of the final educational 
 ideal proposed in these pages, in order to show its 
 practical application to daily teaching. If such an- 
 alysis shall be in any degree successful, the ideal 
 thus developed will then not only serve as a great 
 steadying principle, but will be seen to permeate 
 all education, giving significance to many details 
 of daily teaching, which without such view become 
 monotonous and unmeaning drudgery. 
 
 It must, however, be remembered that this prob- 
 lem of finding a working aim of education as a pre- 
 liminary condition to the determination of courses 
 of study and methods of teaching is as old as 
 
194 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 human history. It has been present consciously or 
 unconsciously in all study of human progress, espe- 
 cially human progress as affected by the idea of the 
 school in any form as a means of human advance- 
 ment. One must have special reason, therefore, for 
 attempting again the solution of a problem which 
 has hitherto baffled honest, earnest, and capable 
 thinkers. This reason seems to me to be presented 
 now in the marvelous development, in very recent 
 years, of new and special phases of educational doc- 
 trine and practice brought about by enthusiasts in 
 special lines of educational endeavor. The well- 
 known dissatisfaction with old aims and methods, 
 and the evident educational unrest in all depart- 
 ments of teaching, have given rise to an infinite 
 variety of new aims and new practices. These are 
 urged forward by enthusiasts, whose view is clear 
 and intense if sometimes narrow in range and un- 
 fortunate in form of expression; but the very 
 enthusiasms possible to such limited and intense 
 view have led to a fuller understanding of many of 
 the new aims and methods. Consequently the stu- 
 dent of to-day has before him a wealth of material 
 which makes possible for the first time in the his- 
 tory of education a systematic comparative study of 
 aims and practices. It has seemed to the writer, 
 therefore, that there is now good reason for the 
 making of a detailed analysis of these one-sided 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 195 
 
 claims, to the end that the good in each may to 
 some extent be correlated with what is of permanent 
 value in all others. In this way, it is believed, there 
 may be made to appear gradually the elements 
 which, rightly unified, may be capable of expression 
 as a final organic aim of education. Such analysis, 
 even if it should not result in a final condensed 
 statement of a final aim (or the final aim), will at 
 least form a basis for inquiring into the functions of 
 the various branches of learning in the formal edu- 
 cation of the individual. And this study, in turn, 
 will lay a sure foundation for the methods of culture 
 leading to the right growth and development of a 
 human being. 
 
 It is the purpose of the writer, therefore, to con- 
 sider somewhat the various definitions which have 
 been given by the great students of education, and 
 to make such analysis and interpretation of these 
 as shall tend to reveal their inner meaning and to 
 show their proper relation to the question of public 
 education. The test to be applied in each case is 
 the perfection or highest and truest development of 
 the individual to be educated. This perfection, how- 
 ever, is not intended to be any selfish development 
 of a person as a recluse, but the development of 
 each person as an individual element of that social 
 whole, participation in the organic activities of which 
 alone makes possible complete individual human 
 
196 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 development. And if at first there be some vague- 
 ness in the test itself, the meaning and range of the 
 term " human development " may become clearer as 
 the discussion proceeds. 
 
 It is manifest that to get at the real spirit of such 
 inquiry one must examine not only those formal 
 statements called definitions, but also those inci- 
 dental statements in which educators have sug- 
 gested, in a less formal way, their beliefs and 
 practices, so that one may get at the very heart 
 of the question regardless of the formal rhetorical 
 and logical laws governing the forming and state- 
 ment of definitions. 
 
 It may be an easy beginning in this matter if we 
 examine a little more fully and definitely the funda- 
 mental idea on which the entire discussion is based. 
 It has been assumed that self-activity is the primal 
 and fundamental characteristic of the human being 
 as distinguished from objects of the material world 
 about us. Education as growth or development, 
 then, has special reference to changes which may 
 be induced in such being through his own effort. 
 A self-active being is subject to appeal from 
 motives; and while the human being is immature, 
 this motive may be supplied from the outside. But 
 presently the self creates its own motives and be- 
 comes self-directive. This is a movement in growth 
 or development. While the direction of this growth 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 197 
 
 is somewhat dependent on the nature of the motive 
 supplied (environment), particularly in youth, yet it 
 is clearly limited to what is possible for a being so 
 constituted. Whatever possibilities lie in a being 
 may be developed through proper influences; but 
 no result in perfection of any kind can be attained 
 which is not implied in the original nature of the 
 being. This simply means that growth or develop- 
 ment toward perfection is possible only in so far as 
 this growth or development or perfection is poten- 
 tially in the being at birth. Education does not 
 change the nature of the being, but only makes 
 the best of what is already in germ (that is, pos- 
 sible) in the being at birth. And when the human 
 being has become partly self-directive he always 
 seeks to change his environment when it is not 
 already satisfactory, enabling him the better to give 
 development to other potentialities of his nature 
 not hitherto reached and moved into growth by mo- 
 tives and agencies already existing. This tendency 
 accounts for the creation of institutions, and inci- 
 dentally of the school, as a special agency, for the 
 cultivation of the youth of the nation. 
 
 The great fact that the results of education are 
 limited by the nature of the being to be educated 
 is of grave importance in determining the trend and 
 the methods of education, and is sufficient reason for 
 the study of psychology by all prospective teachers. 
 
198 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 It also shows that the aim of education, in order to 
 be helpful in determining methods of teaching, must 
 be in accordance with the nature of the being to be 
 educated. In so far as this statement (or definition) 
 of the aim can be made to expose or explain the 
 nature of the being, and in so far as it can be made 
 to show what this nature may grow into when edu- 
 cated rightly, it will become more and more helpful 
 in determining methods of education. 
 
 For the reasons given above one finds various 
 forms of statement for the aim of education by dif- 
 ferent writers, as one strives either for conciseness 
 of logical statement (definition) or for helpful and 
 inspiring statement of the ideal involved. In the lat- 
 ter case the form becomes loose and complicated, 
 approaching description rather than definition in 
 its strict sense. 
 
 The writer presents herewith eight different forms 
 of the definition of the aim of education as used 
 in these pages, varying from the form of logical 
 and universal definition through varying degrees 
 of complexity to full expositions of the meaning of 
 human nature. 
 
 The following eight definitions, therefore, are 
 merely different forms of statement for the same 
 content or meaning, the form of statement alone 
 being changed. 
 
 I. The true aim of education is human perfection. 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 199 
 
 2. The true aim of education is the perfection of 
 the individual human being. 
 
 3. The true aim of education is to bring to perfec- 
 tion all the capacities for good inherent in each 
 individual human being. 
 
 4. The true aim of education is to develop into 
 the greatest possible efficiency the innate capacities 
 of the human being. 
 
 5. The true aim of education is to develop the 
 self-activity of the immature human being into self- 
 consciousness and self-direction, with self-perfection 
 or self-realization as the standard. 
 
 6. The true aim of education is the transform- 
 ing of the self-active, irresponsible, immature human 
 being into a responsible, self-directive person. 
 
 7. The true aim of education is to develop the 
 self-activity of the individual into its higher correla- 
 tives of self-consciousness and self-direction by proc- 
 esses controlled by correct ideals of self-perfection. 
 
 8. The true aim of education is to cause the 
 self-active, immature individual to enlarge and enrich 
 his experience till he becomes capable of directing 
 his own conduct and disposed to make the most 
 of his opportunities. 
 
 The first of these definitions, "The true aim of 
 education is human perfection," is universal in form. 
 It does not attempt an explanation of its own mean- 
 ing. It has the correct logical form ; that is, it places 
 
200 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the thing to be defined in a suitable genus (perfec- 
 tion) and then expresses the special limitations of 
 the species by an adjective (human). " Perfection " 
 is a condition arrived at through progressive de- 
 velopment of something capable of progress toward 
 greater worth. The word "human" expresses the 
 essence of the being capable of education. The right 
 interpretation and expression of the full meaning of 
 these two concepts ("perfection" and "human") would 
 be a complete theory of education and would require 
 a volume for its rendering. In fact, all the preceding 
 pages of this book are in a partial way an expansion 
 of this interpretation, made in this case before the 
 statement by definition, and intended as preparation 
 for the acceptance by readers of this definition when 
 stated and still further explained. This is a common 
 method of procedure in argument, — partial explana- 
 tion by way of preparation, full statement in con- 
 densed form, and then final explanation. In this 
 way the mind of the reader or hearer is led by easy 
 gradation to final acceptance. 
 
 When the above method is not practicable from 
 lack of time or lack of space or for other reasons, an 
 attempt is sometimes made to explain more or less 
 within the definition itself. In some cases also there 
 is the further purpose of placing special emphasis 
 upon a particular interpretation of some element of 
 the original concepts. The remaining seven forms 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 201 
 
 of definition are of this character, some of them for 
 mere explanation and others for special emphasis. 
 All have the same content when properly interpreted, 
 for all hold the essence of " perfection " and " human." 
 
 Before attempting the discussion of emphasis, we 
 shall try to give a somewhat full explanation of the 
 meaning of these two concepts, as used in the defini- 
 tion, after which certain attempts at emphasis in par- 
 ticular expressions of several of the other forms 
 will be easily and clearly seen. 
 
 First, then, " perfection." The idea expressed here 
 is one of condition, — not a static condition, but one 
 subject to further development. Such condition is 
 always limited as to its possibilities by the nature of 
 the thing referred to. What perfection requires is the 
 best possible for that special thing. 1 1 has as its oppo- 
 nent the immature and the unsatisfactory and the 
 unfinished. This statement hints at a still higher 
 standard by which the "best possible" in any case 
 is itself measured or determined. And thus we have 
 raised for us the world-old question of the best, the 
 highest good, the " summum bonum " of old-time 
 philosophy. Let us not be alarmed by the specter. 
 It is not essential to progress that we be able sud- 
 denly to solve this seemingly insolvable problem 
 of the ages. All we have to do is to keep at the 
 problem, shedding on the question whatever addi- 
 tional light the new age provides. The history of 
 
202 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the human race shows unmistakable progress, be- 
 cause the race has unconsciously or semiconsciously 
 moved toward the light, however dim this light has 
 been. It seems to be imbedded in the nature of 
 things that obedience to the light — movement 
 toward the light — places one in position to see 
 the greater light, to discover the greater truth. 
 
 The progress of the race has always been subject 
 to this peculiar relation of knowledge of truth to 
 the use of truth. The seer, the poet, the prophet, 
 and the philosopher have in all ages had their hori- 
 zon widened by the partial realization of their visions 
 by men in the practical affairs of life ; and the final 
 vision is delayed till realization, now so far behind, 
 shall partly catch up with thought. Practice tries 
 out theory, sometimes correcting its defects. Visions 
 of seers, prophets, and philosophers are always par- 
 tial, sometimes only partly correct. The realization 
 in practical life of all the truth thus revealed, opens 
 the way for truer and larger visions, and in time for 
 new progress in practical affairs. Those who do the 
 will of the Father are those who finally come to know 
 of the doctrine, — thought being fruitful only when 
 supported by practical obedience in daily living. If, 
 therefore, we do not yet know what absolute perfec- 
 tion is, because we do not yet know our final state- 
 ment of good so far as human progress is concerned, 
 history begins to show in perspective the trend of 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 203 
 
 action which is for the best ; and so we are able to 
 put up signboards which indicate the general direc- 
 tion to the right station, though we cannot yet place 
 the goal with finality. So it is to the other con- 
 cept of our definition — its "human" character — 
 that we look for a fuller significance of the concept 
 " perfection." 
 
 Here we are again met, this time very definitely, 
 by the fact that perfection for any being is strictly 
 limited by the possibilities inherent in the being 
 whose perfection is sought. Human perfection is, 
 therefore, bound up in possibility in the inherent 
 nature of the human being, to be unfolded and 
 brought to perfect realization by a process known 
 as education. We are driven back again then to a 
 fuller study of the nature of man as an educable be- 
 ing. The true aim of his education is to produce all 
 the good that can be made of this being; and the 
 methods of education will be determined by joint 
 consideration of this nature and this discovered aim. 
 
 No one yet knows all the meanings of the word 
 "self." Many preceding pages have been given up to 
 a preparatory explanation of its significance. We may 
 for the present purpose say that the real self is that 
 something in each of us which retains its identity 
 through the long current of its own changing ex- 
 periences. Some recent psychologists, as we have 
 seen, deny the existence of an entity, because by 
 
204 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 physical experiment they have not discovered such 
 a permanent abiding self. But it is not to be discov- 
 ered by such method, being found only by conscious- 
 ness supported by reason. The soul experiences 
 conditions and is conscious of these experienced 
 conditions. The human mind refuses to think of 
 these experiences as possible apart from some being 
 capable of them. Therefore, human experiences — 
 first cognized in consciousness and afterward inter- 
 preted and systematized — prove the existence of 
 an abiding something which, throughout all the 
 changes of these experiences, changes only as the 
 reflex influence of its experience makes possible. It 
 retains its identity, but shows progress of develop- 
 ment according to its experiences. This retention 
 of identity and nature through differing stages of 
 growth is the most interesting and suggestive fact 
 of human progress. This something which retains 
 its nature and identity, while changing its stages of 
 culture by means of its multiform experiences, is 
 what we call the human soul (or spirit). This, in 
 concrete form, each of us recognizes as his own real 
 self, to which each of us constantly refers by the 
 various forms of the personal pronoun of the first 
 person, — " I," " me," " my," and " mine." Soul prog- 
 ress (or growth or culture) toward perfection is 
 possible because the soul is able thus to preserve 
 its identity while undergoing experiences which 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 205 
 
 • 
 
 strengthen, purify, exalt, and ennoble it, — under- 
 going change in its stages of progress or its condition, 
 but never losing its individual identity or its human 
 nature. 
 
 These possible and actual experiences not only 
 prove the existence of a sentient self, but they are 
 the best revealers of its innate or inherent nature. 
 The whole nature of a being is included in or ex- 
 pressed by what it can do and what it can become 
 through such doing (experience). 
 
 The best reflective study of human experiences 
 shows that they are all capable of being included in 
 three great classes, — thinking, feeling, and willing 
 (using these terms in their most inclusive sense 
 or application). The endless combinations of these 
 make up human experiences, so far as experiences 
 have been reported or in any way known. Since 
 no others have yet been discovered and since none 
 seem necessary to a rounded life, it is believed 
 no others are possible. If others are ever discov- 
 ered, it will be because some new environment 
 offers opportunity for exercise of native powers 
 never before called into action; or because a high 
 development of known powers makes possible new 
 experiences. In the latter case, however, these higher 
 experiences, developing out of known powers, would 
 not indicate new capacities but rather new combi- 
 nations of activities of present powers. In the former 
 
2o6 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 case there is no suggestion that even a new environ- 
 ment would do more than increase the activities of 
 present powers. There are further arguments, not 
 pertinent here, which render it practically certain that 
 the human being will never have any experience not 
 included in thinking, feeling, and willing, and their 
 infinite possibilities of combination. 
 
 Human experiences, reflectively studied, not only 
 prove the existence of an experiencing agent, not 
 only reveal the total nature and the whole possibil- 
 ity of an experiencing agent, but they reveal a 
 universe of things which these experiences concern, 
 — the occasion, not the cause, of their birth. Ex- 
 pressed differently, the experiencing self as agent can 
 have no experiences except as these experiences con- 
 cern something upon which this self has employed 
 its powers in some one or more of its characteristic 
 activities. Thinking, feeling, and willing always con- 
 cern something without the existence of which these 
 particular experiences would never have been pos- 
 sible. The range of objects with which the human 
 soul may thus concern itself in experience is as wide 
 as the universe itself, and the multiplicity of pos- 
 sible experiences almost baffles thought. Philosoph- 
 ically all things are first divided into the self and 
 the not self, the latter being all the universe ex- 
 cept the individual soul or self. But the self may 
 employ its powers on itself, studying its own nature, 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 207 
 
 as we are to some extent doing now. The whole 
 universe, then, including the self, is the theater of 
 the self's activity or experience. At one stage of 
 thinking this distinction of self and not self was im- 
 portant, but it is now so fully inwrought into all 
 systems of experience, and so thoroughly implied in 
 all experience, as to be of little further significance, 
 taking its place at best among the things granted 
 without discussion. 
 
 It is well-nigh impossible to set off human ex- 
 periences into absolutely separate provinces, because 
 of the almost infinite network of relationships of the 
 almost infinite varieties of human experience. Philos- 
 ophers of all ages have sought lines of absolute 
 demarcation, finding them nowhere except in some 
 departments of mathematical thinking. Provisional 
 classification is helpful in thinking, however, though 
 the distinctions suggested are neither absolute nor 
 final. 
 
 In a loose classification, then, we may say that 
 there are three great divisions of the universe, with 
 reference to the experiences of which they are the 
 occasion: namely (i) matter and its qualities; (2) 
 the self and its aspirations; and (3) society and its 
 functions. 
 
 The first gives rise to the sciences of mathematics, 
 biology (including geology), and physical science 
 (physics and chemistry); the second to psychology, 
 
2o8 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 epistemology, metaphysics and logic, and religion; 
 the third to sociology, politics (including history), 
 ethics, and aesthetics (including literature). Thus we 
 have marked off twelve great regions of possible ex- 
 perience for a human being, each province herein 
 named being capable of multiplying subdivisions. 
 All subjects of study, however minute, whether in 
 school or out of school, are but subdivisions of some 
 one of these large provinces of human experience. 
 Daily lessons of school children are but still more 
 minute subdivisions; and the changes which the 
 teacher hopes to produce in pupils from day to day 
 are but minute fractions of the total effect made 
 upon the human being who exercises himself in the 
 thinking, feeling, and choosing, which constitute his 
 experiences in these several provinces. To say that 
 the human mind is capable of these experiences is 
 to tell much of its nature ; to know well what these 
 experiences mean to a human being is to know well 
 human nature. To see what all these experiences 
 mean for the development of the individual or for 
 human culture, is possible only after one has watched 
 the race go through these experiences and noticed 
 what the effect has been on the self which has 
 had them. This study can be made only in large 
 ways through the study of history. From this 
 point of view customs, laws, institutions, art, litera- 
 ture, science, psychology, logic, metaphysics, — all 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 209 
 
 take on new meaning. They give the key to the 
 progress of the race through the ages, show the in- 
 heritance of the individual in the work of the race, 
 give the basis for determining which of all these 
 experiences lead most directly and rapidly toward 
 perfection, and enable us better and better to under- 
 stand what human perfection is. And indeed one's 
 judgment on such questions, other things being 
 equal, will be proportionate to one's thorough mas- 
 tery of the meaning of these great disciplines of 
 human life. Going through these experiences is a 
 part of self-realization. 
 
 Many volumes could be written in further expla- 
 nation of how the experiences described constitute 
 civilization, and how their mastery by an individ- 
 ual leads to his development and tends toward the 
 development in him of all his best possibilities. 
 
 A study of the history of education, had we time 
 to follow it now, would show that in different coun- 
 tries and different ages men have been selecting the 
 most significant experiences of these various great 
 disciplines, arranging them in courses of study and 
 learning the best ways of presenting them to the 
 young. And we should see in such survey how dif- 
 ferent nations have chosen different experiences, as 
 they believed in different aims ; and how, by study 
 and comparison, the race as a whole has clarified its 
 vision as to the nature of human perfection itself, 
 
2IO EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 and as to which experiences most surely and quickly 
 bring the human being into a fair degree of develop- 
 ment toward that standard. 
 
 Comparing this first definition which we have 
 been explaining with the second of the series, " The 
 true aim of education is the perfection of the indi- 
 vidual human being," we note that the latter varies 
 from the former only in the emphasis of a single idea, 
 implied but not emphasized in the first. This is the 
 idea that the educative process finds its realization 
 of the aim in the individual. While one may speak 
 of the education of the race, the intellectual develop- 
 ment of the nation or of a people, these terms but 
 represent abstractions. There is no general culture 
 except that which is first secured and practiced by 
 individuals. In social efficiency, while the nation 
 looks for assistance of the whole people, the effi- 
 ciency is that of individuals. While citizenship looks 
 to public service, the individual citizen gives the 
 tone to the state. The phrases " education for so- 
 cial efficiency," "education for citizenship," and the 
 like, are expressions which emphasize a certain se- 
 lection of experiences which the individual should 
 receive in his education ; but it is always the in- 
 dividual who is to be educated. Institutions like 
 society or the state have no right to exist unless 
 they are able to safeguard and return to the individ- 
 ual influences for his personal betterment. The 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 2 1 1 
 
 development education seeks is always that of the 
 individual ; and if the aid of human organizations 
 be sought in education, it is always because such 
 organization is helpful in its reflex influence, at 
 least to the individual. 
 
 The third definition, " The true aim of education 
 is to bring to perfection all the capacities for good 
 inherent in each individual human being," attempts 
 some explanation with the changing of the emphasis. 
 Retaining in prominence the idea of individuality, 
 it attempts to suggest that not all experiences are 
 educative in the best sense, but that some expe- 
 riences leave the individual in a worse condition 
 than he was in before he had them. These capabil- 
 ities to be changed for better or for worse, which 
 are inherent in human nature, are here technically 
 called capacities; and the definition attempts to 
 show that only those experiences which lead their 
 subject toward the good, or perfection, are to be 
 included in the set exercises of the educational proc- 
 ess. This definition retains the same standard of 
 perfection as before, but explains the dangers of 
 human nature and guards the educational aim and 
 practice by denoting a choice of subject matter. 
 It merely amplifies in a helpful way what is fully 
 implied in the two preceding definitions. 
 
 The fourth statement, " The true aim of education 
 is to develop into the greatest possible efficiency 
 
212 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the innate capacities of the human being," embodies 
 the explanation and the emphasis of both the second 
 and the third in one proposition. The fifth defini- 
 tion given, " The true aim of education is to develop 
 the self-activity of the immature human being into 
 self-consciousness and self-direction, with self-perfec- 
 tion or self-realization as the standard," holds the same 
 standard of perfection and emphasizes the idea that 
 it is the perfection of the individual. But it also 
 attempts still other explanations of the nature of 
 the human being, and incidentally lays the basis for 
 methods of education. We note the idea that edu- 
 cation has to do with the immature, that is, with those 
 who have not yet had all the experiences needed to 
 lead to perfection. The definition assumes that in 
 such a state the being is self-active, and implies that 
 although self-activity as an attribute is proper at 
 the beginning of a course, this power, in order to 
 continue of worth, must so change its form as not 
 to lose its spontaneity. In other words, the growing 
 element of self-consciousness must absorb the self- 
 activity into itself and give it tone ; and both these 
 attributes must take on the acquired power of self- 
 direction. There is a suggestion here that self-con- 
 sciousness and self-direction are not wholly different 
 things, or states, or attributes, from self-activity, but 
 are higher stages of development of self-activity 
 itself, wherein it need not lose its original nature. 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 2 1 3 
 
 but may gain new value by its own higher de- 
 velopment. There is much truth in the theory 
 that the higher powers of man are really not new in 
 any special sense, but that they are higher stages of 
 development for capacities which in the infant or 
 child are known by other names. This definition 
 also suggests method to some extent by the use of 
 the word " develop," thereby indicating that the end 
 of education does not lie in mere cultivation of the 
 memory, but in the evoking of power, — the making 
 of the self of greater real worth in itself, rather than 
 a mere receptacle for information. 
 
 The sixth proposition, " The true aim of education 
 is the transforming of the self-active, irresponsible, 
 immature human being into a responsible, self- 
 directive person," varies somewhat in emphasis from 
 the others. It keeps the thought closely upon the 
 being to be educated, emphasizes the changes made 
 in his condition and characteristics by his educative 
 experiences, and calls attention imperiously to the 
 element of self-direction entering into the disposi- 
 tion. It emphasizes especially the absence, in youth, 
 of the sense of responsibility or self-direction, and 
 tries to show how valuable this element of character 
 is when achieved. By the use of the word " person " it 
 attempts to call up the picture of a culture that has 
 become well balanced through selected disciplines 
 or experiences. 
 
214 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 The seventh, " The true aim of education is to 
 develop the self-activity of the individual into its 
 higher correlatives of self-consciousness and self- 
 direction by processes controlled by correct ideas of 
 self-perfection," is a repetition of the fifth in different 
 language, with only slightly varying emphasis. 
 
 The eighth definition, " The true aim of education 
 is to cause the self-active, immature individual to 
 enlarge and enrich his experience till he becomes 
 capable of directing his own conduct and disposed to 
 make the most of his opportunities," is quite differ- 
 ent in form and emphasis from any of the others, 
 and merits a special word of explanation. 
 
 Notice that it holds to self-activity as the special 
 attribute, to immaturity before experience, to the 
 individual as the true subject of education, as do 
 different ones preceding. But it does more than 
 this. It attempts to explain processes and to direct 
 methods; it selects and adds experiences till the 
 self-activity is transformed into the higher capability 
 of self-direction ; and it especially emphasizes the 
 fact that a large and important part of this power 
 of self-direction lies in the disposition to put forth 
 effort. Now all disposition or tendency toward self- 
 action in specified directions develops under motive, 
 and the strongest part of motive is feeling. The 
 ideal life which furnishes motive for conduct is 
 dependent not alone on experiences of knowledge 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 215 
 
 but also, and more definitely, on experiences of de- 
 sire, hope, possible joy, and satisfaction of various 
 kinds. It not only looks to self-criticism as to the 
 past, but to self-seeking of new experiences which 
 offer hope of improved condition and greater worth. 
 This definition suggests a method of education that 
 shall furnish the human soul with such aspirations, 
 hopes, and desires as shall actually lead to action 
 in the direction of the higher life. The ideal life, 
 self-directed and self-motived, is distinctly human^ 
 distinguishing man from all other animals. The 
 seeking after perfection which realizes itself in living 
 a life of selected experiences, with a view to infinite 
 progress toward an always receding and always 
 self-perfecting ideal, is impossible except for the 
 individual human being. The capacity so to live 
 distinguishes man as a candidate for individual 
 immortality, to be spent in bringing about self- 
 perfection. 
 
 Thus the education of a human being is precedent 
 to the education of a pure spirit, continued after death 
 under conditions very different from those of human 
 education. And yet the two segments of experience 
 are so related and correlated that some of the omis- 
 sions of significant and necessary experiences to 
 human perfection may doubtless be partially rem- 
 edied by processes of spiritual experience in the 
 future life. 
 
2i6 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 We have already seen that only the individual 
 can be educated, that is, started and helped on the 
 road toward perfection. We have also seen that 
 the individual is educated by and through his expe- 
 riences. These experiences are possible to him only 
 through self-exercise, or self-activity, which is the 
 primal characteristic of his nature. These self-activi- 
 ties will be concerned with the details of the objects 
 of experience in the twelve great departments of pos- 
 sible human experiences referred to on a previous 
 page as " the twelve great disciplines of life." We are 
 now to give special attention to a particular phase 
 of culture heretofore but dimly suggested, but which 
 is often one of the most important of less well-under- 
 stood results of right processes of education. I refer 
 to the changed state of the individual self as a result 
 of experience, in so far as such new state takes on 
 something of permanence. Henceforth the self has 
 new value or worth simply because it now exists in 
 this new state. To illustrate : A definitely guided 
 process of self-activity in thinking upon a definitely 
 selected object of thought or theme may lead the 
 self-activity from a state of comparative ignorance 
 in reference to such object into a state of intelligence 
 in regard to the same. Now the passage from a 
 state of ignorance to a state of intelligence is not in 
 any sense a change of human nature, — only an 
 actualization of what was always potentially in 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 217 
 
 human nature. The individual self has acquired 
 new worth, but has not changed its nature. It has 
 had a new experience, and through that experience 
 has come into possession of its own, — what was 
 always its right, always its possibility, — intelligence. 
 It seems almost like a new self, but it is in reality 
 the same self in a more advanced stage of develop- 
 ment. It has gone one step farther toward its own 
 perfection, that is, its own actualization, — the reali- 
 zation of its own possibility of almost infinite intel- 
 ligence. It has moved a full stage forward in 
 self-realization. As the state of intelligence, as con- 
 trasted with the previous state of ignorance, com- 
 mends itself to the soul which experiences it, a new 
 aspiration is born in the soul. The soul has thus a 
 new self-revelation, not only of its own possibilities, 
 but that these new conditions are good. Thus it 
 is getting clearer and clearer conceptions of what 
 constitutes soul perfection on one side of its na- 
 ture, and clearer and clearer notions of what it 
 must do to realize its possibilities in this direction. 
 In the chapter on Self-revelation something was 
 said of the process by which the soul's capacities 
 are little by little made known to the individual 
 through his own experiences ; and especially of how 
 the whole material world is the means of making 
 the child conscious of his capacities for the enjoy- 
 ment of beauty. We see, in the larger view now 
 
2i8 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 possible after our extended analysis, that this devel- 
 opment of self-appreciation is essential to the later 
 development of the judgment as to what is best as 
 a matter of human advancement toward perfection. 
 Even the satisfaction of intelligence is a part of 
 that happiness which always accompanies progress, 
 though it is not its acme. We see also that all 
 the universe except the individual self (that is, all 
 the not-self) is means to the self-revelation and to 
 this self-urgency toward higher and higher forms 
 of life. 
 
 All this is seen much more readily when the 
 experience is not wholly intellectual and the result- 
 ing state not purely a matter of intelligence. It may 
 be a matter of moral quality, — a state of the soul 
 which involves questions of right or wrong. Soul 
 conditions of love, hope, joy, courage, altruism, self- 
 realization, responsibility, self-sacrifice, are of higher 
 worth than mere intelligence. Though in most cases 
 these conditions are dependent on some degree of the 
 latter for their right development, the experiences 
 which bring them about are never wholly intellec- 
 tual. That happy mingling of the intellectual, the 
 emotional, and the volitional, which characterizes a 
 good day's school education, finally brings the soul, 
 at first temporarily but frequently, and at last per- 
 manently, into these states ; and the soul which has 
 acquired these has thereby increased its worth. 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 219 
 
 Where, through further right Hving in school or 
 out of school, but preferably in a good school, college, 
 or university, the individual has reconstructed these 
 states of intellectual, emotional, and volitional experi- 
 ence into ideals, — standards of life and conduct, — 
 he has moved a long way onward in self-realization. 
 The reflex states of self-satisfaction which these very 
 conditions themselves induce, go a long way toward 
 commending them as standards of perfection for a 
 human being. Therefore, while the person so grow- 
 ing or developing may not be able to say precisely 
 what changes have come to him in the way of " views 
 of life " or " notions of human perfection," yet hence- 
 forward he practically believes more and more fully 
 in human capacity for noble things, and he has 
 clearer and clearer practical views of human perfec- 
 tion. He has, moreover, created for himself stronger 
 and stronger motives urging him to live the higher 
 life. Little by little right living and right experi- 
 ences are teaching him what hufnan perfection is, 
 and are urging to self-realization. 
 
 The soul's power to recognize true self-advance- 
 ment and to distinguish this state from new gratifi- 
 cation of appetites or satisfaction of present felt needs, 
 is one of the noblest distinctions of man. Self-criti- 
 cism by self-created standards, which carry with them 
 their own justification, is the prerogative of man alone. 
 Conceptions of a life higher and nobler than the one 
 
220 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 now being lived, and aspirations and longing for such 
 life, the subordination of present gratification for the 
 sake of greater progress, — these happily combined 
 show man in the process of transforming his self- 
 activity, self-revelation, and self-direction into reali- 
 zation, — self-realization. That the standards which 
 thus commend themselves and command respect 
 and obedience are imperfect does not matter; they 
 are better and higher than the present stage of liv- 
 ing, and point the direction in which self-progress 
 lies. Obedience to these standards enlarges and en- 
 riches experience, making it possible thereafter to 
 supersede them with worthier creations, which in 
 their turn shall command like confidence and obedi- 
 ence. Thus does the action and reaction of experi- 
 ence lead toward perfection itself. 
 
 It is to be noted here that while the native power 
 to create these standards and to guide one's conduct 
 by them is inherent in each individual human soul, 
 the occasion for their incitement is always found 
 in the environment. This is especially true in early 
 life, — in childhood. The soul, self-active though 
 it be, cannot create standards of life and conduct 
 out of nothing. In its environment (using this 
 word in an inclusive sense) the soul finds the occa- 
 sion of its experiences, and out of its experiences 
 come the suggestions and materials for ideal-making. 
 How important then that children should live in 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 221 
 
 ennobling environment! How especially important 
 that the school, which furnishes so large a part of the 
 child's environment, should be worthy of its mission ! 
 The child's tendency to imitate his teachers and 
 schoolmates is imbedded in the ideal-making bent 
 of his mind. The child finds the other life — the 
 life he is not living — exemplified by teachers and 
 mates. Whether the life be better or worse than his 
 own, in many cases the circumstances lead him to 
 look upon it with favor; and further, presently, 
 though sometimes but temporarily, such standards 
 commend themselves; and the law of tendency, so 
 strong in human nature, — to become like what one 
 admires and longs to be, — soon starts the move- 
 ment of imitation. How necessary, then, especially 
 in early life, that the child be surrounded with persons 
 whose characters and conduct are really worthy of 
 imitation ! I have said " in early life," for, as a matter 
 of fact, it matters much less after character and habits 
 are fixed. When experience has been large and rich, 
 the person has material in his life out of which to 
 build up his ideals independently of present environ- 
 ment. Indeed, the crowning power of human nature 
 is that of being able to live the ideal life of purity 
 and aspiration in the midst of squalor, vice, and 
 crime. This power of self-defense against the low 
 and vile, this power to rise superior to environment 
 and live the ideal life, marks the being created in the 
 
222 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 image of God. He who has actually attained this 
 power, whose ideals are of such lofty worth as to 
 inspire confidence and command obedience, has 
 achieved self-development or self-realization in a 
 large measure. Further advance is simply depend- 
 ent on the enlargement of experience and the im- 
 provement of standards. 
 
 It is impossible to overstate the importance of 
 right education and care of children in their early 
 years. If first experiences excite noble aspirations, 
 if they furnish the elements of ideal beauty, ideal 
 goodness, and ideal truth, then the early ideals will 
 contain these elements; and if some considerable 
 advance in ideal-making of the right sort be made 
 in early years, there is little danger that other or 
 lower standards will prove attractive. One who has 
 really seen heaven will hardly be satisfied with a 
 lesser paradise. 
 
 It is, of course, equally necessary to guard against 
 the lowering influence of vicious examples. The 
 power to rise to worthier and worthier grades of liv- 
 ing through one's own choice implies the possi- 
 bility that one may choose the lower way. Perfect 
 freedom to rise requires as perfect freedom to de- 
 scend. Nothing can relieve one from the responsi- 
 bility of choosing one's own course in life, but many 
 influences may enter in to cloud the vision and dis- 
 tract the judgment. It is the province of education 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 223 
 
 to offer, judiciously, opportunities for right experi- 
 ences and to apply proper stimulation to the growth 
 of right ideals. 
 
 The reasons offered in these preceding pages lead 
 me therefore to repeat that the universal or fixed or 
 ultimate aim of education is human perfectio7i. It is 
 clear that this can mean only the perfection of the 
 individual, — every individual, all individuals, since 
 good, a degree of perfection, can be realized, that is 
 made real as a good, only in individuals capable of 
 experiencing this good or perfection. All talk about 
 the good or perfection of the race, or of society, or of 
 any other organization of individuals can have mean- 
 ing only when considered as the perfection of an 
 instrument, — very valuable, it may be, but still an 
 instrument. There still remains the question " Good 
 for what ? " showing that the real end or aim lies in 
 something else ; while individual persons capable of 
 experiencing good, are an end in themselves. Their 
 own perfection justifies itself as a worthy aim. I do 
 not mean a selfish perfection of one's self, but the 
 entirely altruistic perfection of all. The teacher's 
 teaching works for the good of others, but always 
 for individuals capable of experiencing the new good 
 wrought in them by their own reactions on the oppor- 
 tunities offered by the teacher beyond such as would 
 have come to them without the school or teacher. 
 The teacher, by educating all the people in a 
 
224 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 community, doubtless creates a better community 
 because better persons will make a better public 
 opinion ; but better public opinion is worth nothing 
 until it be used as an instrument to bring some 
 good to some one. 
 
 It may be suggested that persons are instruments, 
 too. So they are, — potent instruments for good or 
 evil to other persons ; but they are not merely in- 
 struments. They are capable besides of realizing 
 good in themselves and for themselves, — capable 
 of experiences which are ends in themselves for all 
 worthy efforts in education. Thus we see how purely 
 personal the process of education is ; how it is always 
 engaged with some individual or individuals, endeav- 
 oring to induce him or them to transform himself or 
 themselves into something better, — something wiser 
 or saner, more efficient, sympathetic, virtuous, active, 
 or refined, — something that shall sum up more of 
 good than before. And this good is to be appreciated 
 or experienced by these same individuals in and for 
 themselves as well as for others. We should not deal 
 with abstractions in education. 
 
 However, it is just here again that we see how 
 complex a thing the educative process is. So many 
 things may become a good, — perfection is analyzable 
 into such a multitude of elements, — each offering 
 itself as an immediate aim, that one is liable to be 
 confused over the infinite variety of possibilities in 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 225 
 
 the case. There is such HkeHhood of differences of 
 judgment as to which of these elements are most 
 important, or most important now, or most important 
 under a given set of circumstances, that correct con- 
 clusion seems almost impossible. This difficulty, how- 
 ever, merely shows the complexity of the theme and 
 the careful study of the subject demanded for the 
 highest success in teaching. The history of races 
 and nations shows how slowly man has reached his 
 present conception of what is good or best, and how 
 often he has mistaken a lower good for a higher 
 one, or even mistaken an evil for a good. But slowly, 
 through the ages, he has made many distinctions, 
 discarded many evils, distinguished the varying de- 
 grees of good, and has often directed his attention 
 to higher things as against the false attractions of 
 evils or lesser goods. And the young must repeat 
 some of this history in personal development, fortu- 
 nately in our time greatly aided by wise teachers. 
 
 These considerations also show why even in our 
 time there is still such difference of view as to what 
 the present processes of education should be. Each 
 theorist is intent on the statement and enforcement 
 of what he, from his particular point of view, sees to 
 be the most important. So it happens, then, that 
 from persons of partial views we have statements of 
 special aims, perhaps true in themselves, but un- 
 true as to the relative importance assigned them in 
 
226 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the educative process. Teachers who are speciaKsts 
 are particularly subject to this misconception of the 
 true aims of education. The particular good which 
 the mastery of their subject confers, they place at the 
 center, as Ptolemy insisted that the earth was at the 
 center of the solar system. The chief facts which 
 Ptolemy taught about the earth are still believed, 
 but the relative position and importance of the earth 
 among the other bodies of the solar system are now 
 known to be different from the teachings of his day. 
 The facts taught by the specialist may be true and 
 important, but the stress which his insistence places 
 on these facts may teach an untruth as to relative 
 importance. That particular good may not be the 
 good most needed by some particular pupil at some 
 particular time, and under the particular set of cir- 
 cumstances involved. Teachers must avoid these 
 errors in practice by saner views and more compre- 
 hensive understanding of aims. 
 
 The same complexity of aim and the liability to 
 error in one's point of view reflect themselves in 
 every curriculum. The subjects selected, the relative 
 time given to each, the subheads chosen for mastery 
 in each branch, — all these are the result of one's com- 
 prehension or lack of comprehension of the true aim. 
 Many persons have such slight knowledge of ulti- 
 mate aims that they are blinded by special or imme- 
 diate aims. Many have so little appreciation of the 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 227 
 
 possibilities of human life that they lose sight of all 
 general or ultimate aims and descend to the realiza- 
 tion of some immediate aim, which, when realized, 
 may work evil to the very ones whose good was 
 sought in its mastery. This tendency is manifest in 
 the founding of trade schools in places where some 
 one industry dominates a community. The aim in such 
 a school is not only immediate but partial also, for 
 it appeals to only a fraction of the nature of the child. 
 In many cases these trade schools prepare the young 
 person to earn but a pittance in an industry that is 
 not permanent ; and whatever education he receives 
 binds him the more closely to the occupation he 
 learns, thus shutting off the possibility that he will 
 ever take up any more remunerative work. He has 
 been educated into a rut, which grows deeper and 
 deeper as his life moves backward and forward in 
 the groove formed for him. At first it seems a kind- 
 ness to him to fit him for earning money, but the 
 " good " vanishes when it is seen that the money 
 earned in this way will enable him to live only in 
 this condition ; while every additional day spent in 
 the routine duties he has learned, makes him less 
 and less capable of advancing to any superior kind of 
 labor. Employers everywhere are urging such edu- 
 cation for employees, not, however, really for the good 
 of the employees. Misguided parents are urging 
 such education for their children, so that they may 
 
228 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 earn a little money at once, ignorant or careless of 
 the slaver}- to which this educative process at last 
 leads. 
 
 The trade school is bound to come in this coun- 
 try. It remains for level-headed educators to insist 
 that whenever industrial education is undertaken 
 by the state, enough general intelligence shall be 
 mingled with the manual dexterity- secured to make 
 the young person greater than his job. His earning 
 power must be made sufficient to assure him finan- 
 cial independence, at least to a degree that will give 
 him true self-respect; and his intelligence must be 
 made sufficient to permit his changing his occupa- 
 tion when opportunities for advancement offer them- 
 selves. The curse of the ignorant laborer, or of the 
 workman specially trained on a low level, is his 
 inabilit}- to change his job. 
 
 Between this extreme view of the trade school, on 
 the one hand, and the old-time idea of a classical edu- 
 cation gained chiefly through the dead languages, 
 on the other, lie all grades and kinds of educational 
 ideals. Educational reformers are disposed to give 
 undue emphasis to special subjects and methods. 
 All who think and write on this great theme are 
 more or less bound by their own experiences or 
 modes of thinking, by their reading, or by the com- 
 munit}' interests in the midst of which they live. 
 Few writers have the catholicity- of culture which 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 229 
 
 frees them from some bias of personal \new. It is 
 true that frequently a real contribution to the facts 
 out of which a science of education may eventually 
 be made, is obtained from a specialist who is exploit- 
 ing his own branch ; but the average teacher must 
 correlate this -v^nth other branches of the curriculum 
 before he can reach a \^'ise judgment as to its rela- 
 tive place and importance as an instrument of pub- 
 lic education. In a countr)' like ours there is always 
 the question of arrested development to be dealt 
 with. There are always questions of moral worth to 
 be considered, — not alone worth to society, but a per- 
 son's own moral worth to himself as well. In a coun- 
 tr}^ in which political indi\'idualit}^ and personalit}'' 
 are guaranteed and preser\-ed, there is always to be 
 considered the bearing of public education upon the 
 personalit}^ of the pupil to make him a worthy being 
 for his own uses as well as for those of society. 
 
 Free public education is doing much in this coun- 
 tr}' to keep societ}^ flexible, to make the lines of de- 
 marcation between classes movable, and to render 
 it easy for the person with power of initiative to rise 
 from one grade of living to a higher one. An}- sys- 
 tem of education which tends to shut in the \'iew or 
 to circumscribe the interests of a child, does the indi- 
 \-idual an injur}- which no general good to the com- 
 munit}' can excuse. Any branch of study, therefore, 
 \vhose aim is specific, needs to be used carefully in 
 
230 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 conjunction with others whose aim, if specific, is dif- 
 ferent in its final effect on the growing character of 
 the pupil. How far, therefore, to push the pursuit of 
 a special branch is always a matter of grave concern. 
 Sufficient proficiency to guarantee self-respect in ref- 
 erence to attainment is always a necessity for right 
 effect on character, but a real danger lies in complete 
 absorption in single studies. Fortunately the youth- 
 ful student usually protects himself from the well- 
 meant overstress of teachers by a natural rebound 
 of interest and diversity of occupation. But when 
 his teacher, his community, and his family combine 
 on some single line, leading immediately into an occu- 
 pation, the student's native abilities are ignored, his 
 possibilities are limited, and his usefulness to others 
 and himself is sadly lessened. Sometimes, for the 
 very reason that one's proposed occupation tends to 
 routine within narrow limits, it is desirable to liberal- 
 ize somewhat the preparation, so that not even the 
 limiting effect of untoward employment may en- 
 tirely destroy the joy of living. A workingman is 
 always to be distinguished from a mmi working. The 
 man should be made able to swing his job and have 
 some mentality left. The danger of meager education 
 is that the job may be able to dominate the man. 
 
 The question here belongs, in a way, to statesmen 
 and publicists, because the results affect the possi- 
 bilities of political and social life. But governments 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 231 
 
 exist, in the final analysis, for the people, — all the 
 people, — and society has no rational reason for exist- 
 ence unless its beneficent influences shall, by reflex 
 action, confer good on individuals capable of the joy 
 of living. The question is at last, then, one which 
 takes into account the individual in all his capacities 
 for life, — all individuals, not alone as constituents of 
 society, but as living, suffering, enjoying entities. It 
 is peculiarly the question for the educator, and, in 
 some of its aspects, for the educational philosopher ; 
 but it is an inevitable question for the individual 
 room teacher, in daily contact with individual chil- 
 dren, each with his possible course before him and 
 the possibility of moral worth and personal enjoy- 
 ment within him. If all teachers may not spend the 
 necessary time to master in philosophical terms all 
 the subtleties of the problem, they may, at least, be 
 so indoctrinated with such sane views of life, conduct, 
 and aims, that each teacher's subconscious character 
 will prevent great errors in daily practice. Just so 
 far as teachers are enlightened, liberalized, and made 
 reasonable will the daily practices of the schoolroom 
 everywhere gradually take on the characteristics of 
 sanity and reason. 
 
 It is easy to be an enthusiast for some single inter- 
 est, if meanwhile the mind be withdrawn from other 
 themes. Enthusiasm is an essential element, too, of 
 personal progress. But sanity of judgment is of 
 
232 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 larger import, if of slower growth ; and sanity of judg- 
 ment seldom results from one-sided or restricted 
 development. The aim of education, therefore, 
 should include a suiHcient number of elements to 
 prevent arrested development or biased judgments 
 of life and opportunity. 
 
 Many interesting side questions grow out of the 
 exaggerations of specialists and enthusiasts in certain 
 departments of education. There is time here for 
 reference to but one. The case in point is the claim 
 of teachers of manual training that they must have 
 small classes, as they cannot give the necessary atten- 
 tion to detailed criticism of the work of individual 
 pupils in a large class. My comparison here is not 
 with instruction in certain subjects, as, for instance, 
 in music, or in lecture recitations, when larger num- 
 bers offer a new force, supplementing instruction or 
 making it more effective; but with corresponding 
 subjects like arithmetic, reading, or grammar, — sub- 
 jects in which there is also involved in the aim a 
 certain skill in execution, according to standards of 
 correctness. When carefully examined, it will be seen 
 that it is no more possible to reach accuracy in math- 
 ematics, or skill in the use of oral English, in large 
 classes, than it is to secure accuracy and finish in 
 wood turning or joint making in manual training. 
 The difference lies chiefly in the ease with which 
 tests are applied, in the persistent presence of the 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 233 
 
 mistake In the misshapen product of the lathe or in 
 the ill-fitting joint, and in the further fact that the fac- 
 tory and the manufacturer constantly enforce a dis- 
 agreeable comparison. If, for instance, the mistakes in 
 oral English of our students were as impressive to the 
 ear as these other mistakes are to the eye ; if they were 
 sounding in our memory for days afterward ; if the 
 elegant use of English were constantly heard in un- 
 mistakable comparison ; and if we were fined so many 
 dollars for each infraction of good usage made by our 
 pupils, then would this forceful distinction vanish, and 
 either manual-training teachers would have to lower 
 their standards of finish, or teachers of mathematics 
 and English would be required to raise theirs, result- 
 ing in a rearrangement of classes as to size. The teach- 
 ers of manual training have been able for the most 
 part to maintain their claims because of the objec- 
 tivity of their standards and because the people who 
 have supplied the money for manual-training plants 
 have believed that all manual training which results 
 in work below factory standards of finish is wasted, 
 because not immediately available in the factory. If 
 similar standards should be forced on us in other 
 subjects with like cogency, we should be obliged to 
 rectify our errors of classification. 
 
 It will thus be seen that in attempting to cause 
 the pupil to go through the educative process which 
 tends to make him realize his possibilities, — that is, 
 
234 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 to carry out in himself the process of self-realization, 
 — the teacher has to take into account the very com- 
 plex nature of the child as a person, and to think over 
 the wide range of possible good which may come to 
 such an individual in this development. It is because 
 the child is in his own nature complex — that is, be- 
 cause he has large and varied possibilities — that the 
 aim of education itself is complex, even though al- 
 ways personal. The point of view also discloses the 
 fact that the process of self-realization in the pupil 
 is intimately related to what is known as educative 
 values of the different branches of subject matter. 
 In fact, there are three ideas which must always be 
 coordinated in thought by the educational philos- 
 opher : namely, the nature of the child ; self-realiza- 
 tion as made possible by this nature of the child; 
 and the different branches of study as instrumental- 
 ities, — instrumentalities in the sense that they are 
 temptingly placed before the pupil in order to evoke 
 his self-activity in their mastery. 
 
 It is with these three ideas and their multiform 
 relations that educational reformers have always been 
 engaged. Whenever an educator has taken up any 
 one of these topics for discussion, he has been 
 quickly led to see the need of relating it to the other 
 two. For instance, when Herbert Spencer stated the 
 aim of education to be "preparation for complete 
 living," he followed this by a discussion of what 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 235 
 
 knowledge is of most worth. He saw that in order 
 to have human beings reahze themselves so that 
 they could live completely, it was essential that they 
 should have the proper educative experiences. It 
 was not long before he found that he must examine 
 somewhat carefully the various branches of study in 
 the curriculum of the school. In this process of 
 evaluation of subject matter he was led to place an 
 inordinate value upon the practical sciences. This 
 was purely and simply because of the limited mean- 
 ing which he put into the expression " complete 
 living." Indeed, before he had completed his exam- 
 ination of the various branches, he saw the necessity 
 for a higher conception of life than his own prin- 
 ciples of evolution had thus far implied. In many of 
 his later writings there is an evident tendency to en- 
 large the meaning of his conception of life, although 
 to the last, in my opinion, he perseveres in attribu- 
 ting to human beings but a small fraction of their 
 possibilities in the joy of living. 
 
 Other great writers have treated the same sub- 
 jects. Herbart gives a different evaluation of studies 
 from that assigned to them by Spencer, while many 
 modern writers have differed more or less from both 
 of them. And yet, after all, it is the same old ques- 
 tion, — the nature of the human being to be educated, 
 the aim of education (which is his complete self- 
 realization), and what are the best instrumentalities. 
 
236 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 Without attempting to go over all the ground em- 
 bodied in such studies as those of Spencer, Herbart, 
 Froebel, and many equally able modern students, it 
 seems appropriate to examine a few of the branches 
 in the light of the specific aim of education here de- 
 veloped, namely, the realization in each individual 
 of the possibilities which his nature confers on him. 
 It is of course well understood and thoroughly im- 
 plied in this discussion that no person reaches such 
 end as this during school life, nor perhaps during 
 the period of his natural life. It is implied, however, 
 that he moves toward this end in every really valu- 
 able step in education ; that, as the generations pass, 
 saner and more reasonable views are embalmed in 
 history and literature and made available for indi- 
 viduals in the next generation ; and that with better 
 views and aims of education, with better-trained 
 teachers, with better-organized schools, and with 
 better communities in which to live, the individuals 
 of succeeding generations may advance in a marked 
 way toward more complete self-realization, which, by 
 the way, is only a higher method of statement of 
 Herbert Spencer's view of complete living. Such aim 
 is always a movable ideal, receding toward the infinite 
 as the realization progresses. The value of the proc- 
 ess of realization already worked out is not lessened, 
 however, by this recession of the ideal, which is due 
 to the changing focus of the mind as it adapts itself 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 237 
 
 to some higher element of the aim which was 
 implied, but not until now so clearly seen. 
 
 Herbert Spencer's discussion of educational values 
 was written in the earlier years of his authorship, be- 
 fore either he or Darwin had seen the full effect of the 
 doctrine of evolution, especially as it modifies modes 
 of thought in other than biological provinces. It is 
 not surprising to find him giving undue prominence 
 to matters dealing with the external world. Evolu- 
 tion was first seen in its material aspects, and the 
 possibilities resulting in its recognition in other 
 fields of thought were not then even surmised, either 
 by the general public or by the authors of the 
 theory. In some respects Spencer was far in ad- 
 vance of Darwin, especially in seeing that all this 
 new way of thinking must eventually affect stand- 
 ards of living. But as yet Spencer was dominated 
 by his studies in mathematics and science. In fact, 
 after he had assumed the role of philosopher he was 
 still a prejudiced witness because of his early edu- 
 cation. It is a curious phenomenon to see the man 
 who first of all stated and defended the principle of 
 evolution, failing to recognize its application in his 
 own life. Even in his later years, when he had 
 caught universality of view, he held to many of his 
 early prejudices, thus vitiating many of his conclu- 
 sions. Rarely did he attempt to correct the views 
 expressed in his early writings, although some of 
 
238 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 his later ones contradicted them. This is partly ex- 
 plained, no doubt, by the fact that in his old age he 
 was harassed by the fear that he might not live to 
 finish the outline of his system of philosophy, and 
 consequently he gave little attention to the revision 
 of his earlier work. Had he been spared longer and 
 been endowed with physical health, he might have 
 taken a real interest in revising his earlier writings 
 to make them accord with the more nearly universal 
 standards of his later life. 
 
 Yet it happens sometimes that an extreme state- 
 ment of a case secures a hearing that might not be 
 accorded to a more moderate claim ; and it was a 
 great benefit to the cause of education to have the 
 relationship of the progress of science to the develop- 
 ment of civilization set forth with such clearness 
 and power as were shown in his essay on education 
 entitled "What Knowledge is of Most Worth." 
 This essay was a little later expanded into what ap- 
 peared as the first third of his book entitled " Edu- 
 cation: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical." In this 
 expanded form it has been widely read, and I believe 
 has been more influential than any other similar 
 writing in instigating and directing later writers on 
 the evolution of subject matter. In many cases its 
 greatest value has been in bringing out the expres- 
 sion of opposite views, which his statement has 
 suggested. 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 239 
 
 The special strength of Spencer's argument for 
 the teaching of science Hes in his showing how 
 marvelously the advances made in such studies react 
 in the industries, especially in manufactures and 
 commerce. He shows conclusively how the individ- 
 ual finally reaps advantages from the increased rich- 
 ness of his life, made possible by the advances of 
 civilization. It is true that all the advances made by 
 society at large react on the individual to his advan- 
 tage ; yet history shows that in many cases this 
 reaction is quite unequal in its value to individuals, 
 often leaving wide areas of population unhelped. In 
 some industries the employees have been personally 
 injured in their standards of life by the very success 
 of the industry made possible by the scientific inves- 
 tigations referred to. Therefore, while one cannot 
 deny the wonderful general amelioration of life by 
 modern discoveries in science, one also remembers 
 that these advances have come in many instances to 
 classes rather than to individuals, or to the whole 
 population as individuals. The real value of science 
 as shown by Spencer was rather the value to society 
 from having a few people well instructed in science 
 for industrial life. What we are most concerned in, 
 so far as this discussion goes, is quite another matter, 
 and one to which Mr. Spencer gives but casual at- 
 tention; namely, the actual influences on the indi- 
 vidual, both in himself and in his social relations, of 
 
240 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 his personal mastery of the ideas making up any 
 branch of knowledge. The teacher is constantly face 
 to face with such problems as these : What changes 
 for the better can I make in John Doe by the teach- 
 ing to him of the given lesson, that is, the particular 
 idea or ideas of to-day's lesson in reading or arithmetic 
 or geography or physics; and further, How may I 
 improve the class of ideas to be taught, by a better 
 selection and arrangement of this particular part of 
 the curriculum of the grade under my care ? 
 
 Every teacher has within his own experience 
 much knowledge of how he has come to be what he 
 is, — of what ideas changed his life by making him 
 more intelligent in reference to important matters, 
 and of what ideas appealed to his better nature 
 and changed his standards of conduct. If he be re- 
 flective by nature, he may gain power in teaching 
 others by considering his own experience; but he 
 will be greatly helped by fuller study of the nature 
 of the ideas involved in the different subjects, especi- 
 ally in regard to their stimulative value. Moreover, 
 the very best methods of presenting ideas are often 
 disclosed by the study of the effect one is to secure 
 through their mastery by a pupil. Hence the value of 
 such studies as we are pursuing for any teacher who 
 wishes to be efficient in directing the self-realization 
 of real children, as well as for those educators who 
 select studies and arrange courses of study. 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 241 
 
 The exact change which comes into the person- 
 ality or personal life of a pupil through the mastery 
 of particular ideas has been little considered by 
 teachers and scarcely noted by writers. Much of 
 the inefHciency of teaching comes from the fact that 
 teaching is usually considered in relation to large 
 numbers, and with reference to required tests of 
 examination or some immediate standards ; and that 
 little attention is given to the daily growth of the 
 individual pupil, in his mental life, as he masters 
 successively the ideas of the lessons making up the 
 course of study. Even specialists, in setting forth 
 the claims of their subjects, speak most frequently 
 in reference to the general improvement of the com- 
 munity through the more perfect understanding of 
 the ideas involved. More definiteness would be 
 given to such discussion if the considerations were 
 confined to a narrower limit and the case made more 
 personal with each student. This, however, would 
 require a volume or more for each branch of learn- 
 ing, so no such task can be undertaken here. In- 
 stead the writer can give only an illustration or 
 two, hoping thus to suggest to the reader how he 
 may study other branches at his leisure. 
 
 A preliminary word may here be spoken in ref- 
 erence to the work of the primary teacher. Much 
 of this work, such as the mechanical part of number 
 work or reading or language work, seems at first 
 
242 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 thought to be purely formal. If, for instance, the 
 particular problem for some one minute of a given 
 lesson be the teaching of the form of a letter to the 
 eye, and its name to the ear, together with the in- 
 stantaneous association of these two things so as 
 to be remembered ever after, it all seems for the 
 moment a mere matter of drill. But such is far from 
 being the case. The modern primary teacher has 
 learned not to teach such facts in entire isolation, 
 but, on the contrary, to involve such work in the 
 large problem of getting interesting ideas from the 
 printed page. Nevertheless, we must admit that 
 after all motives have been brought in from all ac- 
 cessible sources, the absorbing work of the pupil, 
 during some appreciable portion of the lesson period, 
 is just the mastery of those two details in their 
 proper association. Furthermore, this particular 
 work must be done thoroughly, for reasons more or 
 less consciously present in the teacher's conception 
 of his duty. Some of these reasons (aims) look 
 toward the use of this particular knowledge as an 
 instrument for further conquests in the intellectual 
 world; and such reasons, being clearly seen by the 
 teacher, will naturally be suggested to the pupils at 
 all opportune moments. Teachers are prone to de- 
 vise their methods and judge of the necessary thor- 
 oughness of their instruction by this standard of 
 further use, as if this were all. But there is a higher 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 243 
 
 question involved, which may help to determine 
 methods and standards of thoroughness; namely, 
 the condition of the child before and after the ex- 
 ercise of his powers on the new knowledge. If his 
 sight has been clear and definite; if his sense of 
 completeness of the whole, however small, has been 
 satisfied ; if there has been no clouding of his intel- 
 lectual condition, — no intellectual contradictions left 
 unsolved ; if belief that this new knowledge, however 
 small, is vitally related to his immediate or remote 
 success in life, and especially to some mastery of an 
 immediate good ; if his readiness to give himself to 
 intellectual pursuits has been increased, however in- 
 finitesimally ; if his idea of school as a desirable place 
 in which to live and to prepare for life has been 
 made clearer ; if the whole notion of his relationship 
 to his teacher and to his classmates has been made 
 to seem more significant, — if any or all of these re- 
 sults have come to him, the teaching has been worth 
 while. The ethical relations have been brought to 
 the surface, and not only has the particular knowl- 
 edge involved been attained, but the pupil has been 
 advanced on his course of self-realization. 
 
 The instance taken is extreme, — one that is com- 
 pletely barren at first sight of ethical and social 
 elements ; yet it is seen at the last analysis to be 
 penetrated and interpenetrated with ethical mean- 
 ing. The pupil's attitude toward all study has been 
 
244 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 influenced ; he has received discipline, so called, as 
 well as knowledge ; has had his character formed as 
 well as his intellect instructed ; has in fact had many 
 of the elements of his ideal of life and conduct mod- 
 ified. The newer psychologists are prone to say 
 that there is no such thing as " discipline," — power 
 gained in the mastery of one subject that can be 
 carried over to another, — except when the two 
 branches have certain ideas in common. Their mis- 
 take lies in forgetting that all subjects, when related 
 to character development, are connected by some 
 ethical ideas, and that it is impossible to isolate 
 any subject entirely from any other in this respect. 
 The partial truth of their contention lies in the fact 
 that the power to be carried over is greater in those 
 cases in which other ideas are also held in common 
 by both branches of subject matter. 
 
 The real discipline, whether it be formal or not, 
 doubtless consists of a common element; but this 
 may be a common element of subject matter, or a 
 less easily distinguishable common ethical element^ 
 which manifests itself in the character of the pupil, 
 in an attribute brought out in the study of one sub- 
 ject and preserved for the other. This is entirely 
 possible in ethical attributes (such as patience, 
 accuracy, concentration, persistence, etc.), while not 
 in the same sense possible in more intellectual 
 possessions. 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 245 
 
 The primary teacher, however, has much more to 
 consider than is involved in the cases presupposed 
 thus far in the discussion. In the primary-reading 
 work, for instance, the greater number of lessons 
 concern real ideas, such as help to make up intel- 
 ligence in many provinces of intellectual life; or 
 such as are more vitally related to moral develop- 
 ment than those referred to in the supposed early 
 lessons. In the brief stories of interest to children 
 the elements of sociology and history are found ; in 
 other aspects of these same stories are suggestions 
 of life as idealized by the imagination, — the actual 
 elements of literature. Albeit the primary teacher 
 deals with the veriest elements; these are adapted 
 to the undeveloped or but partly developed human 
 being who is the pupil. It is the same problem, 
 whatever the stage of development, although it must 
 be admitted that the problem of the primary teacher 
 has some complications and difficulties not present 
 in the work of the later grades. It will therefore 
 seem simpler if we consider the effect of the mastery 
 of ideas in a more advanced stage of growth of the 
 pupil. For the purpose of simple illustration suppose 
 we take some ideas from the subject of history. 
 
 History is based on the social nature of man. Its 
 most important principle is the idea of cooperation. 
 This necessitates its opposite, — competition or con- 
 flict of action. A human being, subsisting by himself 
 
246 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 and thinking and earning for himself only, would 
 not be living in an historical relation. The thought 
 of the other (of others), with mutuality of interests 
 or seeming oppositions of interests, — all these must 
 develop in the thought of one who studies his- 
 tory in even its simplest phases. One is thus led to 
 consider the essence of motives as related to con- 
 duct and character by standards of right and wrong. 
 These themes, moreover, if properly presented by 
 the teacher, have peculiar interest for a self-active, 
 responsible being, who is just now developing his 
 standards of conduct, and who feels that people like 
 himself in mental make-up, moved by the same 
 human motives, have acted this drama of life which 
 history spreads out for his contemplation. A little 
 human touch of this sort, given to a single striking 
 event, has in it the power to hold a student to the 
 mastery of other less exciting bits of the subject, if 
 he comes to believe that these less exciting incidents 
 are preparations for coming events of large signifi- 
 cance. So while the teacher of history may in a few 
 instances have to fall back on those less noticeable 
 ethical relationships spoken of in connection with 
 the early reading lessons, it is not necessary at all 
 in the more advanced lessons. The very ideas them- 
 selves are charged and surcharged with human in- 
 terest and ethical import, and the pupil is every 
 day becoming a more ethical being by the very 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 247 
 
 contemplation of the ideas which make up the suc- 
 cessive lessons of the curriculum. The pupil himself 
 has changed from a nonethical, nonhistorical being 
 into one who considers the actions of others as care- 
 fully as his own, who understands the motives which 
 underlie classes of actions, who has become altruistic 
 in his thinking, always relating his own actions in 
 life with those of his fellow makers of contemporary 
 history. He is seeing each day more and more 
 clearly how ideas develop into customs, customs 
 into laws, and laws into institutions. He is seeing 
 more and more clearly each day the meaning of 
 national honor and national duty ; and he is on the 
 road to a right conception of the meaning of the 
 word "citizen." Within himself he has grown, — 
 has become broader in his conceptions, more altruis- 
 tic in his feelings, more acute in his conclusions, 
 more agreeable in his social relations in the local 
 institutions of school and family. All these things 
 manifest themselves in his spiritual growth, his de- 
 veloped worth ; in a bound he has advanced on the 
 road toward self-realization, — to become the best per- 
 sonality that his human endowments make possible. 
 History therefore tends in this way to develop 
 the growing youth into a practically moral person. 
 We must turn to literature — the expression of life 
 idealized — for another marvelous stimulation to- 
 ward human development. If history teaches what 
 
248 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 has been and what is, literature is a greater stimulus, 
 because it teaches what life may be. If history leads 
 to a largeness of personality in the comprehension 
 of the long line of events by which the past has 
 become the present, literature lifts the veil and sends 
 the mind down the widening vista of the future. 
 What the present may become in the future is its 
 theme. All that human nature in the countless ages 
 of the past did because of its powers, is but a hint 
 of all that the human being may accomplish by virtue 
 of his powers. Literature, with many pupils, opens 
 the way to seeing, hoping, striving, and attaining. 
 Literature helps the growing student to gather up 
 his elements of knowledge and feeling and to weave 
 them into ideals of achievement. What worth has 
 such a being in himself, for himself ! The theme is 
 infinite in its possibilities because human nature is 
 infinite in possible attainment. 
 
 Turning now to geography, we find a set of ideas 
 of slightly different significance, though geography 
 and history have many points of likeness in their 
 relation to human welfare. Mere intelligence, espe- 
 cially as to material matters, is of little worth in the 
 formation of ideals unless this intelligence is some- 
 what touched with feeling, — emotion, — tending to- 
 ward aspiration or longing after achievement. So 
 mere knowledge of the earth as such — of its size, 
 shape, and other physical conditions — has little value 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 249 
 
 in any moral sense. The mastery of such knowledge 
 leads a person from a grade of ignorance to a grade 
 of intelligence, it is true ; and doubtless it is worth 
 while for the mere sense of larger outlook which 
 a student so gains, but the supreme worth of such 
 knowledge comes only when it is learned in some 
 human relation. The earth as the home of man and 
 the theater of his advancing civilization is the real 
 theme of geography. History shows the drama in 
 progress and treats especially of the human forces 
 which retard or advance its action ; to the student it 
 furnishes both intelligence and motive for his own 
 part as an actor in the present and future. Geography 
 also shows the drama of human life, but it has to do 
 chiefly with the physical forces which retard or ad- 
 vance the interests of the contending factions on 
 the stage. History doubtless makes the more direct 
 appeal to human motive, and renders cumulative 
 and effective these strong aspirations after achieve- 
 ment. Geography states clearly the physical con- 
 ditions under which achievement is possible, and 
 thus tends directly to sanity and reason in the 
 ordering of action. 
 
 What we are now is not entirely accounted for 
 by historical narration, though this narration should 
 deal in historical cause and effect so far as these are 
 related to people alone. We are what we are, partly 
 because we live where we do, with the consequent 
 
250 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 physical conditions of life. The historical struggle 
 has always included the getting of food, clothing, 
 and shelter; and what else has been accomplished 
 has in the main been done in the margin of life left 
 after such struggle. What is done with the margin 
 of life, however, is dependent on the qualities devel- 
 oped in the struggle. Geography, therefore, must 
 show each nation of the world struggling with the 
 physical conditions of its special habitat, taking ad- 
 vantage of favoring conditions, overcoming adverse 
 ones, and giving a margin of life. But the panorama 
 must be so placed as to show the steady gain in 
 moral qualities in the struggle, rendering the mar- 
 gin of life, beyond mere comfort, worth while. Few 
 desires above physical comfort are felt by savages. 
 If, therefore, the savage live in a tropical climate 
 where food is plentiful and clothing and shelter un- 
 necessary, the margin of life left is large but useless. 
 It is useless because the struggle has been too slight 
 to develop qualities which alone enable the human 
 being to use the margin in worthy achievement. 
 Thus history is impossible in such elementary so- 
 ciety. On the other hand, if a savage people live in 
 a frigid zone, the struggle for food, clothing, and 
 shelter takes all the time, leaving no margin for 
 worthier effort. While the struggle here gives the 
 germ of many noble characteristics, these have little 
 opportunity for exercise in higher forms and soon 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 251 
 
 cease to grow. There is no room here for history, — 
 no margin of Hfe for spiritual achievement. 
 
 Geography deals not only with climatic conditions 
 as affecting the human struggle for more and better 
 life, but with all the physical facts which affect this 
 struggle. Thus it is that soil, rivers, forests, mines, 
 plant life, conditions of trafific, etc. become important 
 facts of the lesson in geography. But in order that 
 these facts shall be helpful in promoting the growth 
 of character they must be taught in their human re- 
 lation ; that is, they must be shown to be conditions 
 or motives for human action in the supplying of 
 food, clothing, and shelter, or in satisfying some of 
 those higher wants which have been slowly developed 
 in man through the struggle to live more and more 
 comfortably and happily and worthily. Therefore, 
 while history portrays the human struggle on the 
 side of the human will working in and through so- 
 ciety, geography portrays the drama of the human 
 struggle amid physical conditions which suggest, en- 
 courage, or hinder effort, — primarily effort to secure 
 physical comfort, but secondarily effort to enlarge 
 that margin of life which is the only field for human 
 culture. 
 
 The motives that initiate action in the human 
 drama of history are, on the whole, of a higher order 
 than those which initiate action in the human drama 
 as portrayed in geography ; but both views are equally 
 
252 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 essential to the development of the growing child. 
 These two subjects are inextricably intertwined 
 in their details, and should be treated as cognate 
 branches. Each drama in its advancement furnishes 
 motives for the other ; and the two should often be 
 shown as advancing substantially together. Never- 
 theless certain phases of this human advancement 
 are distinctly conditioned by facts and reasons which 
 are evidently geographical in character, while certain 
 others are conditioned by facts and reasons which 
 are as indisputably historical in their nature. Here, 
 therefore, there is properly a line of demarcation 
 noted, across which, however, numerous relations, 
 causal and otherwise, extend. 
 
 To many teachers the numerous facts of geog- 
 raphy — climate, soil, products, occupations, etc. — 
 seem so many separate ideas thrown together in a 
 hodgepodge without law or unity; and it must be 
 confessed that many of the textbooks on geography 
 rather encourage this conception. The prominence 
 sometimes given to the artificial boundaries of states 
 or countries lends color to this view. The exact 
 boundary of a particular state of the United States, 
 for instance, is a fact of little geographical impor- 
 tance, unless taught with reference to its meaning 
 in human society. Certain social, legal, and political 
 procedures are actually and finally conditioned by 
 such boundary ; but the real industrial interests of the 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 253 
 
 people of the state, together with most of their social 
 and even their chief political interests, are bound up 
 with those of a whole group of states, whose physical 
 attributes are in some important aspects identical or 
 similar. In such case the state is to be treated, in great 
 measure, as a component part of this whole, and its 
 chief interests inferred from such connection. 
 
 To play its part in child culture, the material of 
 geographical instruction must be given primarily as 
 first-hand knowledge ; and thus the real knowledge 
 will be gained which can later be worked over into 
 geographical ideals. Maps and books are important 
 aids to instruction at certain stages of the work, but 
 these should be used as aids, and not as constitut- 
 ing the subject matter itself. The world is all about 
 us and within easy reach of the student and teacher 
 of geography. All conceptions of climate, soil, land 
 forms, and such other facts as condition directly the 
 industrial and economic life of a people, should be 
 gained by the child from a study of these as exhibited 
 in that part of the world which constitutes his neigh- 
 borhood. This is made difficult in the case of city 
 children, on account of their slight acquaintance with 
 rural life ; but even this obstacle is overcome by study- 
 ing the industries of a city in such a way as to imply 
 the surrounding country life. 
 
 It is to be remembered that not all of one's knowl- 
 edge is to be obtained at first-hand, but only enough 
 
254 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 to enable one to interpret truly and readily books, 
 maps, and other aids to study. So in reference to 
 foreign countries, a sufficient amount of first-hand 
 information may be obtained to make even book 
 knowledge realistic thereafter. To illustrate : a con- 
 siderable number of our southern states are engaged 
 in industries growing out of the cultivation of the 
 cotton plant. It is possible for the teacher to have 
 specimens of the cotton plant representing different 
 stages of its growth from seed to maturity, together 
 with various grades of cotton cloth made into use- 
 ful articles of clothing, or at least capable of being 
 made into such articles. With these means at hand 
 the teacher may assist the child to construct for 
 himself mentally the whole picture or drama of 
 human society, so far as the struggle to secure 
 clothing from the cotton plant limits or conditions 
 such struggle. 
 
 It is a great mistake to think that the child him- 
 self has to live slowly through all the stages of such 
 struggle. Those schools which have taken up simi- 
 lar problems and taught children to construct obso- 
 lete forms of looms and other machinery, and to go 
 through the slow process of production of finished 
 fabrics in primitive forms and by primitive methods, 
 have wasted precious hours of child life and dulled 
 final interest by the slavish performance and repeti- 
 tion of that which the child has already constructed 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 255 
 
 as ideals. The very swiftness of imaging and im- 
 agery is a great element of human interest. With 
 ideas of the physical forces of the earth, and of the re- 
 lation of these ideas to climatic conditions ; with ideas 
 of soil, and of the relation of these to plant growth, 
 the pupil is ready to use books, maps, and pictures 
 to assist him in creating, from the meager materials 
 suggested, the whole human drama as related to the 
 cotton plant. The single cotton plant aided by a 
 good picture gives the mental conception of a cot- 
 ton field, with the mode of culture, the grade of 
 labor used, and all the other accessories of this act 
 in the drama; while the specimens of cloth shown, 
 together with pictures of factories, stores, and fin- 
 ished goods, give the successive acts. Many books 
 present facts concerning the different stages, and 
 incidentally give an impression of the contribution 
 to human culture, in artistic finish of goods and in 
 other ways, which the cotton plant makes. The limi- 
 tation which its culture and manufacture place upon 
 the development of laborers and factory hands forms 
 a part of the final picture. Sociological, commercial, 
 and political implications are plainly brought for- 
 ward, and many inferences in regard to the facts 
 and possibilities of human life are pressed upon the 
 attention of the learner. 
 
 How intensely interesting and humanizing be- 
 comes this sort of study as it ranges over the world 
 
256 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 and considers the human relations of the various 
 industries that are conditioned and partly controlled 
 by geographical facts ! The cocoanut tree and the 
 industries and products to which it gives rise, the 
 silk plant, mining interests, grazing, common farm- 
 ing, — all lend themselves to such treatment, result- 
 ing in an enchanting story of human struggle and 
 advancement. Although conditioned more or less 
 by geographical facts, they are colored by human 
 courage, insight, and perseverance, — the very obsta- 
 cles of nature being turned into potent instruments 
 of human culture. 
 
 While a child is pursuing a course of study in the 
 spirit and by the method indicated above, certain 
 changes are taking place in him, caused or con- 
 ditioned by such study. These changes are not 
 changes of his nature, but rather changes in the 
 stage of his development. Certain mental and spirit- 
 ual possibilities of his nature are no longer mere 
 potentialities, but have become actualities, as attri- 
 butes of a partly developed person, just as before they 
 were potential attributes of an undeveloped person. 
 These characteristics were always involved in him 
 as possibilities, or they could not have been evolved 
 as actualities. Some of these new characteristics are 
 chiefly mental ; others, overpoweringly moral or eth- 
 ical in their significance. The power to conceive of 
 large things, — of large areas of land, seemingly 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 257 
 
 illimitable acres, of great forces operating over large 
 spaces, as the winds, — this newly acquired mental 
 attribute is of great significance in the mental 
 and spiritual development of a young person. This 
 changed attribute shows itself markedly in readiness 
 in imaging large things, in easy construction of ideas 
 into combinations showing causal or other relations, 
 and in increased power to draw rational conclusions 
 in reference to great world movements. 
 
 The mental creation of the physical world, which 
 each child begins before he comes to school, and 
 continues in his geographical studies thereafter, is of 
 supreme importance in personal culture. As it pro- 
 gresses the child is liberated — made larger by the 
 life of the world he images — and freed from limi- 
 tations of action placed about him by ignorance. He 
 is made mentally able to take his place among work- 
 ers whose chief business is to control and direct these 
 forces to beneficent ends. He no longer concerns him- 
 self with the little and petty, but has ideals that spur 
 him on to larger and more hopeful action. There is 
 a distinctly ethical or moral significance in such men- 
 tal change. To think large conceptions of physical 
 facts helps to remove the limitations of bigotry and 
 intolerance, even in moral and religious provinces of 
 human action. If the student of astronomy got noth- 
 ing else out of his study, the mere ability to think 
 and at least partially to conceive large spaces, and to 
 
258 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 feel the awe which accompanies such processes, would 
 amply repay him for the time and effort required. In 
 like manner would I recommend the study of geology, 
 if only for the purpose of achieving the power to think 
 time in countless eons. 
 
 It is in the study of the industries that the child 
 gets the humanest culture that geography can give, 
 if this portion of the subject be well taught in the 
 spirit indicated in these pages. The picture of people 
 contending with physical forces, harmonizing them, 
 and using them to practical ends in the production 
 of necessaries, is the most humanizing picture which 
 geography has to offer. For geography to-day shows 
 this human struggle not under conditions of savagery, 
 in which it would have little of human suggestive- 
 ness, but under conditions of human society. Human 
 affection underlies every movement, and altruistic im- 
 pulses furnish the human motive. The man strives 
 not for himself alone, but to obtain food, clothing, and 
 shelter for loved ones under all the sacred relations 
 which underlie and which are involved in every form 
 of human society. And these altruistic relations are 
 shown by the exertions of persons beyond what 
 would be called forth by the desire for merely phys- 
 ical comfort for one's self, and are ethical sugges- 
 tions of the greatest possible worth. The picture of 
 a man struggling strenuously, beyond the call of his 
 personal needs, to care for loved ones dependent on 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 259 
 
 him as the result of human relations, is among the 
 most inspiring of human visions granted to mortal 
 eyes. Geography shows this ethical human struggle 
 in all its stages. Thus while the study of geography 
 fits the youth for competitive struggle when he shall 
 have reached the age for such struggle, it also fills his 
 character with noble motives which will initiate and 
 carry such struggle through on altruistic levels. 
 
 Some of the culture values shown in this discus- 
 sion as belonging to geography are shared with other 
 studies, but some are peculiar to this branch, at least 
 in the form and in the degree here named. Even 
 when they are shared with other branches they are, 
 as a rule, so much more easily attained through this 
 branch than through any other, that they should 
 never be overlooked by the teacher of geography. 
 
 We must remember that the being whose develop- 
 ment we are describing is a human being, not yet a 
 god, — not even yet a pure spirit. His feet are still on 
 the ground, though his aspirations and hopes may be 
 much higher. There are other subjects in the curric- 
 ulum quite as necessary to his development as are 
 history and literature and geography; indeed, in 
 some stages of his development, more pressing. For 
 instance it is especially desirable that each person be 
 so taught as to be able to make his own living. It is 
 a worthy ambition in a boy to become able to take 
 his place honorably in the business and industrial 
 
26o EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 world. It is desirable that each one should come to 
 feel the sense of economic capability which makes 
 one a person of consequence in his community. 
 While the immediate reason for this is perhaps 
 the necessity for securing the physical necessities 
 and conveniences of life, the greater reason is the 
 consequent feeling of capacity and worth which 
 such training gives. If, therefore, each subject be 
 analyzed into its elements, and these elements be 
 considered in the scale of final worth, it will be dis- 
 covered that the higher reason for the teaching of 
 any subject is a moral one, and has reference to 
 developing in the student himself capacity, or real 
 worth, — worth to himself as a moral, liberated, and 
 developed person. 
 
 In this connection it is to be noted that the final 
 culture value of ideas, from whatever branch or sub- 
 ject they are obtained, is largely dependent on the 
 associations placed about them while they are being 
 acquired. This result is partly dependent on the 
 method of presentation chosen by the teacher, and 
 partly on the moral and professional character of the 
 teacher herself. To illustrate the importance of inci- 
 dental associations, I offer the following ideal discus- 
 sion of a sentence found in one of the popular 
 geographies of the day. The intention is to show 
 how incidental associations gather about a lesson, 
 varying with the character, tact, and professional 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 261 
 
 preparation of the teacher. The sentence is as fol- 
 lows: "The port of New York is one of the great- 
 est commercial centers of the world and includes 
 the cities of New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City, and 
 Hoboken." 
 
 Let us observe the results of two kinds of teach- 
 ing, by supposing that two teachers have assigned the 
 lesson including the above sentence. The first teacher 
 calls upon a child to recite, and because at first he 
 does not repeat the words readily, she reproves him, 
 and, in order to emphasize her displeasure, asks him 
 suddenly what a " port " is. The boy acknowledges 
 that he does not know, and he is again reprimanded 
 for not knowing, despite the fact that the teacher her- 
 self has a very hazy idea of what a port really is. The 
 boy by this time has already tried twice to sit down, 
 hoping that the rest of the teacher's tirade will fall 
 upon some other pupil. The teacher, however, asks 
 him to stand till he is excused, and on his failure to 
 stand straight, she commands him to take his hands 
 off the desk and stand in the aisle. When he has 
 finally complied with these requests she proceeds to 
 ask him why this is called the port of New York 
 instead of the port of Brooklyn or the port of Jersey 
 City, He again admits his ignorance. Then the 
 teacher asks him what is meant by a "commercial 
 center." Again the boy is uncertain, but thinks it is 
 because ships or trading vessels load or unload there. 
 
262 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 The teacher now tells him he may be seated, and she 
 expresses the hope, in a hopeless tone, that next time 
 he will get his lesson better and not have to take 
 up so much of the time of the class, etc. During 
 this performance there has been growing up in the 
 boy's mind a semiconscious conviction that it does 
 not matter in the least what a " port " is, that a " com- 
 mercial center" has no particular relation to his life 
 interests, that geography is a dull study, of little use 
 and certainly of no pleasure to him, that his teacher 
 has been " picking " at him, and that on the morrow 
 he will go a-fishing. 
 
 The second teacher begins in much the same 
 manner as did the first teacher, and the pupil stum- 
 bles in much the same way as did the pupil in the 
 former instance. But how different the procedure 
 from this point ! The teacher, having prepared her 
 lesson in view of the self-active nature of the child, 
 wishes to enlist the will and interest of the pupils in 
 the mastery of this really complex idea of the port 
 of New York. She has already seen that the words 
 of this sentence must be made to carry a meaning 
 in order that they shall be readily memorized. At 
 this critical moment, therefore, she presents to the 
 class a picture of the harbor of New York. This 
 picture, cut out of Harpers Weekly^ shows the 
 Narrows and the broad bay above. A single sen- 
 tence or two explains how all vessels entering 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 263 
 
 here are safe from wind and wave while they un- 
 load. A quick movement by the teacher shows 
 another picture with vessels at the wharf, while a 
 well-directed question, which can be answered by a 
 look at the picture, calls attention to the character 
 of the goods being unloaded. A guess or two from 
 the pupils as to where these goods come from height- 
 ens interest. Then the scene is again shifted to a pic- 
 ture of the upper bay of New York, with the adjacent 
 cities clustered around this one body of water, and 
 the meaning of " commercial center " is apparent. By 
 this time questions come from pupils as well as 
 teacher, and in the course of the answers the fact 
 that there is a customhouse at New York is brought 
 out, and the real meaning of " port " is made plain, 
 together with the reason why this particular one 
 should be called the port of New York. The large 
 number of vessels shown in the picture indicates 
 the greatness of the traffic, and the different kinds 
 of goods being unloaded from the ships, and the 
 different flags floating from the mastheads, show the 
 various countries involved in this traffic; while a 
 single query as to what those vessels may carry 
 on their return trip calls to mind the immense 
 resources of our own country. The great cost of 
 ships, the many men needed to manage them, the 
 countless thousands of people engaged everywhere 
 in manufacturing these articles so that they may 
 
264 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 become articles of merchandise, also receive pass- 
 ing notice. 
 
 The mind of the pupil is impressed by all these 
 things in a semiconscious way until it dawns upon 
 him how it is that the cooperation of immense 
 numbers of people enables each of us to secure for 
 himself more comforts in life than the millions of 
 Rockefeller could command for him without the 
 help of his fellows. Not only has this fundamental 
 principle of cooperation been thus forcefully borne 
 in upon the pupil, but other associations have also 
 attached themselves to this idea. The boy has had 
 pass through his mind the idea of what a pleasant 
 companion his teacher would be on an excursion ; 
 he has begun to see the vital relation of geography 
 to daily living; he thinks he would like to read 
 about the countries from which these things come ; 
 and he wonders if he cannot get some books of 
 travel from the public library. Already he has de- 
 termined that when he is a man he will visit all 
 these countries whose ships enter our harbors ; and 
 when at last the teacher requires him to recite the 
 sentence, — even many times, so that it may be 
 uttered trippingly on the tongue, — every repetition 
 comes with meaning in it, till at the close of the 
 recitation the boy is a new being, anxious for another 
 glimpse in the textbook to see what comes next. 
 
 One of these boys has this day moved a long step 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 265 
 
 toward the street; he has before him indifference, 
 neglect of duty, truancy, the workhouse, and the 
 penitentiary. The other has taken a long stride to- 
 ward a happy and useful citizenship. Because of 
 this one lesson he will in future have a greater inter- 
 est in human affairs, a broader sympathy, a saner 
 judgment ; he will be more cordial in friendship, 
 more industrious in school, more agreeable in the 
 home. This difference of trend has taken place in the 
 two boys because of the difference of treatment in re- 
 gard to the same sentence in geography, — because 
 one teacher took the trouble first to understand boy 
 nature and then to prepare to teach the boy in ac- 
 cordance with his nature and destiny. The whole 
 incident occupied less than ten minutes, but the 
 effects are permanent and the difference increas- 
 ingly magnifies as the years go on. It is obvious 
 that no matter how valuable the ideas offered by 
 any branch of study may be, the teacher is, after 
 all, the most important part of the spiritual environ- 
 ment of the school child. 
 
 If we now turn to mathematics, we find a wholly 
 different set of ideas, some of them quite essential 
 to the right use of all other ideas. In this sense 
 such knowledge is fundamental and comes into the 
 earliest stages of human culture. The fundamental 
 operations with numbers enter into all the minor 
 utilities of civilization, and condition all the moral 
 
266 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 effects rising from domestic and social life. The 
 higher mathematics condition all mastery of natural 
 forces for utilitarian uses, and hence all the moral 
 and ethical relations in which great industrial enter- 
 prises stand to social welfare. 
 
 Little need be said, in reference to these ideas, to 
 prove their general worth in utilitarian aspects of 
 life, nor indeed to show that great moral and ethical 
 results may flow from the right teaching of such 
 subjects. I wish rather to discuss here the personal 
 effect on the individual of his mastery of mathemat- 
 ics. While the larger utilitarian results may be of 
 more real import, — indirectly to society, and there- 
 fore, by reflex influence, to the individual, — these as- 
 pects of the subject have been made clear in the great 
 feats of modern achievement in the mastery of the 
 physical universe. And important as these uses are, 
 they would be attained just as well by the education 
 of the few as by the education of all, since only the 
 few use these ideas in invention, discovery, and con- 
 struction. The theme here, therefore, is rather the 
 immediate influence brought to bear on the personal 
 development of a pupil by his mastery of the ele- 
 mentary mathematical ideas. The discussion will be 
 suggestive in regard to methods of teaching this 
 branch in ordinary elementary schools. 
 
 Number concepts themselves are of course con- 
 ditioned on succession of events in time, but these 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 267 
 
 concepts are applicable afterward to the process of 
 estimating in comprehensible fashion all efficient 
 agencies in the physical world. The possibility for 
 number creation is of course in the original struc- 
 ture of the mind ; but the actual construction of 
 number ideas, and the performance of mathematical 
 processes with these number ideas, are always forced 
 upon the mind by experiences which succeed each 
 other. So soon as the mind gives attention to any- 
 thing, succession as a fact, so far as it is an independ- 
 ent fact, favors the creation of number ideas and 
 their comparison. This early work is done for the 
 child by his environment before school age. The 
 systematizing of these and associated ideas in early 
 school days results in the fundamental operations 
 and the ranging of numbers into places, orders, 
 periods, etc. 
 
 The change which this systematization produces 
 in a child is chiefly intellectual. Indeed mathematics 
 as a branch of knowledge is chiefly intellectual, yet 
 it is not wholly so. By the very mastery of numbers 
 and of the fundamental operations the child's physical 
 world begins to marshal itself in order. Previous to 
 such knowledge it produced the effect of a conglom- 
 eration of attributes without order or sequence or 
 significance. Much that had before remained un- 
 noticed is seen now, and much that had before 
 seemed confused seems clear now. We must not 
 
268 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 forget the sense of security and power which comes 
 into one's life when one becomes able to count 
 things and to arrange them in a thought order more 
 reasonable than that in which nature thrusts them 
 upon him. This acquaintance with things and this 
 new power over them become a sort of moral stimu- 
 lus to the will, and thus prepare the way for one to 
 take hold of the facts of the outer world and place 
 them in the more orderly array suggested by mathe- 
 matical ideas. This opens the way for work of all 
 kinds. It is in this manner that the commonest 
 mathematical ideas condition all industry and all our 
 intercourse with one another which industry requires. 
 The more intelligible mathematical ideas become, 
 the greater is the sense of power over things, and 
 the better is the understanding of things essential to 
 intelligent cooperation with other workers. It is a 
 new kind of language, without which the real mean- 
 ing of any language could not be made clear. 
 
 By the use of these number ideas the young child 
 begins the mastery of space. An assumed standard 
 is forced upon the mind of the infant as it was upon 
 the mind of the savage in his feeble attempts to mas- 
 ter the same difificulties. But from the teacher the 
 child soon learns the artificial standards assumed by 
 society, and then he proceeds to master space as he 
 had before mastered things in time, using the funda- 
 mental arithmetical processes for that purpose. 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 269 
 
 Elementary knowledge of arithmetic is usually 
 urged as desirable on the ground of utility in little 
 and common things, and doubtless this reason is 
 sufficient to justify simple arithmetical instruction. 
 The demand for accuracy and facility in operations 
 is usually made on the ground of utility or efficiency ; 
 but doubtless, too, a stronger argument could be 
 made for the same thing under the plea for moral 
 culture of the individual. Mathematical ideas offer 
 an opportunity to impress upon one, with a degree 
 of finality, what truth really is. Error is so easily de- 
 tected that its presence can at once be made appar- 
 ent. A child should be made to feel a joy in the 
 absolute correctness of his work. No other school 
 branch offers a like opportunity to cultivate an 
 elation of mind over actual success, — success so ap- 
 parent that the very clearness of the demonstration 
 itself creates a joyful and hopeful view of the world 
 and of life. There ought to be such a spirit of joy 
 in correctness as shall allow it to spill over and per- 
 vade all experiences, giving to one a sense of the 
 presence everywhere of the eternal verities. Cer- 
 tainty, absolute certainty, is the right of one's mind, 
 and here in mathematics one may fairly revel in 
 it. The person who has the sense of certainty 
 and power is really morally as well as intellectually 
 equipped for mastery over the world. 
 
 It is, however, in its application to the mastery of 
 
270 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 the physical forces of the world that mathematics 
 has justified itself most fully as a subject of study. 
 Physics has latterly become almost a branch of ap- 
 plied mathematics, so fully are mathematical ideas 
 used in physical and chemical experiments. These 
 sciences deal with force ; but little can be done with 
 force, or the things which embody or transmit force, 
 without the ability to count, to divide, to multiply, 
 and to subtract. Physics and chemistry advance al- 
 most entirely by counting, measuring, or weighing. 
 
 The student of physics or chemistry places things 
 in certain relations to one another — relations of po- 
 sition, number, magnitude, proximity, quantity, tem- 
 perature, etc. — and observes what happens. From 
 this he infers the action and reaction of forces which 
 are embodied in or transmitted by the things with 
 which he works. The significance of this study for 
 practical purposes depends on the fact that he is 
 dealing in the laboratory with exactly the same 
 kinds of forces as those he meets in his daily life. 
 The advantage of study in the laboratory is that 
 here one has special conveniences, appliances, etc., 
 to the end that he may find out facts and laws 
 about these common forces. He may then act more 
 rationally every day in the presence of these same 
 forces in his daily life. Here again comes a great 
 sense of security, — a confidence in the friendliness 
 of the natural forces, since now one knows how to 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 271 
 
 get along with them advantageously. And this new 
 attribute is a moral one, leading to a sense of greater 
 worthiness in the individual. Furthermore, the study 
 of physics or of the physical forces in the laboratory, 
 under mathematical tests of counting, weighing, and 
 measuring, secures special training in accuracy, 
 patience, persistence, etc., in addition to mere intel- 
 ligence. Science rightly pursued is a distinctly 
 moral force in the culture of character. Especially 
 is this true of these subjects when pursued in their 
 higher ranges. In such case the student catches a 
 glimpse of something more than mere force in 
 action. He finds that back of these changing phe- 
 nomena, to which he grows accustomed in the lab- 
 oratory, there are laws and principles making for 
 permanence in the physical world. Through the 
 further study of these laws and principles he is led 
 to see the prevalence of law and order in the phys- 
 ical universe, and to infer them in other provinces of 
 human experience. All this change of attitude to- 
 ward things and forces is distinctly moral in a very 
 high sense, and tends to stability of character. 
 
 There is one grave danger to character develop- 
 ment for the student of physics, unless he be 
 guarded by his teachers against certain influences 
 of the laboratory. In the very nature of the case the 
 student of physics learns to depend on laboratory 
 tests for trustworthy results. Unless his teacher 
 
2 72 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 forewarns him of danger he is Hable to think that these 
 tests of counting, weighing, and measuring are the 
 only tests of truth that there are, and he easily learns 
 to distrust any evidence that does not lend itself 
 to such proof. It seems so simple to test things in 
 the laborator}% and the truth thus vouched for so ob- 
 trudes itself upon the attention, that the student 
 readily concludes all truth to be similarly obtrusive 
 in its verification. The fact is that much of the 
 higher realm of truth is entirely above these mathe- 
 matical and material tests. Some truth, especially in 
 psychology and ethics, is seen directly, and believed 
 on evidence of a moral and personal character 
 which does not in any way lend itself to outside 
 tests. The remedy for a prejudice resulting from 
 the too exclusive study of physical or chemical sub- 
 jects consists in the study of psychology, logic, and 
 metaphysics. No scientist is a safe adviser, even in 
 his own field, until he has enlarged the range of his 
 mental horizon by including in his studies subjects 
 requiring intuition and reflection. A too close re- 
 striction to physical themes is liable to lead to 
 agnosticism in reference to other forms of truth. 
 Liberality of range in studies will restore sanity of 
 judgment. 
 
 The physicist needs one more caution. He has 
 been so accustomed to measure force by physical 
 tests that he fails to note that there are forces that 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 273 
 
 do not subject themselves to such estimates. The 
 mere physicist, as such, has no explanation for a 
 force like that enshrined in a seed, much less that 
 involved in the human will. A course of study in 
 biology and psychology is needed to restore balance 
 of mind and to rid judgment of narrowness and 
 prejudice. 
 
 It seems unnecessary for present purposes to 
 analyze all the subjects taught in the school. We 
 have seen enough to convince us that education, to 
 be worthy of the name, must be sane, efficient, and 
 liberal. A little learning is not a " dangerous thing " 
 because it is a little learning, but because it is a 
 little learning. More learning removes the danger. 
 
 We have seen the perils of narrow aims and 
 special courses, which early set limits to endeavor 
 and repeat exercises till they benumb interest and 
 kill initiative. Industrial education is a good thing 
 in its tendency toward efficiency, but it would prove 
 to be a bad thing if we came to feel that its effi- 
 ciency is the only kind that the human being is 
 capable of attaining. Before you can properly set 
 up the contented man as a model, so far as char- 
 acter is concerned, you must inquire into the con- 
 ditions of his contentment. A certain amount of 
 dissatisfaction is frequently preferable to the con- 
 tentment which rests in less than reasonable achieve- 
 ment. The danger of a special course for very young 
 
274 EDUCATION AS GROWTH 
 
 people is that it leads to a degree of skill which may 
 secure employment before sufficient intelligence and 
 morality have been attained to serve as ballast for 
 character. It is a personal tragedy when a young 
 person is led into a present small success in such a 
 way as to make him satisfied with it when larger 
 success is easily within his reach. Here, then, is the 
 danger of all aims of education which do not include 
 the highest and best possible for each under the cir- 
 cumstances. It is in this sense that I have tried 
 in these pages to explain, illustrate, and enforce the 
 highest possible aim in education, — human perfec- 
 tion, the highest attainable excellence ; that is, the 
 highest attainable excellence for each under the 
 circumstances. This does not mean an impossibility ; 
 it only means all that is possible. It also means that 
 when one has attained any particular degree of ex- 
 cellence, he is to believe that there is something 
 else better still, which he may attain when his cir- 
 cumstances have so changed that it becomes pos- 
 sible for him. This state of mind is not one of 
 restlessness nor of fretful discontent, but rather of 
 joy in what has already been attained, and a belief 
 in the life that is better still. The present life, seen 
 as the basis of a still better life, is a source of genuine 
 satisfaction. The life that is to be, when circum- 
 stances make it possible, is always sending a stream of 
 the " light that never was on sea or land " backward 
 
SELF-REALIZATION 275 
 
 on the present life, rendering it glorious as a par- 
 tial success that is a sure harbinger of the greater 
 success just ahead. 
 
 A life so modified cannot be an unhappy life. It 
 is full of happiness on its own account and full of 
 hope for the future. It remains to say that efficiency 
 is far from being necessarily a narrow or selfish aim. 
 True efficiency is measured by altruistic standards, 
 and the most lowly service given in love is a char- 
 acter-forming force. Many persons, therefore, who 
 are but meagerly educated, in the technical sense 
 of the word, carry forward their character culture be- 
 cause their expert service in humble fields is done 
 for the sake of the dear ones at home, or for others 
 whose welfare they have at heart. But such persons 
 are doubly blessed if, with this expertness, they have 
 been made intelligent and moral, so that a swifter 
 progress is possible, and so that higher and nobler 
 work will come to them as they advance in life. The 
 ever-receding ideal of perfection lures them on, culti- 
 vating in them a " divine discontent " with the pres- 
 ent, only in the sense, however, that it shows them 
 an ever better and better possible future. 
 
ANNOUNCEMENTS 
 
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 THE JONES READERS BY GRADES 
 
 A rearrangement of the regular edition in a series of eight books corresponding to the 
 grades below high school, with additional matter in Books IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII 
 
 BOOK I $0.30 
 
 BOOK II 35 
 
 BOOK III 45 
 
 BOOK IV 45 
 
 BOOK V 45 
 
 BOOK VI 45 
 
 BOOK VII 45 
 
 BOOK VIII 50 
 
 THE Jones Readers are unrivaled in the amount and in the 
 quality of reading material. 
 
 They contain the most effective and, at the same time, the 
 most unobtrusive ethical teaching. 
 
 They are most practical and teachable because of their care- 
 ful grading and their explanatory and biographical notes. 
 
 They demonstrate the wide experience and authoritative rank 
 of the author. 
 
 They are unexcelled in illustrations and in mechanical ex- 
 ecution. 
 
 GINN AND COMPANY Publishers 
 
ASPECTS OF CHILD LIFE AND 
 EDUCATION 
 
 By G. STANLEY HALL, President of Clark University and Professor of 
 Psychology, and Some of His Pupils 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. 3z6 pages 
 
 TOURING the last twenty years one of the lines 
 ^-^ of research carried on by President G. Stanley 
 Hall and students working under his direction, at 
 Clark University, has been the psychology of child- 
 hood and its applications to education. These 
 researches have been published in the University 
 periodicals, which are of necessity expensive and 
 limited in circulation, and have not, therefore, 
 hitherto been available to the general public. The 
 object of the present volume, which is to be the 
 first of a series, is to make accessible to parents 
 and teachers, in somewhat condensed form and 
 at moderate price, the results of these researches 
 which are now recognized as of fundamental 
 importance in all educational work. 
 
 GINN & COMPANY Publishers 
 
30 Idtl 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
 tfinri 
 
 I9ri 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ^ 
 
 019 809 805 A 
 
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