UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE GREAT DIDACTIC 
 OF COMENIUS 
 
 Translated into English and 
 edited with biographical, histori- 
 cal, and critical introductions. 
 
 ■2nd Edition. Large Crown 8vo. Cloth. 
 
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 'Great Didactic ' is vigorously executed; his bio- 
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 STUDIES IN THE TEACHING 
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 SUGGESTION 
 
 IN 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 M. W. KEATINGE, M.A. 
 
 READER IN EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 •- g^ 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
 
 1907
 
 PuMished October 1907.
 
 
 NOTE 
 
 My best thanks are due to my colleague Miss A. J. 
 Cooper, to Mr. J. L. Paton, High Master of the 
 Manchester Grammar School, and to Mr. W. McDougall, 
 Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy in. the University 
 of Oxford, who in the midst of their numerous occupa- 
 tions found time to read my manuscript and to give me 
 much valuable advice. 
 
 Oxford, 
 August 1907.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Hypnotic Suggestion i 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 Suggestion in the Waking State .... 23 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 Experimental Study of Suggestion in the Waking 
 
 State 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Operations preliminary to Suggestion . 
 
 35 
 
 54 — 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Process of Suggestion 72 — 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Suggestion and Imitation . . . . . 86 ^
 
 viii SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Character, Method, and Suggestion . . • 103, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 Education as Creative 130 
 
 CHAPTER. IX 
 Some Practical Applications 155 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Sanction of Suggestion 184 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The Relation between Mental Dissociation and 
 
 THE Symptoms of Hypnosis and Suggestibility 195 
 
 INDEX 201
 
 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 
 
 A SUGGESTIVE teacher, a suggestive book, a suggestive 
 picture, a suggestive situation — these are the terms in 
 which we speak of the people, the books, the pictures, and 
 the situations that have made a deep impression on us, 
 that have set going a train of thought which refuses to be 
 quieted until it has worked itself out to a satisfactory 
 conclusion, and which gives us no rest until we have 
 altered our aims, our circumstances, and even our 
 characters, so that the idea suggested may the more 
 easily become realised. These are the teachers and the 
 books that count. Other teachers are hired like waiters 
 and perform their duties like hirelings ; other books are 
 bought and sold like pounds of tea and serve to 
 foster the modern habit of idly looking at print. But 
 the real teacher and the real book ! We come across 
 them but seldom, we treasure them, if we have any 
 insight, while occasion permits, and we part from 
 them reluctantly, not knowing when we may find them 
 again. For the same person and even the same book 
 may not always be suggestive. The subtle quality is 
 
 I I
 
 2 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 there on one occasion ; we seek it on another and it 
 is gone. The quintessence has evaporated ; the con- 
 tribution that we ourselves made towards the blend is 
 not forthcoming ; whatever the reason, may be, the 
 magic is no longer to be found. The book seems 
 duller, the teacher seems more commonplace. As we 
 look back upon our teachers and our books we recognise 
 with gratitude a few that lived. But how few they are, 
 and how many are the others ! 
 
 Can any instrument be discovered that will give us 
 control over these situations ? Is] there any process of 
 analysis or of observation that will disclose to us the 
 conditions of suggestion, the method of presenting ideas ,, 
 in such a way that they live in the minds of our hearers ? 
 Is there no apprenticeship that insures a mastery over 
 the master-art? Or is the very word "method" an 
 absurdity in such a connexion ? Are the processes 
 that we are considering so personal, so dependent on 
 rare combinations of individuality and circumstance, 
 so elusive and so volatile, that the attempt to objectify 
 them and to publish their secrets is like the endeavour to 
 catch on canvas the opaline tint of the' Atlantic breaker 
 as it rears and falls ; like the impudent effort to re- 
 produce a violin performance by Kreisler on the 
 gramophone or a passionate nocturne of Chopin on 
 the pianola ? 
 
 The present essay, while it does not pretend to give 
 a complete answer to these questions, has as its aim the 
 investigation of the meaning that underlies the term 
 " suggestion," the analysis of its conditions, and the 
 consideration of its importance for education. 
 
 The nature of suggestion, as of all mental processes,
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 3 
 
 is most easily discovered by the examination of extreme 
 cases. It is in the pathology of mind that we see 
 written large the traits that elude us in the normal state. 
 Our starting-point will therefore be a brief description 
 of hypnotic suggestion. 
 
 The general characteristic of suggestion in the 
 hypnotic state is that an idea when introduced into the 
 mind tends to realise itself immediately in movement, 
 sensation, emotion, or belief. The simplest form of 
 suggestion is perhaps exemplified by the imitation of 
 movements. The hypnotised subject will remain motion- 
 less with open eyes. When questioned he says that 
 he is thinking of nothing, and "makes no movement 
 spontaneously. In this condition he imitates auto- 
 matically every movement that is made before him.^ 
 A variety of this phenomenon is speech-imitation, some- 
 times called iciiolalie, when the subject ceases to reply to 
 questions that are put to him and simply repeats them.^ 
 
 1 " I place myself in front of him and move my head gently from side to 
 side. After a few seconds' hesitation he performs the same movement. I raise 
 my arms, he raises his arms ; I move as if I were nursing a baby, he makes 
 the same movements. I scratch my nose, I place my hands behind my back, 
 I walk, I pull my handkerchief from my pocket, I blow my nose, I sneeze. 
 The patient imitates all my movements servilely and copies all my attitudes" 
 (Pitres, Lefons cliniqiies sur I' Hystdrie et l Hypnotisme, 1891). 
 
 2 This phenomenon is produced, says Berger of Breslau, " by placing one 
 hand on the head of the somnambulistic patient, selecting either the forehead 
 or the back of the neck. Inmiediately the subject, who has hitherto replied 
 at once to questions that were asked, ceases to reply, but repeats the questions. 
 He is, as it were, converted into a phonograph. He can be made sing, cry, 
 cough, and sneeze. He will repeat words spoken in foreign languages, and 
 will do this with a fidelity which is often surprising" (Grasset, Hypnotisme et 
 Suggestion, 1903, p. 183). 
 
 According to Moll, this imitation is conscious and not unconscious. 
 " The notion that only certain tracts of the bodily surface must be stimulated 
 in order to produce this repetition may be considered a mistake on the part 
 of the Breslau investigators. I believe that the hypnotic echoes what he 
 believes he is intended to echo. It is certain that some persons are able to 
 perform great feats in this way, imitating a hitherto unknown language 
 quickly and correctly, particularly after the necessary practice" (Moll, 
 Hypnotism, p. 99).
 
 4 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 Similarly negative suggestions of movement can be 
 made. The experimenter says to the subject, " You 
 cannot advance." He immediately stands still and 
 makes fruitless efforts to move. He rests glued to the 
 spot. If the experimenter continues, " Your legs cannot 
 carry you," he falls as if paralysed. If he says, "Your 
 right leg is paralysed," he drags along his right leg 
 as though it were powerless. Even the involuntary ^ 
 muscular system can be affected by suggestion. The 
 effect of a dose of castor oil can be prevented or 
 postponed, and pure water can be made to act as an 
 emetic. Organic changes also, such as blisters, can be 
 produced.^ 
 
 No less remarkable are the manifestations of sugges- 
 tion in the domains of sensation and perception. The 
 subject can be made to see an object as red or blue 
 according to the will of the experimenter. A good 
 example of a visual illusion is the well-known one of 
 the portrait. It is suggested to the subject that there 
 is a portrait on one of a number of blank cards. Not 
 only will he see the portrait, but he will always see it 
 on the same side of the card and pointing in the same 
 direction. In the same way the sense of taste can be 
 affected. " I make my subject drink water or vinegar 
 instead of wine. I make him breathe ammonia instead 
 of eau de Cologne. A pencil in his mouth does in- 
 stead of a cigar, of which he sucks up the aroma 
 
 ^ Forel, at Zurich, made experiments on a nurse twenty-three years of age 
 and not at all hysterical. ' ' A gummed label was fixed on her chest above 
 each breast : the paper was square. In no case was an irritating gum used. 
 At midday Forel suggested that a blister had been put on the left side ; and 
 at six o'clock in the evening a moist spot had appeared in this place ; the 
 skin was swollen and reddened aft)und it, and a little inflammation had 
 appeared also on the right side, but much less. Forel then did away with 
 the suggestion. On the next day there was a scab on the left side" (Moll, 
 op. cit. p. 135). 
 
 i
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 5 
 
 with delight, blowing into the air clouds of imaginary 
 smoke." ^ 
 
 It would be easy to multiply instances of sense 
 illusions, but as the object in view is merely to set 
 forth the general characteristics of hypnotic suggestion, 
 a few examples must serve as types. Of special interest 
 are suggestions of sense anaesthesia, or, as they are 
 sometimes called, negative sense suggestions. Here 
 anaesthesia, generally connected with a certain degree 
 of motor paralysis, can be suggested for any portion of 
 the body, and a negative suggestion, often of a very 
 partial kind, can be made for any sense organ. In this 
 condition the subject is unable to see an object or a 
 portion of an object that is placed before his eyes, or to 
 hear a person who is talking to him. A development 
 of the suggestion of sense illusion is the introduction of 
 an idea which of itself produces a system of ideas 
 embodying a complete situation. In this case it is 
 merely necessary to start the subject off. His 
 imagination will then supply the rest.^ A striking 
 instance of this is afforded when the subject is told 
 that he is taking part in some scene of his previous 
 experience. A volunteer, for example, when told 
 that he is at the drill hall, will act an imaginary 
 
 ^ Bernheim, Suggestion, 3rd ed. 1891, p. 44. 
 
 * Richet said to a subject, " ' Come with me, we shall go out and travel.' 
 Then the patient described in order the places that they passed — the corridors 
 of the hospital and the roads which she traversed to reach the station. As 
 she was familiar with all these places, she described with accuracy the spots 
 that her imagination and her memory, both equally excited, presented to her 
 in the guise of reality. Then suddenly it was possible to transport her to a 
 distant spot that she did not know — to Como, for example, or to the Arctic 
 regions. Her imagination, left to itself, gave itself up to ideas that did not 
 lack charm, and that were interesting from their apparent precision. We 
 were always surprised by the vivacity with which she took in these imaginary 
 perceptions" (Richet, L Homme et I' Intelligence, p. 178).
 
 6 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 scene and talk of the officers and friends whom he sees 
 present.'^ 
 
 Most striking of all are the cases in which it is 
 suggested to the subject that he is another personality, 
 a peasant, a general, or an archbishop. He will readily 
 
 1 The subject sits up in his chair and the following conversation is carried 
 on : — 
 
 E. A. What do you see? 
 
 K. Chaps waiting to drill. ( He laughs suddenly. ) 
 E. A. What is amusing you? 
 
 K. Two chaps wrestling there. (I find that he is analgesic and anaesthetic; 
 evidently he is in a state of passive somnambulism. ) 
 E. A. Did you feel anybody touch you? 
 
 K. No. There's no one near me. (He continues laughing and talking. 
 He says, " You can't wrestle in jiujutsu style — you don't know what to do, 
 do you? No, I won't have to go to-night." ) 
 E. A. Who are you talking to? 
 
 K. Talking to this chap 'ere, Brown. He thinks he can wrestle. (Laughs. 
 Suddenly stands up and moves as if taking off his hat. ) 
 E. A. What are you doing? 
 K. That's an officer ; didn't you see him ? 
 F.. A. No, I wasn't looking. 
 
 K. Well, you ought to have been. You'll get into trouble if you don't 
 take off your hat when you see an officer. (He goes on talking to imaginary 
 people who are apparently trying to persuade him to wrestle. ... He is at 
 last persuaded. ) 
 
 E. A. Now then, stand up. 
 
 K. Well, we won't hurt one another ; just a friendly. (Wrestles with an 
 imaginary opponent. ) 
 
 E. A. Now you've got him. Hit him hard ; hurt him. 
 K. No, I don't want to hurt him. 
 
 E. A. Do you see that chap over there? He's making faces at you. Go 
 and punch his head. 
 
 K. (Refuses this idea, laughs a good deal ; he is a good-natured chap, 
 and refuses all suggestions that he should hurt the other man in any way. 
 Says I'm Steve Barton.) 
 
 E.. A. Come and have a drink. 
 
 A". No ; I don't feel like drinking to-night, Steve ; besides, you know I 
 never drink. 
 
 E. A. Never mind. Here's a glass of whisky and water. (I put an 
 empty glass into his hand. ) 
 
 K. (Smells it). It's whisky ; makes me sick the smell of it ; give it to 
 the sergeant, he'll drink it. What — won't he? (And so on ; no persuasion 
 will make him drink it. I offer him five pounds to drink it. ) 
 
 K. Well, of course, anybody will do it for a fiver. Some fellows would 
 for a shilling. (After being given an imaginary fiver and some argument, he 
 drinks it, and then mocks at whisky as an unpleasant drink.) (E. Ash, 
 M.B. , Hypnotism and Suggestion, 1906, p. 73.)
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 7 
 
 take up the suggestion, and will speak and act the part 
 with great accuracy. His own personality is for the 
 moment completely obscured.^ 
 
 We are now in a position to consider some of the 
 respects in which the mind in hypnosis is different from 
 the mind in the waking state. In all these cases an 
 idea is suggested and in each instance it is accepted 
 uncritically. There is a complete inhibition of the 
 natural tendency to ask if the suggested idea is true or 
 reasonable. The results of past experience appear to 
 be present in the mind only so far as they tend to 
 further the development of the suggested idea ; so far 
 as they might counteract it they are inoperative. All 
 the contrariant ideas to which the mind owes its power 
 to persist and to hold its own against the impressions 
 made upon it by the environment are for the time being 
 non-existent. If in the waking state I feel an inclination 
 
 1 Richet gives the following example. The subject, the mother of a 
 family, and of a religious turn of mind, is hypnotised, and is told that she 
 is a peasant. 
 
 ■ ' She rubs her eyes and stretches herself. ' What o'clock is it ? Four 
 o'clock.' She walks as if she were dragging along her sabots. 'Well, I 
 must get up. Let's go to the stable. There's the red cow. Turn round. 
 (She pretends to milk a cow. ) Leave me alone, Gros-Jean, I tell you. Wait 
 tin I've finished my work. You know that I've not finished my work. ' 
 
 "She is told she is a general. ' Hand me the field-glass. That's right. 
 Where is the captain of the first Zouaves ? There are the Kroumirs. I see 
 them coming up the ravine. Commandant, take a company and charge 
 them. They are fine fellows those Zouaves. How well they climb ! What 
 do you want, you? What, no orders? (Aside) He is a poor officer, he can 
 do nothing. You on the left, look sharp. (Aside) He's better. . . . Fetch 
 me my horse, my sword . . . Ah, I'm wounded.' 
 
 ' ' She is told that she is a priest, and thinks she is the Archbishop of 
 Paris. Her face becomes serious. Her voice grows sweet and honied, and 
 is in great contrast to the rough voice of the last personification. ' Ah, it's 
 you, Monsieur le Grand Vicaire. What do you want? I don't want to be 
 disturbed. . . . Yes, this is the ist of January, and we must go to the 
 Cathedral. The crowd is very respectful, isn't it. Monsieur le Grand 
 Vicaire? There is much religion in the masses, whatever people may say. 
 Ah, there is a child. Let him come up and I'll bless him.' She gives him 
 her ring (imaginary) to kiss. During the whole scene with her right hand 
 she makes signs of benediction " (Richet, op. cit. p. 237).
 
 8 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 to imitate a movement that will not in any way aid the 
 train of thought or of action on which I am engaged, 
 my tendency is to inhibit it. If I find that I am 
 beginning to swing my leg because some one else is 
 swinging his leg, I stop the motion under the influence 
 of some such train of thought, which may be only half 
 formulated, as " How stupid of me. I really must not 
 let myself go like this." If I suddenly find that I am 
 beginning to stammer or to yawn because I am in the 
 society of some one who stammers or yawns, I immedi- 
 ately take pains either to inhibit the tendency or to 
 remove myself from the companionship. If I find that I 
 am growing careless about my dress and my personal 
 appearance because I am constantly in the society of 
 slovenly people, I take pains to prevent the habit from ^ 
 growing upon me. It is only when the imitation is / 
 confessedly of advantage to the immediate aims of the • 
 imitator that it is consciously allowed to persist ; in all 
 other cases there is an effort on the part of contrariant ' 
 ideas to counteract the tendency and check it. 
 
 The more striking cases of hypnotic suggestion make 
 it evident that these cojitrariant ideas are necessary for 
 the very existence of an individual mind. If I am told 
 that a certain colour is red, when my senses tell me that 
 it is blue, I repel the suggestion with vigour. In order 
 to convince me that the suggestion is worthy of credence, 
 it would be necessary to prove to me that I was colour- 
 blind, and that the consensus of the opinion of people 
 otherwise worthy of belief was against me. Even then, 
 though I might think it worth while to consider the 
 suggestion, it is by no means certain that I should 
 adopt it. Still less should I be inclined to listen to the 
 suggestion that a blank card had a portrait on it, or that
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 9 
 
 the pencil which I was sucking was a cigar, while negative 
 suggestions would only be laughed at. 
 
 It is comparatively easy to induce a friend to transport 
 himself back into a previous experience, and in reply 
 to a few questions he will give you an account of a 
 remembered situation ; or again, if he had a lively 
 imagination he would, at your request, imagine himself 
 to be a priest or a general, and would act the part ; but 
 in neither of these cases, either through your statement 
 or through his own partial acceptance of the situation, 
 would he for a moment be led to think that he was in 
 any place or time but the present, or that his personality 
 had really undergone a change. In hypnosis each of 
 these suggestions is accepted uncritically, and, once 
 accepted, it takes possession of the mind and allows 
 association to go on only within the limits that suit the 
 controlling idea. 
 
 It is necessary to lay stress on this inhibition of the 
 contrariant ideas that would otherwise reject the sugges- 
 tion as being the principal element in the state that we 
 call hypnosis. It will be seen later that the processes 
 of suggestion in hypnosis have- their counterpart in the 
 waking state, and it is desirable to isolate the precise 
 element whose absence or whose presence in a greater or 
 a less degree constitutes the essential difference between 
 the abnormal and the normal condition. This is not 
 done by some of the current definitions of suggestion. 
 Moll, for example, describes it as follows : " The different 
 commands which are given to the subject in the experi- 
 ments described, the prompting and persuasion, are 
 called suggestion." ^ Here the expressions used are 
 singularly unhappy. It is quite true that the suggestions 
 
 1 Moll, op. cit. p. 36.
 
 lo SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 given in many cases take the form of commands, but the 
 essential difference between a command given in the 
 waking state and a suggestion given in hypnosis is that 
 the first may or may not be obeyed, while the second is 
 automatically acted upon. " Persuasion " again is an un- 
 fortunate term. It may occasionally be necessary to use 
 persuasion with a hypnotised subject, but this is not the 
 essential element in the process of suggestion. Moll 
 improves upon this description later on. " We may 
 then consider hypnosis as a state in which the normal ^ 
 course of the ideas is inhibited. It matters not whether 
 the ideas have to do with movements or with sense 
 impressions. We have seen that their normal course is 
 always inhibited. In particular, the subject is unable 
 to control the external ideas or to put forward his 
 own ; the external ones dominate his consciousness." ^ 
 Undoubtedly the normal course is inhibited, but in a 
 peculiar way, and the word " inhibition " alone does not 
 differentiate the inhibition peculiar to hypnosis from the 
 inhibition that takes place when I am unable to attend 
 to a train of thought on account of toothache, or from 
 that which is found when my attention to an interesting 
 novel distracts my mind from my Christmas bills. In 
 one direction the normal course of ideas in hypnosis is 
 not inhibited at all. Within the closed system which is 
 excited by the initial suggestion association goes on in a 
 manner which is wholly normal in kind and abnormal 
 only in degree. When it is suggested to a subject that he 
 is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the train of associa- 
 tion through which he marshals figures and imposes or 
 lightens taxation is a perfectly normal one ; the peculiar 
 element is the inhibition of all the trains of association 
 
 Moll, op. cit. p. 279. 
 
 1
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION il 
 
 that would lead him to repel the suggestion and would 
 bring up into his mind the conviction that the statement 
 is an absurd one. The normal course of the ideas is 
 inhibited, but in a very limited manner. 
 
 Similarly the definition given by Dr. O. Stoll does 
 not bring out the essential nature of the phenomenon. 
 " The expression * suggestion ' in the beginning betokens- 
 nothing more than an idea which is called up in us in 
 various manners by the organic and inorganic world 
 without us, and which forms for us the initial point of 
 further processes of thought, although we may not be 
 fully conscious of the original connexion. Our daily life 
 affords countless examples of such suggestive influences."^ 
 
 This definition of suggestion differentiates it in no 
 way from redintegration and the action of the sub- 
 conscious, which are the common bases of mental life. 
 By " suggestion" Wundt understands '* association accom- 
 panied by a narrowing of consciousness upon the ideas 
 brought up by association, so that antagonistic psychic 
 combinations do not come into play." This definition 
 gives the general conditions more accurately than the 
 preceding one, but fails to bring out that the essential 
 element is the absence of the contrariant ideas to a quite 
 abnormal degree. Association is common to all states of 
 mind, and the limits of consciousness are often much 
 narrower in the waking state than in hypnosis, so that it 
 does not help matters to bring them in as differentiating 
 marks of suggestion. 
 
 Fuller and better is the definition of suggestion 
 given by Dr. von Schrenk-Notzing.^ " Suggestion is 
 the narrowing of the association -activity to definite 
 
 ^ Dr. O. Stoll, Suggestion und Hypnoiismus, 2nd ed. 1904, p. 3. 
 ^ Dr. Th. Lipps, Zur Psychologic der Suggestio7i, Discussion, p. 33.
 
 12 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 contents of consciousness, solely through the employ- 
 ment of memory and imagination in such a way that 
 the influence of combinations of contrariant ideas is 
 weakened or removed, as a result of which the intensity 
 of the suggested content of consciousness rises above 
 the normal." Here again the "narrowing of the 
 association-activity to definite contents of consciousness" 
 is common to all states of the waking mind, and should, 
 therefore, not be given as in itself an explanation of 
 hypnosis ; but the aloofness from sensory experience, the 
 absence of contrariant systems, and the resulting in- 
 tensity of the idea in consciousness, are well brought out.^ 
 
 ^ The importance of limiting the meaning of the term suggestion ' ' at the 
 outset" is shown by its employment in a misleading sense by so eminent a 
 writer as Dr. G. F. Stout. To the general position that ideas brought into 
 combination tend to modify one another, and that if of a previously experienced 
 train of ideas, one of them be brought up by an idea which is similar to but 
 not exactly like it, the remainder of the ideas will be redintegrated in a 
 relatively altered form, he gives the name of " relative suggestion." " If the 
 presented content b has formed part of a presented whole be, then the pre- 
 sented content ^ when it recurs, will tend to call up a whole ^y formally 
 correspoiKling to be." As examples of this he gives the variation in the 
 meaning of a word according to the context. "Consider the variations in 
 the meaning of the word ' home ' in the following sentence : ' I am going 
 home.' This may mean something different according as I say it on my 
 death-bed or to a friend in the street." Or the term is applied to the guidance 
 given to the mind by a series of ideas standing to one another in some uniform 
 and progressive relation. A subject is shown a series of shades of colour in a 
 scale ascending gradually from the deepest to the lightest, but in which one shade 
 is omitted, and is asked to supply the missing colour. If he succeeds, " it must 
 be noted that, for our purpose, the question whether the person has had experi- 
 ence of this particular shade of colour before is irrelevant. By hypothesis it 
 is not the associations which it has acquired in our previous experience of it 
 which now recall it. What is really operative is the form of the series. 
 Represent the series by BjIi^BaB^Bg ; B4 and Bg suggest Bj, not because they 
 have been previously associated with B5, but because B3 : B^ : : B^ : Bg and 
 B4 : B3 : : Bj : B5 " {Analytical Psyehology, ii. p. 55). 
 
 Again, "A very clear instance of relative suggestion is supplied by the 
 singing or mental repetition of a tune in a different key from that in which it 
 has been previously heard. The absolute is not given by the key-note, which 
 may vary. The identity of the tune is preserved by correspondence in the 
 transition between the notes " {Ibid. ii. p. 57). 
 
 All these cases illustrate the law of ps3'chological relativity. My previous 
 experiences, though now forgotten, the present content of my consciousness,
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 13 
 
 We may now consider some of the other characteristics 
 of the flow of ideas in hypnosis. It must not be sup- 
 posed that all suggestions are adopted with equal facility. 
 If the proposition made to the subject is greatly opposed 
 to his habits or his convictions it may be rejected. A 
 subject will refuse to pummel the man whom he has 
 worsted in a wrestling-match, because this is inconsistent 
 with his kindly disposition. He may need persuasion 
 before he will drink whisky, since this is contrary to his 
 habits. Even in hypnosis, therefore, the inhibition of 
 resistance and the destruction of personality is only 
 partial. This is borne out by abundant testimony.^ 
 
 my subconscious feelings, and my conscious aim, all modify profoundly the 
 manner in which I grasp or apperceive a newly-presented idea, and determine 
 the nature and direction of the association train set up by it. The term 
 "relative" used in this connexion is legitimate; to employ the word 
 "suggestion " is merely misleading. The idea or the series of ideas tends to 
 exclude contrariant ideas only in the sense that all ideas or series of ideas 
 which occupy the mind, by this very occupation exclude competing ideas that 
 tend to dislodge them. In the instances given above, "suggestion " is simply 
 the introduction of ideas, and if the term be used as loosely as this, all 
 initiation of thought is suggestion, and every idea that is attended to in a 
 train of association is a suggestive idea, in that it tends to call up some other 
 idea in a manner or with an aspect that suits the context. This use, as we 
 have seen, obscures the salient features of suggestion, and, as will be evident 
 later, leads to a misapprehension of their real nature. It is only fair to say 
 that farther on in the same work Dr. Stout, in his description of suggestibility, 
 uses the term in its proper sense. ' ' In the mind of a suggestible person 
 apperceptive systems are excited almost wholly by the commands, words, 
 gestures, etc., of another person, and not by their own mutual competition 
 and co-operation. It follows that conflict is almost absent except in so far 
 as conflicting groups are simultaneously e.xcited by suggestion" {Analytical 
 Psychology, ii. 154). 
 
 1 " It is generally very difficult successfully to suggest anything that is 
 opposed to the confirmed habits of the subject. For instance, suggestions 
 are made to a devout Catholic, but directly the suggestion conflicts with his 
 creed it will not be accepted. The surroundings play a part also. A subject 
 frequently declines a suggestion that will make him appear ridiculous. A 
 woman whom I easily put into cataleptic postures, and who made suggested 
 movements, could not be induced to put out her tongue at the spectators. 
 In another such case I succeeded, but only after repeated suggestions" 
 (Moll, op. cit. p. 188). 
 
 "The somnambulist might, I believe, be made by frequent induction of 
 hypnosis to do foolish and even criminal acts, but no suggestion made to an
 
 14 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 A consideration of memory in hypnosis brings out 
 some further characteristics of abnormal suggestibility. 
 In the waking state that succeeds all except the lighter 
 hypnoses, there is a complete loss of memory for the 
 contents of the mind during hypnosis. The subject, 
 however, while in this hypnotic dream remembers all 
 the events of previous hypnoses, so that if he is 
 frequently hypnotised during a term of years, there 
 come into being two distinct memory series each 
 independent of the other. If the waking memory 
 be represented by W and the hypnotic memory by 
 H, then if the succession of states is symbolised by 
 WiH^W2H2W3H3W4H4W5H5, there is one continuous 
 memory series W1W2W3W4W5 and another HjHgHaH^Hg. 
 The series H^ . . . Hg displays some special features that 
 distinguish it from the series W^ . . . W5. If care be 
 taken to avoid the suggestion of improved memory, 
 which, if effective, would vitiate the experiment, the 
 hypnotic memory is weaker than the waking memory. 
 According to Max Dessoir, who put a subject through 
 some of the ordinary tests for immediate memory, the 
 hypnotised person remembers fewer syllables than does 
 he when awake.^ On the other hand, under the influence 
 of suggestion, the power of remembering bygone events 
 seems to be greatly increased, and the subject, if told 
 that he is at some previous date in his existence, will 
 reproduce details with extraordinary facility. 
 
 ordinary subject will be executed unless it be in accordance with his wish. 
 For instance, it would be useless to suggest to a staunch teetotaller in any 
 stage of hypnosis short of somnambulism that he should drink brandy. The 
 suggestion would defeat its own end by arousing indignation and disgust. 
 Such a suggestion made to a somnambulist might be obeyed the first time, 
 but it would probably require frequent repetition to break down resistance 
 and overcome his individuality" (C. Lloyd-Tuckey, M.D. , Treatment by 
 Hypnotism and Suggestion, 4th ed. 1900). 
 1 Moll, op. cit. p. 140.
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 15 
 
 To what extent these details are really accurate has 
 not yet been clearly shown, but undoubtedly events 
 which have been completely forgotten in the waking 
 state recur in the hypnotic state with some degree of 
 accuracy, and there are cases in which the command of 
 a language completely forgotten by the normal memory 
 has been partially recovered by the hypnotic memory. 
 Apart from these differences, the two memories function 
 in the same way according to the ordinary laws of asso- 
 ciation and redintegration. 
 
 The hypnotic memory brings into prominence a 
 peculiar feature of hypnosis. The mental system tends 
 to split up into a number of independent series, each 
 working in a relatively water-tight compartment. This 
 tendency is further illustrated by the rapid change of 
 personality that can be produced within one state of 
 hypnosis. The subject is first told that he is the 
 Emperor of Germany, adopts this suggestion, and speaks 
 and acts in the manner that seems to him suitable. 
 Within the limits of this personality he will be con- 
 sistent, his memory will be continuous, and he will reject 
 suggestions that are not in keeping with the part. The 
 suggestion of a fresh personality is, however, readily 
 taken up : the next minute he will become the President 
 of the United States, and a few minutes later he may be 
 a Red Indian or a Japanese general, and for each of 
 these states his imagination, aided by a memory which 
 is continuous for the character, will suggest a suitable 
 system of ideas and of actions. 
 
 This dissociation of the whole psychical system and 
 disintegration of the unity which characterises the 
 normal waking state is the great characteristic of 
 hypnosis, The inability of the contrariant or critical
 
 i6 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 idea to function when a suggestion is made or a com- 
 mand is given is only one instance of it. Just as various 
 systems of memory series are split off from one another 
 and have a relatively independent existence, so the 
 whole system of ideas that represents the results of 
 definite experience as well as general notions of what 
 is probable or of what is fitting is put on one side, the 
 painter is slipped, and a small idea-system is left to float, 
 a frail bark, on the waves of imagination, guided first in 
 one direction then in another by every fresh suggestion 
 that takes the helm. 
 
 The close connexion of dissociation with suggesti- 
 bility and the symptoms of hypnosis is strikingly 
 illustrated by the cases of plural personality that have 
 been under investigation of recent years. In both 
 France and the United States psychologists have had 
 under observation patients who seem to combine two, 
 three, or even more personalities, and who shift from 
 one to the other in an unaccountable manner and after 
 varying intervals of time. Of the different personalities 
 united in the same individual one has sometimes a full 
 knowledge of the others, but more often their memory 
 systems are entirely or almost entirely independent of 
 one another. These subjects, even when not in the state 
 of hypnosis, present many of the curious phenomena 
 often associated with it. Their powers of sense-percep- 
 tion are unusually keen, and negative suggestions pro- 
 ducing sense-anaesthesia can be made.^ 
 
 There still remains to be considered an important 
 characteristic of suggestion, and this perhaps the one of 
 most interest to the educator. If a suggestion is made 
 
 ' See Appendix, p. 195.
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 17 
 
 in hypnosis, in spite of the discontinuity of memory, 
 there is always a tendency when the waking state is 
 resumed for fragments of the suggested ideas to remain 
 on the fringe of consciousness, unless they are removed 
 by express suggestion or command before the subject 
 is awakened. Further, if during hypnosis it is suggested 
 that a certain act shall be performed, the suggestion 
 very frequently takes effect in the waking state which 
 follows.^ The subject, however, when he feels an impulse 
 to perform some strange action does not ascribe it to 
 the influence of the hypnotiser, but looks upon it as 
 originating with himself, and tries to justify it.^ . 
 
 1 " I hypnotise the subject F. when she is in bed, and tell her to dress 
 herself when she awakes, to go to the end of the room, to come back, and to 
 get into bed again. I rouse her out of the hypnotic state. She begins to 
 dress. ' Why do you dress ? ' I ask. ' I have something to do,' she replies, 
 and adds that it is unpleasant to dress with people in the room. When 
 dressed she goes to the end of the room, comes back, and returns to bed. On 
 waking she is much surprised to find herself in bed with her clothes on. On 
 another occasion I said to her when hypnotised that on awakening she would 
 not see Brousse (who was really there), but that she would see Moss6, who 
 was not. On waking she began to speak to Moss6, whom she thought she 
 saw, and when Brousse (whom she did not see) answered, 'How is it,' she 
 said, ' that I hear M. Brousse, but that I do not see him, and that M. Moss6, 
 who is in front of me, does not speak ? ' The hallucination, both positive and 
 negative, was but visual" (Grasset, op. cit. p. 301). 
 
 It is interesting to note that the subject feels an impulse to dress, looks on 
 it as originating with herself, and tries to excuse it. 
 
 "^ An example given by Moll illustrates this well. ' ' I say to a hypnotised 
 woman, ' After you wake you will take a book from the table and put it on 
 the book-shelf.' She wakes and does what I told her. When I ask her 
 what she has been doing, she answers that she has moved the book from the 
 table to the shelf. When asked for her reason, she says, ' I do not like to 
 see things so untidy ; the shelf is the place for the book, and that is why I 
 put it there." In this case I suggested an action to the subject ; she does not 
 remember my order, but believes that she has so acted of her own accord 
 from love of neatness." 
 
 Again, "I tell a hynotised subject that when he wakes he is to take a 
 flower-pot from the window, wrap it in a cloth, put it on the sofa, and bow 
 to it three times. All which he does. When he is asked for his reasons, he 
 answers, ' You know, when I woke and saw the flower-pot there, I thought 
 that, as it was rather cold, the flower-pot had better be warmed a little, or 
 else the plant would die. So I wrapped it in the cloth, and then I thought 
 that as the sofa was near the fire, I would put the flower-pot on it ; and I
 
 i8 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 The suggestion often works after a considerable lapse 
 of time. A case with a duration of 63 days is given by 
 Bernheim, of 172 days by Beaunis, and of one year by 
 Li^gois.^ In some cases, in addition to the retention of 
 the suggestion, a kind of subconscious calculation seems 
 to be carried on at the same time. A young woman 
 was told to address an envelope to Dr. Bramwell 12,500 
 minutes from the moment of awakening, and carried out 
 the instruction accurately. 
 
 The principle of post-hypnotic suggestion is the basis 
 of all therapeutic hypnotists, and while it is no part of 
 the aim of this essay to advise or to discuss the use of 
 hypnotism in moral training, the whole subject of sug- 
 gestive medicine is so closely allied to that of suggestive 
 education that no apology need be offered for giving a 
 few cases. 
 
 Dr. Lloyd-Tuckey gives a table of cures of alcoholism 
 by hypnotism, showing that out of 22 cases which were 
 strongly inherited, and where several members of the 
 same family suffered from chronic alcoholism, 5 were 
 completely cured ; while out of 43 cases where there was 
 no such hereditary disposition, 10 were completely 
 cured.2 
 
 Li^bault cured a man of the symptoms of nicotine 
 poisoning and of the desire to smoke in a week. At the 
 Nancy Congress on Hypnotism he gave an account of a 
 child, seven years old, who was so obtuse as to be almost 
 an idiot. This child was subjected to hypnotic treatment, 
 and so benefited by suggestion that in three months he 
 
 bowed because I was pleased with myself for having such a bright idea. ' He 
 added that he did not consider the proceeding foolish ; he had told me his 
 reason for so acting" (Moll, op. cit. p. 170). 
 
 ' Grasset, Hypnotisme et Suggestion, p. 314. 
 
 ^ Lloyd-Tuckey, op. cit. p. 210.
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 19 
 
 could read, write, and understand the four rules of 
 arithmetic. 
 
 Lloyd-Tuckey has tried hypnotism in twelve cases of 
 stammering, and in half of them has found it useful. 
 In two cases, those of schoolboys, complete cure re- 
 sulted, and in three cases there was so much general 
 improvement that little inconvenience remained.^ 
 
 A remarkable case of moral treatment was reported 
 from the Salpetriere. In 1884 a young woman of a 
 deplorable type was admitted. She was a criminal 
 lunatic, filthy in habits and violent in demeanour, with 
 a lifelong history of impurity and theft. She was 
 treated by hypnotism, and afterwards became a nurse 
 in a Parisian hospital. At the second international 
 Congress of Experimental Psychology, Dr. Berillon, 
 in a paper on the application of hypnotic suggestion 
 to education, stated that he had treated with success 
 ^uch matters as cowardice and moral perversity. Dr. 
 Osgood Mason also gives some interesting cases. 
 
 I. A girl, fifteen years old, in a New York Grammar 
 School. She was a good reader of history and biography 
 and the better class of novels, but had no aptitude for 
 class studies. She could not concentrate her mind on 
 details that did not specially interest her, and could not 
 remember her lessons. Teachers were engaged to give 
 her special lessons to prepare her for the entrance 
 examination to a Normal College, but they reported 
 that she was hopeless. Hypnotic suggestion was tried. 
 It was suggested that she would be able to concentrate 
 her mind on her studies, that her memory would be 
 improved, and that she would lose her excessive self- 
 consciousness and timidity. After six treatments 
 
 ^ Lloyd-Tuckey, op. cit. p. 182.
 
 20 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 she improved wonderfully, and passed an excellent 
 examination. 
 
 2. A little boy, seven years old. He was a terrible 
 cry-baby, afraid of the slightest pain, and considered a 
 coward by his playfellows. It was suggested that he 
 would no longer be a crying, whimpering coward, but a 
 strong, brave boy, and that he would stand up sturdily 
 for his rights among his playfellows. After these 
 suggestions there was an immense improvement. 
 
 3. A tall, pale, flabby boy, aged sixteen. His habits 
 were immoral, he smoked cigarettes to excess, his 
 memory was impaired, he was dejected, dull, and 
 unmanly. He was under hypnotic treatment for two 
 and a half months. As result the immoral habits were 
 cured in one month, the cigarettes were reduced to one \ 
 a week, his memory and his interest in his work were 
 greatly improved. 
 
 4. A lady, an excellent pianist and teacher. She 
 was unable to perform efficiently in public because of 
 excessive nervousness and self-consciousness. Under 
 suggestion her self-confidence was restored to her.^ 
 
 Dr. Mason asserts that the cures by hypnotic sug- 
 gestion are just as lasting and become just as much a 
 part of character as those made by ordinary education 
 and persuasion. Of this it would be well to have more 
 detailed evidence than as yet has been forthcoming. 
 The surgeon who enters a case in his books as a success 
 because the patient has not died under treatment, or 
 appears to be in good health a few months afterwards, 
 is only too familiar ; and, as far as can be ascertained, 
 sudden religious conversions, which, consisting as they 
 do of the introduction of a new guiding idea under the 
 
 * R. Osgood Mason, M. D. , Hypnotism and Suggestion, 1901, p. 149 sqq.
 
 HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 21 
 
 mental dissociation produced by a strong emotional 
 state, have many analogies with suggestion, are by no 
 means always productive of a stable disposition. Making 
 all allowances, however, these cases call for serious 
 consideration, and cannot be overlooked by those who 
 are responsible for the education of the young. 
 
 There are many stages of the hypnotic trance.^ 
 In the lighter ones the patient never loses consciousness, 
 while in the deeper ones he ceases to be in relation with 
 the outer world and hears only what is said to him by 
 the operator. For some of the experiments quoted 
 above, such as those on sensory anaesthesia, an advanced 
 stage of hypnosis is necessary ; but for many of the 
 simpler phenomena the earlier stages are sufficient, and 
 for therapeutic suggestion it is found that the earlier 
 stages are as effective as the later ones. The increased 
 force of suggestion, says Lloyd-Tuckey, " does not 
 
 ^ Li^bault gives the following classification : — 
 
 1st Degree. — The patient feels a heaviness of the eyelids and a general 
 drowsiness. He is conscious of what goes on around him. 
 
 •2nd Degree. — This is characterised by suggestive catalepsy. When the 
 operator places the arm in a certain position, and says that it is to remain 
 there, it is impossible for the patient to put it down. It remains rigid and 
 fixed for a much longer time than would be possible in the natiu^al state. In 
 this stage there is almost complete consciousness, and often the patient denies 
 having been in the hypnotic state because he has heard and remembers every 
 word that has been said to him. A very large number of people never get 
 beyond this stage. 
 
 3r(/ Degree. — In this also the patient is to a certain extent conscious of 
 everything around him ; but he is oppressed by great sleepiness. A move- 
 ment communicated to a limb is automatically continued. 
 
 4/A Degree. — In the fourth degree the patient ceases to be in relation with 
 the outer world. He hears only what is said to him by the operator. 
 
 ^th a?id btk Degrees. — These stages, according to Liebault, constitute 
 somnambulism. After the former, recollection of what occurred during sleep 
 is indistinct ; after the latter, the patient is unable to recall anything spontane- 
 ously. All the phenomena of post-hypnotic suggestion can be induced in 
 this condition. 
 
 Bernheim finds nine stages, but his classification is merely a development 
 of Liebault's, and similarly traces the development of hypnosis from the stage 
 of torpor to the somnambulistic stage.
 
 22 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 depend so much as one might suppose on the profound- 
 ness of the sleep, . . . My own experience, like that of 
 all observers whom I have known, is that good results 
 are effected when there has been no loss of consciousness, 
 and even when the patient denies having felt any 
 hypnotic influence." ^ With this Dr. Osgood Mason is 
 in agreement. " More good is accomplished by the 
 slower process of repeated suggestion upon cases in 
 which the hypnotic condition is only partially secured, 
 and in which neither unconsciousness nor absolute 
 anaesthesia accompanies the processes employed ; and 
 this is the use of suggestion to which I would especially 
 apply the term educational." ^ 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that a mental state which is 
 very little different from that of ordinary waking 
 consciousness is included by the authorities among 
 hypnotic states, and for therapeutic purposes is considered 
 to be as good as, if not better than, the profounder 
 hypnoses. In what respects ordinary consciousness is 
 unlike the earlier stages of hypnosis must be our next 
 consideration. 
 
 1 op. cit. p. 53. 2 Op. cit. p. 142.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SUGGESTION IN THE WAKING STATE 
 
 Most of the features that are to be found in hypnotic 
 suggestion have their counterpart in the normal waking 
 state. While the idea of a blister on the right arm will 
 not originate one, the idea of a pain or of irritation in 
 any part of the body is often quite sufficient to produce 
 it. If a subject is made to believe that a vein in his 
 arm has been opened, and if this belief is intensified by 
 the sound of trickling water, he will show all the 
 symptoms of bleeding to death. To brood over an 
 ailment is the surest way of combating all efforts to 
 cure it. 
 
 With many people the mere statement that they are 
 blushing is enough to produce a flow of blood to the 
 face ; the repeated assurance that they are warm or cold 
 will tend to make them feel warmer or colder. In the 
 same way, if you assure an unsuspicious friend that 
 there are cattle on the side of a distant hill, he will be 
 ready to agree that he sees them ; or when told that 
 a church bell can just be heard in the distance, he will 
 imagine that he hears it. Still more is imitation common 
 in ordinary life. Few of us can for long be with people 
 who have peculiar habits of movement without feeling a 
 
 23
 
 24 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 tendency to imitate them. As is well known, stammer- 
 ing is frequently communicated from one child to 
 another. In matters that are not of vital importance 
 to the conduct of life, such as fashions in clothes and in 
 foods, we slavishly imitate our neighbours ; and even in 
 weightier matters, such as systems of belief or moral 
 standards, we tend to adopt without question those that 
 we find around us. 
 
 When conversing with a cheerful, amusing, and 
 witty man, we instinctively feel cheerful ourselves, cap 
 his jokes with our own, and come away feeling that we 
 are, really, not such dull dogs as we thought, though in 
 this case we generally take the credit to ourselves. 
 Similarly, intercourse with a lugubrious friend makes us 
 melancholy and dull, and in this case we are accus- 
 tomed to blame the friend. In both instances the cause 
 is probably motor imitation. The man whose spirits are 
 contagious frequently has a mobile face. His feelings 
 are reflected in the play of his features ; we naturally 
 tend to imitate this, and the state of feeling that corre- 
 sponds with the imitated expression is produced in our 
 minds. Closely connected with imitation is the influence 
 exerted on social life by the idea-situations to be found 
 in novels. Whole systems of ideas that deal with social 
 situations or with ideals find their way into our minds, 
 and quite unconsciously exert a profound influence 
 upon our lives. Many men who pride themselves 
 on their power of resisting external influences go 
 through life as the most servile imitators in every depart- 
 ment except that in which they resolutely determine 
 to be unlike other people. Indeed, it may be argued 
 fhat, just as mechanical habits are necessary in order 
 to give leisure for the acquisition of fresh powers, so a
 
 SUGGESTION IN THE WAKING STATE 25 
 
 complete acceptance of the recognised social institu- 
 tions, of the fashion in hats, foods, and drinks, leaves the 
 total energy of reaction undivided to break a fresh 
 channel for itself through some one barrier of con- 
 solidated custom. 
 
 Neither is dissociation peculiar to abnormal states. 
 Although the mind is an organic whole, and although 
 in the healthy state relations of unity exist between 
 the dispositions left by past experiences and the 
 dresent content, it is none the less true that unless 
 within this dominating unity the total mental system 
 ladmitted of cleavage in every direction, split itself up 
 vertically and longitudinally, refused the right of way 
 between adjoining sub-systems, and left important groups 
 to function of themselves, ready to come into the central 
 conscious life whenever their presence is needed, the 
 conduct of thought would be impossible. At the very 
 jbeginning of mental life dissociation comes into play, 
 [when through selective attention ideas are detached 
 jfrom the background of contiguous association and 
 {enter into fresh combinations under the direction of a 
 guiding idea. Forgetfulness, which to most people is a 
 'habit to be combated, is a kind of dissociation, and is 
 essential if memory is to perform its function. Unless 
 the great mass of percepts and ideas that find their way 
 into the mind sank rapidly below the margin of con- 
 sciousness, the stage would become too crowded. 
 
 The fundamental division of mind into consciousness 
 and subconsciousness, and the varying degrees of relation- 
 ship in which subconscious ideas stand to consciousness 
 and colour the ideas in it, are instances of the natural 
 tendency of the mind to manifoldness. Education to 
 a great extent consists in organising in the mind large'
 
 26 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 tracts that can function independently and can switch 
 themselves off from the influence of conscious or sub- 
 conscious processes. Each fresh interest that is 
 organised represents a relatively detached system, 
 each fresh subject that is taught is coextensive with a 
 grouping of ideas to which the learner is made to con- 
 fine his attention to the exclusion of all others. A 
 language when acquired is an admirable example of a 
 closely related group within which association will be 
 strictly confined. If I have switched on my system of 
 ideas for German and am hunting for a suitable word to 
 complete a sentence, my subconsciousness is too well 
 trained to bring me up a French word or a Greek word. 
 Even if I cannot find the word, and have nothing in con- 
 sciousness but the blank of interrogation, words from 
 other languages are inhibited, or if by chance they 
 present themselves, are immediately rejected as being 
 illegitimate intruders. 
 
 Many men bring to the front a totally different 
 system of ideas, and with it different manners and 
 sympathies, according as they are dealing with inferiors, 
 equals, or superiors. I stay in one house where the 
 interests of my friends are purely philosophical, and go 
 on to another in which golf or horse-racing is the pre- 
 vailing influence. Relative dissociation takes place in 
 each case and unsuitable interests are repressed. If a 
 versatile man, I may combine the life of letters with that 
 of a practical farmer, but the two systems fall sharply 
 apart, and may have the smallest possible influence on 
 one another. 
 
 More striking is the process when I will to dissociate 
 my ideas. The determination to put a phase of mind 
 resolutely on one side is illustrated when I withdraw my
 
 SUGGESTION IN THE WAKING STATE 27 
 
 attention from an interesting novel and concentrate my- 
 self on a distasteful task, or when a business man whose 
 affairs are in a shaky condition, and who needs for their 
 conduct all the strength and coolness that he can 
 muster, resolves to leave his worries behind him 
 when he quits his office and to keep his home life and 
 interests entirely separate, in order that he may preserve 
 his health and his sanity. In the beginning such a pro- 
 cess of abstraction needs a considerable effort ; in the 
 long run it may become second nature. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that the relative independence 
 of great sections of mind is not only not unusual, but is 
 essential to mental development. If we take the last of 
 the processes which stand out as peculiar in hypnosis, 
 namely, post-hypnotic suggestion, we shall find that this, 
 too, has its analogue in ordinary life. Its essential 
 nature consists in this, that an idea introduced into the 
 mind when dominated by a certain set of ideas or a 
 certain aim, comes into operation later after a period 
 during which the original set of ideas has passed into 
 obliviscence. This is, however, one of the commonest 
 features of the waking state. Our minds are full of 
 latent ideas which from time to time surprise us by 
 coming to the front and taking up a commanding 
 position. We have probably forgotten when or how 
 we first experienced or originated them, though we may 
 have our suspicions, but of their presence and their 
 power there is no doubt. Many people can train them- 
 selves to wake up at a certain hour, or can make up , 
 their minds to perform some action in a week's time. 
 The idea is then dismissed from the mind ; but if the 
 subconsciousness has been properly trained, the sleeper 
 will awake and the action will be performed, although
 
 28 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 neither the thought of waking nor the idea of performing 
 the action may have been in the mind from the moment 
 that the resolution was taken and then put on one side 
 to make room for sleep or for other ideas. 
 
 In the waking state, then, we find the very same 
 phenomena that are so noticeable in the state of 
 hypnosis. Ideas tend to produce vaso-motor changes 
 or to actualise themselves as sensations or perceptions, 
 there is a strong tendency to imitate movements and to 
 accept ideas that are in the air, the dissociation of 
 psychical states seems to be an essential for sound 
 mental processes, and, finally, when once it has been 
 introduced into a mental system, an idea tends to persist 
 and to overflow into action or belief after a considerable 
 period of inertness. 
 
 The difference between the two states is largely one 
 of degree. Psychic processes are in their origin sensori- 
 motor or ideo-motor ; that is to say, in the primitive mind 
 a feeling or an idea tends to express itself in action at 
 once. Feelings of pleasure and pain express themselves 
 in motion towards and motion from the object which 
 gives rise to them. For the dog the idea of rat-which- 
 can- be -pursued resolves itself immediately into the 
 action of pursuit ; for the small child the perception of 
 his mother whom he has not seen for a few hours is 
 enough to make him run towards her ; for the boy the 
 notion of a game of cricket translates itself into "cutting" 
 a school hour. At a higher stage of development 
 this original tendency of the feeling or idea may be 
 obstructed. The moth flies into the candle automatic- 
 ally, while the man may inhibit the idea -impulse 
 that he should enter the public-house ; the dog rushes 
 after the rat, while the man checks his tendency to strike
 
 SUGGESTION IN THE V/AKING STATE 29 
 
 his enemy or to run after his friend. The older boy 
 would like to cut a school hour and play cricket, but the 
 tendency of the idea to develop is blocked by other 
 more powerful ideas and impulses. At the extreme end 
 of the scale the impotence of the idea as an initiator 
 of movement becomes clearly marked and is well illus- 
 trated by the man who lies in bed in the morning and 
 resolves to get up. He may place the idea in the focus 
 of consciousness, and attempt to strengthen it by heaping 
 round it ideas of the advantages to be derived from 
 early rising, but none the less may remain in bed for 
 another hour. The abnormal state of aboulia shows 
 how complete may be the separation between the idea 
 and the movement with which it is naturally connected. 
 In this condition a man may be unable to perform any 
 of the actions which he has it in his mind to do, 
 although he may cognise them and will them. 
 
 In fact, the energy of any idea is determined less by 
 its intrinsic nature than by its relative strength as 
 compared with the ideas which impinge upon it ; indeed, 
 apart from the original tendency of an idea to be 
 accepted or to be realised, which may be looked on 
 as its energy, it is probably misleading to talk of one 
 idea as having more force than another. Its actual 
 influence on the psychic complex will depend entirely 
 on circumstances. 
 
 A certain portion of the mental content is attended to 
 and becomes the idea which fills the focus of conscious- 
 ness. Suppose it to be the idea of giving the whole of 
 one's property for charitable purposes. As an idea this 
 possesses the constant energy of all ideas in the tendency 
 to realise itself. But the field is not clear for it. It is 
 obstructed {a) by the inherited impulses and tendencies
 
 30 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 of self- protection, which incline one to make certain 
 that one's own welfare is assured; {b) by the impulses 
 arising from habit, which look askance at the tendency 
 to give more than the small portion of income which is 
 usually assigned to charity ; {c) by a number of family 
 prudential ideas, such as the duties of educating one's 
 children or of assisting poor relatives ; {d) by the fear 
 that indiscriminate charity may do harm. As a result 
 the incipient tendency to the renunciation of worldly 
 goods is strangled at birth, and its only contribution 
 towards the mental system in which it occurs is that of 
 initiating a train of association. On the other hand {a) 
 I may be the possessor of professional skill which 
 enables me to earn my livelihood with ease, and may 
 therefore be in no fear of indigence ; {b) I may have 
 inherited the fortune suddenly, and therefore may have 
 no established habits of dealing with money on a large 
 scale ; {c) I may dislike my children and my relatives ; {d) 
 I may be ignorant of the economics of social life. In 
 this case the idea will be operative, and yet it is ex 
 hypothesi the same idea as in the former case ; the same 
 impulse to give combined with the same conception 
 of suffering, and the same anticipation of the pleasure 
 to be derived from munificence to others. Stated 
 schematically, an idea A introduced into a mental system 
 has a tendency by association to call up other ideas and 
 impulses B, C, D, which may be (i) contrariant, critical, 
 and inhibitory ; (2) sympathetic and furthering. This is 
 its total association value, and it works equally in all 
 directions ; it calls up ideas that are friendly to it 
 and also ideas that are hostile. This enumeration does 
 not exhaust its latent powers. It possesses also a 
 suggestive energy which may be converted into
 
 SUGGESTION IN THE WAKING STATE 31 
 
 suggestive force, and which overcomes or avoids the 
 resistance offered to it so that action results. 
 
 These two qualities of an idea must be clearly 
 distinguished. The associative tendency is not neces- 
 sarily a tendency to action or belief. I may mass 
 together a number of ideas that deal with a certain line 
 of conduct, but the result may be no more than a clear 
 understanding of the positions ; for increased insight 
 by no means leads to action if there is in existence 
 a system of opposed ideas and impulses, and such a 
 system is often called into existence in proportion to 
 the size of the favouring system ; while, on the other 
 hand, an idea in so far as it is suggestive tends to realise 
 itself quite apart from insight or understanding. If the 
 resulting train of association is abnormal so that adverse 
 ideas and impulses seem to be non-existent, this is due 
 to the suggestive force of the idea, and an idea is 
 suggestive in so far as the train of association which it 
 initiates is partial, or, in other words, in so far as it 
 realises itself notwithstanding the existence within the 
 total mental system of possible inhibitory ideas. 
 
 In a fully developed mind, therefore, the suggestive 
 force of an idea or idea complex is conditioned by a 
 tendency to dissociation or compartment working, and 
 this, as we have seen, is an essential feature of healthy 
 mental life. It is, however, necessary to draw a sharp 
 distinction between the dissociation of the hypnotic 
 state and that of the waking active life. The waking 
 life of the mind, in so far as it is efficient, is a continual 
 struggle. My mental existence, my personality as a 
 conscious being, consists of a complex of aims or ends 
 on the attainment of which my efforts are concentrated. 
 In the adolescent these aims are relatively few and
 
 32 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 simple ; in the adult they are numerous and form a kind 
 of hierarchy. Dominating my entire life of thought and 
 impulse is some far distant goal : it may be the desire 
 to attain religious peace of mind, or to succeed as a 
 social reformer or as a constructive thinker ; or it may 
 be merely the wish to succeed in a profession or to 
 amass a large fortune. Ranked beneath this final aim 
 are a number of subsidiary ends. As a means towards 
 success in professional life it may be necessary for me 
 first to cultivate my mental powers and my faculty of 
 self-control, then to acquire a body of professional know- 
 ledge, and then to develop whatever power I may 
 possess of getting on with my fellow - men, and of 
 imposing my wishes upon them. The pursuit of each 
 of these aims is relatively distinct. When a doctor is 
 learning anatomy or physic, he is not at the same time 
 wondering if his bedside manner will be good enough to 
 contribute towards his success ; when a merchant is 
 trying to organise a fresh market for his goods, he is 
 not with the same system of ideas working out a scheme 
 for raising more capital. But though the aims may be 
 thus relatively distinct, they are all subordinated to one 
 final goal ; the unity of the mind is paramount. The 
 more the mind is pervaded by the desire to attain the 
 final end, the more resolutely it will apply itself to each 
 single end in turn to the exclusion of others, and the 
 less it will allow itself to be called away from the 
 business in hand by the other matters that are of equal 
 importance for the fulfilment of the whole train of 
 conation. The fully completed system will in respect 
 of its discrete parts resemble a large business organisa- 
 tion, in which each department has its own function and 
 concentrates its whole energy upon it, while all work
 
 SUGGESTION IN THE WAKING STATE 33 
 
 steadily towards a common goal. The more efficient 
 the mind, the more complete is the dissociation of its 
 parts, while at the same time the firmer are the bonds 
 by which relations of unity knit it together. For its 
 wholesome growth each fresh stage in organisation, 
 each tendency to split up the total complex, must be 
 accompanied by an equally strong tendency to unifica- 
 tion. The maximum of discreteness must coexist with 
 the maximum of homogeneity. 
 
 It is true that in certain cases it may seem question- 
 able if the unity of the mind is furthered by discreteness. 
 In the instance given above of the merchant who for 
 the sake of his health and peace of mind has to put on 
 one side all his business worries when he leaves his 
 office, and to cultivate a different set of interests in his 
 home, there appears to be certain loss of power ; and in 
 one sense this is true. It is impossible not to believe 
 that his efficiency would be greater if his business were 
 in a sound condition, and if his waking thoughts could 
 always, without any danger to mental health, be con- 
 cerned with its maintenance and development. But the 
 value of dissociation is relative. In this instance the 
 cleavage of mental life is essential, and is certainly 
 dominated by relations of unity. To say that a mental 
 system that is not under the necessity of thus dividing 
 itself is more efficient, such a system as was to be 
 found in John Wesley, whose entire energies, with 
 the exception of the four hours' sleep that he allowed 
 himself nightly, were concentrated on one purpose, is 
 merely to say that some minds are situated more suitably 
 than others for the development of their maximum force. 
 Mind must develop as circumstances permit, and what 
 is the best course for one mind may be only second best 
 
 3
 
 34 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 for another. In all mental development that persists 
 it will be found that dissociation, except in so far as 
 it is necessary for the complete rest of one mental 
 system that another system with relatively distinct aims 
 should occasionally take its place, brings with it an 
 increased consolidation of aims and a more intense unity 
 of consciousness. 
 
 We have seen that suggestibility is impossible with- 
 out dissociation, and that dissociation is of two kinds — 
 the abnormal dissociation that we find in the hypnotic 
 state, and the more normal type that accompanies self- 
 control. Which of these two kinds is to be the con- 
 ditioning influence of suggestion in the waking state 
 must be discussed later.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SUGGESTION IN THE 
 WAKING STATE 
 
 A NUMBER of observations have been made both in 
 schools and in laboratories on suggestion in the waking 
 state, and a consideration of these will throw light on 
 its true nature. Of especial interest are some experi- 
 ments conducted by M. Binet in Parisian schools.^ 
 
 I. The headmaster of the school, following M. Binet's 
 instructions, announced to a class that he was going to 
 make an experiment on their memory of the length of 
 lines. A line 5 centimetres long ruled on white card- 
 board was shown to each boy, who after looking at it 
 had to draw it as accurately as he could on a sheet of 
 paper. The class were then informed that they would 
 be asked to draw another line, a little longer than the first, 
 and were accordingly given a second line to copy. In 
 reality, however, it was shorter, being only 4 centimetres 
 in length. 
 
 Only 9 of the 86 children experimented upon resisted 
 the suggestion, and believed their eyes and their 
 memories rather than the statement made by their 
 master ; the remainder all made the second line larger 
 than the first. 
 
 ^ A. Binet, La SuggestibiliM, 1900. 
 35
 
 3^ 
 
 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 2, In this experiment, as in the first, the boys were 
 asked to draw lines from memory on squared paper, 
 but the suggestion instead of being given by word of 
 mouth was given by the Hnes themselves. The boys, as 
 before, were told that the object of the experiment was to 
 test their memories. " We are going to make an 
 experiment on the accuracy of your eye. We are going 
 to see if you are able to reproduce the length of a line. 
 I shall show you a line which is, say, 5 centimetres long, 
 and you will reproduce it from memory. We shall thus 
 see if your eye is accurate. Some people are so inac- 
 curate that when they reproduce a line which is 5 centi- 
 metres long they make it 10 centimetres ; that is a 
 great error. Others make it only 2 centimetres long. 
 You must try to be as accurate as you can." 
 
 After this exhortation the boys were shown 12 lines 
 in succession. These lines, with the exception of 4, 
 increased in arithmetical progression thus : — 
 
 Order of Lines. 
 
 Length. 
 
 Order of Lines. 
 
 Length. 
 
 I 
 
 12 mm. 
 
 7 
 
 72 mm. 
 
 2 
 
 24 mm. 
 
 8 
 
 72 mm. 
 
 3 
 
 36 mm. 
 
 9 
 
 84 mm. 
 
 4 
 
 48 mm. 
 
 10 
 
 84 mm. 
 
 5 
 
 60 mm. 
 
 1 1 
 
 96 mm. 
 
 6 
 
 60 mm. 
 
 12 
 
 96 mm. 
 
 It will be seen that numbers 6, 8, 10, and 12 were 
 traps laid for the unwary boy, to see if the directing idea 
 of uniform increase given by numbers i to 5 of the 
 series was sufficient to counterbalance his perception of 
 the line presented. 
 
 Of 45 boys who were the subjects of this experiment 
 none avoided all four traps ; 3 succeeded in avoiding 
 two, and 7 others avoided one. The directing idea of
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 37 
 
 uniformly increasing length thus affected 35 boys, or 
 'jj.y per cent of the total number. 
 
 This experiment was repeated in a slightly different 
 manner. The following series of 36 lines was presented 
 to the boys : — 
 
 Order of Lines. Length. 
 
 1 12 mm. 
 
 2 24 mm. 
 
 3 36 mm. 
 
 4 48 mm. 
 5-36 60 mm. 
 
 Of 42 boys subjected to this experiment, only 2 
 reached their maximum length by the 7th line, 13 
 reached their maximum between the 7th and 17th, 13 
 between the 20th and 26th, 10 between the 28th and 
 34th, while 9 manfully went on making their lines 
 longer up to the last line shown them. (Not all were 
 shown the total number of 36 lines.) Thus the directing 
 idea given by the first five lines seems to have been 
 effective, and in the case of 9 boys to have been 
 absolute. 
 
 After the completion of the experiment, the boys 
 were asked a number of questions, of which the fol- 
 lowing will serve as illustrations : — 
 
 Interrogation of Jean Gouge 
 
 Q. Are you satisfied with the lines you have drawn ? 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. Do you think you have made no mistakes ? 
 A. No, I have made some. 
 Q. What kind of mistakes ? 
 
 A. My lines are not of the same length as those you 
 showed me.
 
 38 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 Q. What mistakes have you made ? 
 
 A. My hnes are longer. 
 
 Q. How much ? 
 
 A. I don't know. 
 
 Q. If I were to tell you that you might correct them, what 
 alteration would you make ? 
 
 A. I don't know. As I looked at them I said, " They are a 
 little longer than those shown me." 
 
 Q. Show me how far you would go in correcting. 
 
 A. About so far. (He shortens the lines.) 
 
 Q. Why did you make them too long if you knew that you 
 were doing so ? 
 
 A. I don't know. 
 
 Interrogation of Diem 
 
 Q. Did you see your mistake when you were drawing the 
 lines or after you had finished them ? 
 
 A. I saw it while drawing them ; I said to myself, " I have 
 made them too long." 
 
 Q. Why did you go on making them too long ? 
 
 A. Because I was afraid you ivould make me begin all over 
 again. 
 
 Most of the boys when asked stated that they knew 
 that the lines were too long, and M. Binet suggests^ 
 that they were half aware of the illusion that the 
 suggestion produced. Two-thirds of the boys when 
 asked why they continued to make the lines too long, 
 answered that they did not know. The remainder gave 
 some reason which in most cases was obviously unreal. 
 M. Binet points out '^ that the questions put to the boy 
 rouse him out of a state of mind which is analogous to 
 hypnotic sleep, and awake the critical sense which has 
 been drowsing. It is, at any rate, striking that the 
 
 1 op. cit. p. 142. "^ Op. cit. p. 143.
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 39 
 
 attempt to give some reason, even though a foolish one, 
 for what he has done resembles the tendency of the 
 subject of post-hypnotic suggestion to account for and 
 justify his action.^ 
 
 Of mistakes produced by a guiding idea of this kind, 
 M. Binet says : " As the error arises in the subject 
 himself, and is the result of an auto-suggestion, the 
 responsibility rests with him alone ; the experimenter 
 does not contribute towards it." - 
 
 3. The subjects, 23 in number, aged seven to fourteen, 
 were shown the following series of coloured wools, each 
 placed on a white card :— (i) Blue, (2) greyish blue, (3) 
 greenish blue, (4) bluish green, (5) green, (6) yellowish 
 green, (7) moss green, (8) olive green, (9) yellow. 
 
 Each boy separately was shown the colours in order, 
 and was told that he was to be examined to see if he knew 
 the names of the colours ; that he was to look at each 
 colour, to say its name aloud, and then to write it on 
 the paper placed before him. As a rule, the subject 
 when shown the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th colours called them 
 green, upon which the experimenter said, " No, blue." 
 The great majority took up the suggestion at once and 
 wrote "blue" on their papers. The attitude of the children 
 when the suggestion was given is worth considering. 
 Three types of attitude can be distinguished, (i) The 
 boy takes it calmly and passively, expresses no surprise, 
 and writes what is suggested to him. (2) The boy is 
 perplexed by the statement, grows red, and looks at the 
 experimenter with astonishment, frowning to conceal 
 his embarrassment. (3) The boy's attitude is one of 
 revolt, and he expresses his scepticism in familiar 
 language, saying, " Oh, that's what you call blue is it ? " 
 
 1 I'id. Slip. p. 17. - Op. cit. p. 206.
 
 40 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 4. Eighteen lines, each 60 mm. in length, were shown 
 in succession to 25 boys. The boys had to mark off on 
 squared paper a certain distance from a vertical line 
 equal to the line shown them. 
 
 The first line is shown in silence. With the second 
 the suggestion is made, " Here is one which is longer " ; 
 with the third, " Here is one which is shorter," and so 
 on alternately. 
 
 Only 9 boys resisted the suggestion more than four 
 times, 3 resisted only once, while 8 succumbed to all 
 the suggestions. 
 
 The same experiment was made on 10 boys in an 
 Ecole Primaire Sup^rieure. 
 
 Only 2 made as many as ten resistances, i made 
 three, 3 made one, and 4 made none. 
 
 Here is the interrogation of a boy who made three 
 resistances : — 
 
 Q. What do you think of the lines ? 
 
 A. I think they are all about equal. 
 
 Q. When did you think this ? 
 
 A. When the eighth line was shown. 
 
 Q. What made you think this ? 
 
 A. When you said "^ little longer,''' the line was at the 
 
 centre of the card ; zvhen you said "A little shorter," it was 
 nearer the edge. 
 
 Here it is to be noted that the subject continued to 
 follow the suggestion even after the eighth line, when, 
 according to his own statement, he realised that the 
 lines were equal, and the reasons alleged in his last 
 answer were wholly incorrect.^ 
 
 5. The group of objects given in Fig. i was shown to 
 
 ^ Vid. sup. p. 17.
 
 V 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 
 
 41 
 
 ^ 
 
 24 boys for ten seconds. They were first asked to 
 enumerate the objects in the picture. 
 
 The following table gives the number of times that 
 each object was omitted : — 
 
 The stamp 
 The ticket 
 The button 
 The sou . 
 The portrait 
 The picture 
 
 The portrait and 
 because of their size. 
 
 10 times. 
 
 9 » 
 
 4 „ 
 3 » 
 2 „ 
 Not at all. 
 
 the picture attracted attention 
 The stamp is badly placed as it 
 is in the right-hand top corner, and thus neither in the 
 place where one begins nor where one ends when read- 
 ing. The extent to which the ticket is forgotten is not 
 easy to explain. It may be because the picture at the 
 other side attracted attention away from it ; but in that 
 case why was the sou better remembered ? 
 
 Detailed questions were then asked about each of the 
 objects in the group. Those on the button may be 
 taken as typical. 
 
 1. What is its shape? 
 
 2. What is its colour ? 
 
 3. Is its colour simple or mixed with another colour? 
 
 4. Of what substance is the button made ? 
 
 5. What is there in the centre of the button ? 
 
 6. How many holes are there ? 
 
 7. How is the button fixed on the card ? 
 
 8. How do the threads go ? 
 
 9. What is the colour of the threads ? 
 
 Questions i and 2 were answered for the most part 
 correctly. Question 4 may be neglected, as it is difficult 
 for a small boy to say of what substance an object is
 
 42 
 
 SUGGESTIOxN IN EDUCATION 
 
 made. Question 6 was answered correctly by i6 out of 
 25 subjects. Question 7 gave rise to many mistakes. 
 21 out of 25 subjects maintained that the button was 
 attached by thread or fastened by a pin. Their answers 
 were most precise, and when asked the colour of the 
 threads, each of them stated that they were white, or 
 black, or blue. When asked point-blank if they had 
 seen the threads, 5 maintained that they had. 
 
 Fig. I. 
 
 After Alfred Binet {La Suggestibility, Picard and Kaan, Paris). 
 
 Another group of boys was then asked to write out 
 from memory a description of the same objects shown in 
 the same way. On this occasion very few of the incorrect 
 details were given. No boy, for example, said that the 
 button was fastened by threads. It is evident, therefore, 
 that these detailed questions acted as suggestions. In 
 part the boy when asked a question about some detail 
 that he did not remember used his imagination in his
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 43 
 
 anxiety to oblige ; in part the nature of the question 
 actually suggested the answer to be given. The sugges- 
 tive force of such questions varies very much according 
 to the manner in which they are put. M. Binet tried 
 three further experiments with three different sets of 
 boys, to each of whom a special set of questions was 
 given. We reproduce the questions relating to the button. 
 
 1st set: — 
 
 1. How is the button fastened to the cardboard? 
 
 2. Is it broken, or is it whole ? Draw it. 
 
 2nd set : — 
 
 1. Is not the button fastened on to the cardboard with 
 thread ? 
 
 2. Is it not broken ? Draw it. 
 
 3rd set : — 
 
 1. There are four holes. What is the colour of the thread 
 
 which passes through these holes and which fixes 
 the button to the cardboard ? 
 
 2. Draw the button, showing the place where it is broken. 
 
 The results of these three sets of questions were as 
 follows : — 
 
 ist set. 2nd set. 3rd set. 
 
 The thread 3 4 ^° ) Number of subjects 
 
 The damage done to ) g g > making mistakes, 
 
 the button J ) 
 
 The number of specific errors here rises strongly as the 
 questions are put in a more suggestive manner. 
 
 We have given these experiments at some length, 
 because, besides illustrating the working of suggestion in 
 the waking state, they give an opportunity of again con- 
 sidering the exact nature of the suggestive process. In 
 examples i, 3, 4, and 5, the suggestions were given from 
 outside, and by the experimenter ; in 2 it was the result
 
 44 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 of a perception on the part of the subject uninfluenced by 
 the experimenter. M. Binet classes all five experiments 
 under the heading "suggestion," but there is a radical 
 difference between 2 and the others. If every complex 
 of ideas that is produced by a series of experiences, and 
 which subsequently takes up a commanding position in 
 the mind, is to be called "suggestive," every general 
 state of the waking mind, every apperception, every 
 prejudice will be a suggestion, and the term ceases to 
 have any useful meaning. Or, if we consider the sug- 
 gestive element as residing in the peculiar arrangement 
 and presentation of lines made by the experimenter, 
 we must then class as suggestions all the peculiar 
 modifications of one perceptual element by another 
 that are commonly called illusions. In that case, 
 when in the well-known illusive arrangement given 
 in Fig. 2, two equal lines appear to differ in length, 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 After L. Witmer [Analytical Psychology, Ginn and Co.). 
 
 or when a shade of grey varies considerably according 
 to the background on which it is placed, the length of 
 line and the colour actually perceived are " suggested " to 
 me ; or when water at 40'' Fahr. feels cold after boiling 
 water and warm after freezing water ; or when tea with 
 milk in it tastes sweet after an acid and bitter after a 
 solution of sugar, all these are suggestions. Indeed,
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 45 
 
 every complex perception which is a composite of percepts 
 and sensations that modify one another, must come under 
 this heading, and the term is thus wholly discredited. 
 
 Nor does it improve matters to say with M. Binet, 
 " The directing ideas that we have previously described 
 are the work of the subject, and constitute auto-sugges- 
 tions." In this sense every state of mind influenced by 
 previous experiences is an " auto-suggestion," a word 
 which we shall have to define more strictly later on. 
 
 M. Binet analyses the situation as follows :^ — " I take 
 the opportunity of describing as well as I can the 
 psychology of these very complex experiments on 
 suggestion produced by a guiding idea. In these experi- 
 ments we find a conflict between two different tendencies : 
 (i) The tendency to perceive the equality of lines; (2) 
 The tendency to consider them as forming a series of 
 increasing lengths. It is this second tendency that con- 
 stitutes the guiding idea, and the illusion of the experi- 
 ments is produced by the perception of the first five lines 
 which really are a series of increasing lines. The subject, 
 if he attends, cannot fail to notice this order, and prob- 
 ably notes it in his subconscious language ; in any case 
 he sees it materially realised before his eyes by the posi- 
 tion of the points which he marks on the paper. This 
 guiding idea has made a strong impression on him, and 
 he allows himself to consider that the order of increase 
 must hold good for the whole series of lines. The 
 supposition would appear absurd if stated as a formal 
 judgment, as, indeed, would a number of other supposi- 
 tions which guide our lives, and which are founded on 
 arguments whose value is small. . . . The effect of this 
 guiding idea is to prevent the exact perception of the lines. 
 
 ^ op. cit. p. 199.
 
 46 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 . . . Why does this idea ... in the beginning a purely- 
 intellectual one, possess this force of obsession ? Through 
 inertia. If the subject enters the path shown by the 
 guiding idea, it is because it is the line of least effort ; it 
 is easier to allow one's estimation of the length of lines 
 to increase uniformly than to make a careful estimate 
 of each line on its own merits. . . . Without entering 
 into details, it seems to me reasonable to admit that the 
 suggestion which influences the subject cannot fulfil itself 
 except through the intermediary of phenomena of the 
 unconscious or rather of mental disaggregation. The 
 subject is ignorant of the idea that directs him, he does 
 not know why he submits to it, although he finds it 
 incorrect, and he invents reasons by which he explains 
 his conduct to himself." 
 
 Thus the main characteristics, according to M. Binet, 
 are three : — 
 
 1. The induction that lies at the basis of the guiding 
 idea would seem absurd if stated in logical form. 
 
 2. The subject is unaware of the real basis, and 
 invents false reasons. 
 
 3. The obsessing force is due to inertia. 
 
 No one of these is in any way more characteristic of 
 suggestion than of any of the states of mind that guide 
 our ordinary conduct, (i) The basis of few of our guid- 
 ing ideas will bear much logical analysis. (2) As a rule 
 we are ignorant, and refuse to be other than ignorant of 
 the real motives of our conduct, and as habitually, we 
 invent motives that suit our self-esteem. (3) If, because 
 I have been swindled by one solicitor, I henceforth per- 
 ceive all solicitors as swindlers ; or if, because my experi- 
 ence as a doctor has frequently brought me into contact 
 with one form of disease, I diagnose all my patients as
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 47 
 
 suffering from the same malady, I am taking the line of 
 least resistance ; the state of my mind is one of " inertia." 
 This phenomenon is as common in mental life as it is 
 deplorable, and to call it auto-suggestion perverts the 
 meaning of a useful word, and throws no further light 
 upon the situation. The real problem of suggestion is 
 rather this : If when the state of mind is neutral, or if 
 when the guiding idea derived from past experience leads 
 in a certain direction, a fresh idea leads me in a direction 
 that apparently is not indicated by the neutral complex 
 or is in actual opposition to the guiding idea, how is this 
 to be explained, and how are such suggestive ideas to be 
 introduced ? 
 
 Some light is thrown on the problem by the series of 
 interesting experiments made by Dr. Boris Sidis on 
 suggestion in the normal or waking state.^ He dis- 
 tinguishes in the hypnotic state between direct and 
 indirect suggestion. In direct suggestion the experi- 
 menter gives his orders as directly and definitely as 
 possible. But this is only one method. " Suggestions 
 may also be given in quite a different way. Instead of 
 openly telling the subject what he should do, the experi- 
 menter produces some object, or makes a movement, or a 
 gesture which in their own silent fashion tell the subject 
 what to do. To illustrate it by a few examples so as to 
 make my meaning clearer. I stretch out the hand of 
 the hypnotic subject and make it rigid, and while doing 
 this I press his arm with an iron rod. In the next 
 siance, as soon as the iron rod touches the arm he 
 becomes rigid. I tell the subject to spell the word 
 ' Napoleon,' and when he comes to ' p ' I stretch out my 
 hand and make it stiff; the subject begins to stammer, 
 
 1 Dr. Boris Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion, New York, 1898.
 
 48 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 the muscles of his lips spasmodically contract and stiffen." 
 This kind of suggestion, in which only a hint is given, is 
 indirect suggestion.^ 
 
 Dr. Sidis draws a further distinction between imme- 
 diate and mediate suggestion. When a person does or 
 thinks exactly what is suggested to him, this is immediate 
 suggestion ; when he does something slightly different, 
 for example, if he is told that on awakening he will see 
 a tiger, but actually maintains that he sees a large cat, 
 this is mediate suggestion. 
 
 Before proceeding to discuss the conditions of these 
 several kinds of suggestion, Sidis gives some experiments 
 designed to prove that man is suggestible. These 
 experiments aimed at bringing out the relative values 
 for suggestion of Repetition, Frequency, Coexistence, 
 and Last Impression. 
 
 A series of nine letters was shown, one at a time, 
 through a slit on a white screen. Each slip was 
 shown for three seconds. At the end of the series the 
 subject had to write down immediately the letter that 
 first came into his mind. 
 
 The methods used and the effects of the various 
 arrangements were as follows : — 
 
 1. Repetition. — In the middle of the series a letter was 
 shown three times in succession, thus : 
 
 B E K M M M N O P. In 53 out of 300 trials the subject 
 wrote down the letter suggested. 17.6 per cent. 
 
 2. Frequency. — A letter was shown three times in the series 
 with interruption, thus : 
 
 B K E K M K C R D. In 1 28 out of 300 trials the subject 
 wrote down the letter suggested. 42 per cent. 
 
 1 Op. cit. p. 19.
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 
 
 49 
 
 3. Coexistence. — A letter was shown repeated in a massed 
 form, thus : 
 
 R 
 BECDRMLAF. Result, 20 out of 300 trials. 6.6percent. 
 R 
 
 4. Last Impression. — No repetition was used, the aim being 
 to see what impression was made by the last letter. 
 
 AKFLDRBEM. Result, 190 out of 300. 63 per cent. 
 
 5. Coexistence and Last Impression. — 
 
 A 
 ENCKBMQZA. Result, 55 out of 300. 18.3 per cent. 
 A 
 
 6. Freqiiency and Last Impression. — 
 MCBCKCPNC. Result, 113 out of 150. 75 percent. 
 
 Comparative Table 
 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Frequency and last impression 
 
 • 75 
 
 Last impression .... 
 
 • . 63 
 
 Frequency .... 
 
 42.6 
 
 Coexistence and last impression . 
 
 . . 18.3 
 
 Repetition 
 
 17.6 
 
 Coexistence .... 
 
 . 6.6 
 
 ^1 'i^ r _ 
 
 The experiments are interesting, and it is worth 
 while to ask what they really prove. Mr. Sidis says : 
 " These experiments unquestionably prove the reality 
 of normal suggestibility ; they prove the presence of 
 suggestibility in the average normal individual." But 
 do they really prove anything of the sort ? They show 
 what combination of factors best leaves an idea in the 
 mind ; but the idea need not be a suggestive idea. In 
 this case the idea of the letter that fills consciousness 
 is not believed in any sense of the word. Neither is it 
 really acted upon. The subject wrote down the letter 
 
 4
 
 50 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 that was uppermost in his mind because he had been 
 
 asked to do so, and not because of the suggestive force 
 of the letter. If of two perfectly neutral courses of 
 action, we will say those of ordering poached eggs or 
 boiled eggs for breakfast, I promise to take whichever 
 happens first to come into my mind at a certain moment, 
 the idea of conduct involved is not suggestive. My 
 action is conditioned by my promise ; the presence only 
 of one idea instead of another is conditioned by the 
 previous histor}' of the idea in my mind. 
 
 That frequency and last impression far more than 
 other factors insure the presence of an idea in con- 
 sciousness is a valuable piece of knowledge, and one 
 which can be made use of in the processes that lead 
 up to suggestion ; but the only point in connexion with 
 suggestion that is directly illustrated by these experi- 
 ments is the existence of contrariant ideas. In the case 
 of both repetition and coexistence the subject evidently 
 detects the arrangement that is intended to impress him, 
 and unconsciously deciding that he'll have none of it, 
 clears his mind of the idea at once. 
 
 Dr. Sidis performed a further series of experiments on 
 the elements that condition, or, as he would put it, that 
 suggest, choice. Six squares (30 x 30 mm.) were placed 
 on a white background. This with the squares upon 
 » it was again covered by a sheet of black cardboard. 
 The subject was told to fix his attention on the black 
 covering for five seconds. At the end of this period 
 the black cover was removed and the subject had 
 immediately to take one of the coloured squares, which- 
 ever he liked. 
 
 The following six factors in the suggestion of choice 
 were studied : —
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 51 
 
 1. Abnormal Position. — One of the coloured squares was 
 placed in an abnormal position. 
 
 2. Coloured Cover. — Instead of the usual black cover a 
 coloured cover was used, the colour being that of one of the 
 squares concealed. 
 
 3. Strange Shape. — One of the coloured squares was here of 
 peculiar shape. 
 
 4. Colour verbally suggested. — Before the experiment one of 
 the coloured squares was shown to the subject, who had to 
 give it its precise name. If he did not succeed he was told 
 the name of the colour. The square was then replaced and 
 the experiment began. 
 
 5. Place verbally suggested. — As the cover was being removed 
 the place of one of the coloured squares was suggested by 
 calling out a number, as, for instance, "three," meaning the 
 third place from the left hand. 
 
 6. Environment. — One of the six coloured squares was 
 placed on a larger square of differently coloured paper. 
 
 If the subject selected the square that was forced upon 
 him in one of these ways, this was called, according to 
 Dr. Sidis's terminolog-y, "immediate suggestion," If he 
 chose the square on either side of the one intended this 
 was considered to come under the heading " mediate 
 suggestion." 
 
 After subtracting the number of choices due merely 
 to chance, and combining the mediate and the immediate 
 suggestions, the number of times that the forced square 
 was selected is given in the followincf table : — 
 
 Strange shape 
 Abnormal position 
 Environment 
 
 • 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 • 53 
 
 • 52-6 
 
 Coloured cover 
 
 
 • 43-9 
 
 Colour verbally suggested 
 Place verbally suggested 
 
 • 33-3 
 . 19.9
 
 52 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 It is noticeable here that the first four arrangements 
 are much more effective than the last two, and it is 
 at once evident that the former represent indirect 
 suggestions and the latter direct suggestions ; while of 
 the latter the last is far more direct than the preceding 
 one. It looks, therefore, from these observations as if in 
 the normal or waking state direct suggestion was far 
 less effective than indirect suggestion. 
 
 Dr. Sidis points out that in the previous study with 
 letters the same truth is indicated, since the factors of 
 frequency and last impression that head the list are far 
 more indirect than those of repetition and coexistence, 
 and from these experiments he derives what he calls the 
 law of normal suggestibility : — Normal suggestibility 
 varies as indirect suggestion and inversely as direct 
 suggestion. 
 
 We have described these observations at some length 
 on account of their intrinsic interest. To the second 
 group, however, the same criticism applies as to the 
 first. We have throughout used the word " suggestion " 
 because it is the term chosen by Dr. Sidis, but it is 
 doubtful if the " lead " here given should be called sug- 
 gestion except in the case of the last two arrangements. 
 
 The selecting of the card was carried out not because 
 of the influence of the suggested idea, but because the 
 subject knew that he was expected to choose one, and 
 voluntarily agreed to do so. Here, again, the subject 
 matter of choice being neutral, or indifferent to the 
 subject's interests, the idea that possessed the energy 
 given by contrast naturally determined the direction 
 taken. But when we come to place verbally suggested 
 we have a real suggestion, and in the waking state it 
 is remarkable for its inefficiency. The experiment
 
 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 53 
 
 really does show that direct suggestions which are 
 obvious and which, therefore, arouse contrariant ideas 
 are useless in the waking state, but Dr. Sidis fails to 
 bring out the truth that the indirect suggestions given 
 in this way are effective, not because of any positive 
 suggestive quality that they may possess (though they 
 might, of course, be given in such a way as to possess 
 positive qualities), but solely because they satisfy the 
 conditions of an energetic idea, and avoid the arousing 
 of contrariant ideas. The legitimate inference from the 
 experiments is that direct suggestion which arouses 
 contrariant ideas is the very worst form of suggestion 
 in the waking state, unless the presentation arouses so 
 much emotion that the contrariant ideas are inhibited 
 and rendered inoperative.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OPERATIONS PRELIMINARY TO SUGGESTION 
 
 A SUGGESTIVE idea is one which exercises a disintegrat- 
 ing influence on the mind in such a way that critical 
 and inhibitory ideas are rendered ineffective. It differs 
 from a guiding idea derived from experience in that it 
 has the power of determining the mind in a direction 
 which is not the natural resolution of the ideas in 
 consciousness, or of the dispositions which immediately 
 condition these conscious ideas. The non-suggestive 
 idea inhibits other ideas only in the sense that it ousts 
 them from consciousness in order that for the time 
 being the process of conation that is to the fore may be 
 furthered, and initiates an associative system in which 
 every direction of resolution is possible, which is there- 
 fore critical and which leads to knowledge. The 
 suggestive idea, on the other hand, while it need not 
 be independent of knowledge, leads straight to action 
 or belief. Such ideas may be introduced from without 
 by a person or a situation, and may at once exert their 
 influence, or they may lie latent for a considerable 
 period. In the latter case they will be brought to the 
 front by the ordinary processes of association, and will 
 
 54
 
 PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS 55 
 
 then exercise their peculiar inhibitory quaHties ; here 
 we have the phenomenon of auto-suggestion.^ 
 
 Before we consider the manner in which suggestive 
 ideas should be introduced, if their peculiar properties 
 are to be fully developed, some preliminaries claim our 
 attention. It is, in the first place, desirable that 
 such ideas, in addition to their special pow6r of sug- 
 gestion, should possess at least the qualities that 
 condition the energy of ordinary non-suggestive ideas. 
 These qualities, often confused with those which give 
 a suggestive idea its peculiar significance for mental 
 life, must be clearly distinguished from them. They 
 give an idea its liveliness, they make it the starting- 
 point of trains of association, and they insure the 
 presence of a system of ideas that is easily affected by a 
 suggestive idea when it makes its appearance. They 
 can, therefore, never be neglected by the teacher who 
 wishes to be suggestive, and this chapter will be devoted 
 to considering them as the preliminaries of suggestion. 
 
 The liveliness and the energy of an idea,(^the extent 
 to which it captures the attention and influences the rest 
 of the mental content, depends upon several well- 
 marked conditions. 
 
 I. It must be massive. A massive idea is one which 
 is produced by the perception of a large object, as, for 
 example, by the sight of a mountain or of a large river, 
 or by the sound of thunder or of a large orchestra. Or 
 it may be produced by the repetition of a mental 
 experience over a long period of time. Ideas of this 
 
 1 The term " auto-suggestion" is here employed because it is the one in 
 common use. It is, however, misleading. The idea is really suggested from 
 without, and appears to be "self-suggested " only to the person in whose mind 
 it has been latent. ' ' Pseudo-auto-suggestion " would be a more correct, though 
 impossibly cumbrous term.
 
 56 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 kind have a quality peculiar to themselves and take 
 possession of the mind with great force, even though 
 they may have no bearing upon its content or aims. 
 They may, of course, be neglected. I may, for instance, 
 refuse to listen to the thunder or the orchestra, and may 
 concentrate my mind on something else. But if the 
 direction of attention is neutral, massiveness is an 
 important factor. 
 
 If subjects are introduced to the mind in minute 
 snippets, if the dose is made homoeopathically small, this 
 quality is not to be found, and no matter how good the 
 presentation may be, the feeling tone of the ideas will 
 never be that of real experience. If we analyse any 
 portion of our mental content, we shall find that this 
 tone of massiveness attaches to the subjects that we have 
 read over and over again because we liked them, that 
 we have read slowly, lingering over episodes or details 
 that pleased us because there was no need to hurry ; we 
 seem to have lived through the ideas rather than to have 
 acquired them on stated occasions, and as a result they 
 are heirlooms rather than purchases, old friends rather 
 than travelling acquaintances. The lessons for the 
 teacher are those of leisure and quantity. It may seem 
 like irony to talk of leisure in these days of examina- 
 tions and inspections ; but examinations are not laws of 
 nature, nor do they exist by divine right ; and even 
 when an examination is in the distance it is possible 
 during some portion of the school year to give an 
 appearance of leisure, while it is also possible to be 
 uniformly hurried and worried when there is no examina- 
 tion demanding its tale of bricks at a given date. 
 
 The habit (fostered by examinations) of making boys 
 get up with great accuracy one short portion of an
 
 PRELIMINARYlOPERATIONS 57 
 
 author tends more than anything else to prevent this 
 feeling tone of massiveness. If I read one play of 
 Shakespeare through with a thorough understanding of 
 the plot, the characters, and the philological notes, I am, 
 it is true, to some extent a gainer ; but I lose the sense 
 of intimacy with the author, the tone of "massiveness" 
 for Shakespeare that a moderate familiarity with, say, 
 one of the historical plays combined with a bowing 
 acquaintanceship with all the others would have given 
 me. To illustrate for examination purposes the debt 
 of Vergil to Homer a few quotations and parallel 
 passages are sufficient (they are probably given in the 
 school edition) ; but to give the feeling tone of massive- 
 ness it may be necessary to read to the class in a transla- 
 tion (if they are but beginners in Greek) large portions 
 of Homer, as well as to see that before they leave school 
 they shall have read enough of Vergil to have acquired 
 a grip of the whole story. The tone of the ancient 
 history derived from reading the classic authors, or of 
 the European history acquired through the medium 
 of French and German writers, is essentially massive. 
 The ideas have trickled in slowly, drop by drop, as 
 chapter after chapter, with its linguistic difficulties, was 
 mastered. Let any one compare his knowledge of 
 Greek history derived from the reading of Herodotus 
 and Thucydides with his knowledge of, say, Egyptian 
 history derived , from a manual. He may have a 
 considerable acquaintance with the dynasties and the 
 Shepherd kings, but the feeling tone will not be 
 massive, and unless his reading has been the intensive 
 and extensive study of the expert, he will not seem 
 to have lived through the period. 
 
 In studies like geography the need of massiveness
 
 58 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 makes itself especially felt. The distance between New 
 York and San Francisco is easily measured on the map, 
 it is still more easily learned by heart out of a manual, 
 but the realisation of it with the proper feeling tone is a 
 different matter. It can to some extent be given by 
 reading aloud such a narrative as R. L. Stevenson's 
 Across the, Plains, and some other travellers' records that 
 give the details of the long voyage with all its dis- 
 comforts. This takes time, but the result is real know- 
 ledge, ideas with the qualities of experience instead of 
 the sham knowledge that schools produce in such abund- 
 ance. A couple of experiments may be sufficient to 
 illustrate the logical side of a process on chemistry ; a 
 larger number worked by the pupils themselves must be 
 provided if the "massive" feeling of having lived 
 through the laborious discovery of truth is to be given. 
 
 2. It must stand in a certain opposition to other 
 ideas. It is a general law of mind that if any mental 
 process is suddenly interrupted, broken off, or blocked 
 (excluding the cases in which a shifting of interest 
 brings into prominence a new set of ideas), attention is 
 at once directed to the point of interruption, and its 
 psychic energy is thus heightened. If I am pursuing 
 a train of thought and find it impossible to get beyond 
 a certain point, the idea at which the development 
 ceased attracts more attention than its predecessors. 
 If the natural course of my ideas leads me to pursue a 
 train of thought on a certain subject, the denial of my 
 views by some one else makes me reconsider them 
 carefully. If I am accustomed to hear a certain noise, 
 say, a ticking clock, but normally pay no attention to 
 it, the last tick gains a heightened energy when the 
 clock stops. If I habitually derive enjoyment from the
 
 PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS 59 
 
 possession of a certain object, the consciousness of the 
 enjoyment becomes more vivid as soon as I am deprived 
 of it. 
 
 Special instances of this are — {a) All cases of contrast. 
 {b) Unusual occurrences including the sight of something 
 that is familiar under strange conditions, {c) The case 
 of first impressions, ideas derived from which often 
 possess an energy which is remarkable. This indeed 
 is a condition which frequently leads to suggestiveness. 
 
 The first two classes may be taken together. The 
 teacher more than any other person who is engaged 
 in placing ideas before an audience needs to avoid 
 monotony and to insure the continual presence of 
 contrast and of freshness. The actor, it is true, con- 
 tinually repeats the same part, but never twice to the 
 same audience ; the clergyman addresses the same 
 listeners every week, but has considerable scope for 
 variety in the subject-matter of his discourses ; while 
 the teacher with a very restricted syllabus for the term 
 or for the year has to present the same facts over and 
 over again to the same boys. Here is to be found the 
 necessity for that best of all methods, the method of 
 seeming to have none ; the method that insures the 
 greatest possible variety of presentation and continually 
 presents old friends in new garments. History teaching 
 affords a good illustration of this. The facts may be 
 presented for the first time in the order of the text-book ; 
 at the first revision they may be given from the 
 biographical standpoint ; at the next from that of naval 
 activity ; and, finally, they may be treated in connexion 
 with the political history of the period. Such a method 
 needs much ingenuity and much toil, but it is justified 
 by its results ; for the energy of all the ideas presented
 
 6o SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 is largely increased owing to the ideas of contrast 
 involved. Thrice happy is the master who can be 
 methodical, in the sense of working out a systematised 
 and logical scheme, and at the same time contrive to 
 be ever fresh ; who can combine a little eccentricity 
 with his daily routine. When he is inscrutable, when 
 the class never know what he is going to do next, when 
 they realise that in attacking new matter or revising old 
 he will have some fresh device in reserve, and that they 
 will have to be well on the alert to follow his moves, the 
 principle of contrast is operating under the happiest 
 conditions. 
 
 The third case, that of first impressions, is of great 
 importance, as the energy of the resulting idea is often 
 intense, and it frequently develops into an auto- 
 suggestion. In this way arose Ranke's attitude towards 
 history. " His course had been determined, in early life, 
 by Quentin Durivard. The shock of the discovery that 
 Scott's Lewis the Eleventh was inconsistent with the 
 original in Commynes made him resolve that his object 
 thenceforth would be above all things to follow, without 
 swerving, and in stern subordination and surrender, the 
 lead of his authorities. He decided effectually to 
 repress the poet, the patriot, the religious or political 
 partisan, to sustain no cause, to banish himself from his 
 books, and to write nothing that would gratify his own 
 feelings or disclose his private convictions."^ It is in 
 childhood and in youth that these impressions are most 
 effective, as is well shown by episodes in the childhood 
 of the late Frederick Myers and in the youth of J. J. 
 Rousseau. " The first grief that I remember," writes 
 Myers, " came from the sight of a dead mole which had 
 
 ' Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History, 1906, p. 19.
 
 PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS 6i 
 
 been crushed by a cart-wheel in the Borrowdale Road. 
 Deeply moved, I hurried back to my mother and asked 
 her whether the little mole had gone to heaven. Gently 
 and lovingly, but without doubt, she told me that the 
 little mole had no soul and would not live again. To 
 this day I remember my rush of tears at the thought of 
 that furry, innocent creature, crushed by a danger which 
 I fancied it too blind to see, and losing all joy for ever by 
 that unmerited stroke. The pity of it, the pity of it, 
 and the first horror of a death without resurrection rose 
 in my bursting heart." ^ The other episode is recounted 
 by Rousseau in his Confessions. On the road to Lyons 
 he entered the house of a small proprietor and called for 
 food. Only skim milk and barley bread were forth- 
 coming, coupled with the assurance that there was 
 nothing more in the house. By the end of the frugal 
 meal, however, the peasant had taken Jean Jacques's 
 measure, saw that he was not a spy, and produced a 
 ham, a bottle of wine, and an omelette, explaining that 
 he would be a lost man and the prey of the tax- 
 collector unless every one thought that he was dying of 
 hunger. " All that he said to me on this subject, of 
 which I was wholly ignorant," says Rousseau, " made 
 an impression that will never leave me. This was the 
 germ of the inextinguishable loathing for the oppressors 
 of the unfortunate working classes that has since filled 
 my heart."'" In this case the energy of the ideas pro- 
 duced by the first impressions was so great that they 
 developed into auto-suggestions and coloured the whole 
 of Myers's and Rousseau's lives. 
 
 The responsibility of the teacher who introduces a 
 
 ^ F. Myers, Fragments of Prose and Poeiry, p. 6. 
 ^ Confessions, Part I. Book iv.
 
 62 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 new subject to his pupils is very great. Frequently it 
 is upon the first presentation that the future attitude of 
 a boy to the subject depends. His pride in beginning a 
 new language like Latin is great, and if, as in Greek, 
 there is a new alphabet to learn as well, this only makes 
 the interest greater ; but often the pride and the interest 
 do not last long. When the teaching is mediocre the 
 Latin lesson and the Greek lesson soon become part of 
 the daily routine, the meaningless grind that has to be 
 got through in the intervals of athletic exercise. A 
 little care will avoid this. A vivid introduction to the 
 Latin people, an interesting exposition of its importance 
 to civilisation in general and to that of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race in particular, the treatment of the language in 
 close connexion with the history and customs of the 
 people who spoke it, the use from the beginning of an 
 easy continuous narrative as reading material, and the 
 restriction of grammar to what is essential for sound 
 translating, may make the boy feel from the first that 
 he has been introduced to a new sphere of thought, that 
 he has, so to say, got hold of a big thing, and he will 
 value his early classical teaching accordingly. Some- 
 times with susceptible minds and with favouring con- 
 ditions these first presentations work out happily 
 without any premeditation on the teacher's part. 
 Another episode in Mr. Myers's life, his first introduction 
 to Vergil, may be quoted. 
 
 " On my sixth birthday my father began to teach 
 me Latin, and a few days later he gave me the first 
 Aeneid of Vergil, with an interlineal translation. The 
 scene is stamped upon my mind : the ante-room at the 
 Parsonage, with its floor of bright matting and its glass 
 door into the garden, through which the flooding sunlight
 
 PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS 6^ 
 
 came while I pored over the new revelation with awe- 
 struck joy : 
 
 Musa mihi causas memora quo numine laeso. 
 I remember the reverent emotion with which I hung 
 on the rhythm of that majestic line. The invocation of 
 the Muse came to me as absolutely real and new ; and 
 the ' quo numine laeso ' suggested mysteries of divinity 
 on which I dimly feared to dwell." 
 
 This is the kind of impression that can be made, but 
 as a rule a skilful presentation is required to insure it. 
 
 When the teacher under whom the subject is 
 commenced refuses to take his opportunity the damage 
 is often irretrievable. Half-way up the school, a couple 
 of years later, perhaps, the boy may come under a good 
 teacher with an eye for essentials and an instinct for 
 boyish interests, but it is too late. The subject has 
 already been labelled and put away as dull and 
 meaningless. The lesson, though freshly presented, 
 seems to be the same old thing ; the master is assured 
 that " we have done all this before." Any one who has 
 taught a class of fifteen-year old boys, with a sprinkling 
 of older stagers who have stuck fast, knows how hope- 
 less is the task of convincing some of them that there 
 is any reality in the subject that they are studying. 
 Yet in the beginning this might have been done. If 
 Mulcaster's advice were taken, and if the best and the 
 highest-paid teachers were given to the lowest forms, it 
 might always be done. As it is, the listless attitude 
 towards literature, history, and language that is so 
 baffling at a later stage can easily be accounted for. 
 The value of first presentation has not been realised, and 
 the ideas lack the energy that might have been derived 
 from this source.
 
 64 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 3. It must be expected or desired. If I have been 
 looking forward to an event, say, to the return of a 
 relative from abroad, the ideas produced by his home- 
 coming are peculiarly Energetic ; so also if I have been 
 hunting for an idea, of which I know the general 
 characteristics that it must possess in order to fit into 
 my scheme of thought, it brings with it when found a 
 new stock of energy to the system which it completes 
 and tends to dominate. How far can a pupil be made 
 to expect or desire the ideas that are to be presented 
 to him ? To demand that he shall desire know- 
 ledge is perhaps to ask too much. We shall confine 
 ourselves to expectation : if that can be produced, 
 desire often follows. 
 
 Expectation arises naturally when the mind is 
 working along a well-devised scheme. When I am 
 reading a novel that is skilfully constructed, certain 
 expectancies arise in my mind and help to fetter my 
 attention. I expect that the hero, who is floating on a 
 hen-coop in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, will be 
 rescued by a passing ship, even though he has lost 
 consciousness and is surrounded by sharks, and turn 
 with a feeling of confidence to the next chapter to see 
 how it came about. Were it not for this expectation, 
 or if I thought it possible that he might not survive, I 
 should probably skip the page, and turn on to see who, 
 in fact, the real hero was, or how the story could get 
 on without this personage. The ideas concerned with 
 him would cease to have any energy for my mind. If, 
 however, the story has been well written up to this point, 
 I have a feeling of confidence that my natural expecta- 
 tion will be justified. In the same way, when I receive 
 a letter addressed in a certain handwriting and bearing
 
 PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS 65 
 
 a certain postmark, and recognise it as one which I 
 receive periodically on business matters, I expect that 
 the contents will be of a certain kind, though I may 
 prove to be mistaken as to the details, and again, owing 
 to my confident expectancy, the idea of the letter and its 
 import are energetic. When a discord appears in a 
 musical composition, I expect to find it resolved in the 
 next bar, and attentively await the completion of this 
 phase of thought. 
 
 In school work it is necessary that this feeling of 
 confident expectation should exist. In spite of the 
 apparent eccentricities of method alluded to in the last 
 section, in spite of the apparent want of sequence, of the 
 reversal of the order of the day, the pupil should feel 
 that each portion of the work on which he is engaged is 
 the natural preliminary to something which is to follow, 
 and leads surely to a further stage that would be 
 unintelligible without it. If there is a preperception of 
 what is to follow, so much the better, but if there is 
 none, the certainty that the school work is not split up 
 into disconnected tracts, but is an organic whole in 
 which each part is the natural complement of the other, 
 will suffice. This certainty is a function not of the 
 presentation at the moment, but of the total organisation 
 of school studies. When the geography of Europe in 
 one school hour is followed by the reading of Ccssar's 
 Gallic War in another, the pupil should expect to find 
 that the first throws light on the second ; when he is 
 learning one branch of mathematics, he should expect 
 to find that it stands in a close relation to the other 
 branches that are taught him ; when in classics or in 
 English he is asked to acquire a certain technique of 
 syntax or composition, or a certain method of comparison 
 
 5
 
 66 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 and inference, he should take it for granted that these 
 things are not ends in themselves, but that they pave 
 the way for something that is to follow ; that though 
 their meaning may not be wholly clear, they will help to 
 make clearer what is yet to come ; he should, in short, 
 expect to find a rational sequel to everything that he 
 does or learns. This confidence is for the learner what 
 belief in the uniformity of Nature is for the man of 
 science. 
 
 4. It must convey a meaning. This is implied by 
 the subject-matter of the last section, but the meaning 
 there intended is of a restricted nature. It may be 
 purely schematic, and have no connexion with any of 
 the deeper meanings that sway human tendencies. 
 Neither is the meaning that is supplied by apperception 
 in the sense of the new ideas being grasped and under- 
 stood by a suitable mental content here sufficient. With 
 adult nature the meaning that the greater part of our 
 experiences has for us is closely connected with their 
 utilitarian properties. In passing a judgment on any 
 of the conditions that affect our daily lives, we ask the 
 question, " Of what use is it ? " The meaning of the 
 term " use " depends on our aims and on our interests, 
 but knowledge that has no issue, processes that do not 
 in some way forward the attainment of ideals, are tacitly 
 put on one side, except in some cases of mental 
 perversion. 
 
 The older theory of a liberal education based itself 
 on the exclusion of utility in any sense of the word, 
 and is well expressed by Newman in his Idea of a 
 University. " That alone is liberal knowledge which 
 stands on its own pretensions, which is independent of 
 sequel, expects no complement, refuses to be informed
 
 PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS e-j 
 
 (as it is called) by any end, or absorbed by any art, in 
 order to present itself duly to our contemplation. The 
 most ordinary pursuits have this specific character if 
 they are self-sufficient and complete ; the highest lose 
 it when they minister to something beyond them." ^ 
 
 This view interpreted in practice resolved itself into 
 the teaching of grammar and syntax for their formal 
 value, and is thus identified with the somewhat obsolete 
 doctrine of formal training ; while considered theoretic- 
 ally it failed effectively to separate the aesthetic from 
 the more logical elements involved in a literary training. 
 It is probably true only of a certain kind of aesthetic 
 perception that it carries the mind on to nothing beyond 
 itself, and demands no issue or complement. When I 
 am absorbed in the sight of a majestic cathedral or of 
 a great pictorial masterpiece, my mental content is self- 
 contained and static. The experience satisfies my 
 aesthetic needs for the time being, and no further 
 meaning or issue is asked for. This is a desirable 
 experience, and one that may deepen and enlarge 
 personality, but it is only one of many elements in 
 experience, and does not even cover the whole field of 
 aesthetic. In its pure state it is to be found in the 
 contemplation of single examples of plastic art ; in 
 literary or in musical compositions it is mingled with 
 the expectation that each stage of presentation shall 
 develop into the next, and the belief that every fragment 
 has its use and its meaning within the whole structure. 
 Modern tendencies in philosophy as found in the new 
 school of Humanism are helping to make the issue 
 clearer. " It is probably," says Dr. Schiller, " by this 
 senseless policy of insisting (falsely) on the uselessness of 
 
 1 J. H. Newman, The Idea of a University, Discourse V.
 
 68 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 knowledge in order to arouse intellectual interests in the 
 young, that these same sages have fostered the 'deficient 
 interest in the things of the mind ' which they are wont to 
 deplore. Human indolence does indeed naturally shrink 
 from the labour of learning, but there would probably 
 be far less ground for complaint if the victims of their 
 intellectual prejudices were allowed to learn how know- 
 ledge is the most useful and salutary of all things, and 
 shown the uses even of the staple methods. Nay, if the 
 pedagogical value of interest were more extensively 
 exploited, even the optimistic dictum of Aristotle, that 
 * all men by nature desire knowledge,' might cease to seem 
 a pathetic paradox. Such a policy, moreover, would 
 afford far less nutrition to the * sordid utilitarianism ' 
 which it is so customary and so hypocritical to denounce, 
 than the working of our actual institutions. For inas- 
 much as it is not considered legitimate to lay stress on 
 the intrinsic usefulness of knowledge, on the value of 
 language as our means of communicating with each 
 other, on the value of science as our means of controlling 
 the world, on the value of philosophy as our means of 
 controlling ourselves, extraneous motives of a far baser 
 kind have to be supplied to arouse the interest which 
 sets in motion the wheels of our educational machinery. 
 All the talk about the nobility of a disinterested pursuit 
 of learning is almost wholly cant. In point of fact 
 ' liberal education ' in England at the present day rests, 
 not on the legendary ' love of knowledge for its own 
 sake,' but on the twin pillars of Commercialism and 
 Competition, buttressed, perhaps, in some few cases by 
 the additional support of snobbishness. These two 
 major motives have been combined in the crafty device 
 of ' scholarships ' awarded on the results of competitive
 
 PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS 69 
 
 examination, and their operation on the minds aUke of 
 parents and of children is practically irresistible." ^ 
 
 It is indeed mere cant to expect the minds of children^/ ; 
 to work from motives that do not appeal to an adult, and 
 therefore stress must be laid on the meaning of every 
 idea that the school provides. Our pupils must realise 
 that in history, whether of the classical period or of 
 mediaeval and modern Europe, they are learning about 
 the origins of their own social surroundings, and that 
 without this knowledge a sound judgment on the matters 
 that most concern a citizen is impossible ; they must 
 realise that language, in addition to being a means of 
 communication, enables them to understand the character 
 of the nation that uses it ; that literature is read to give 
 an insight into the deeper and more subtle elements of 
 mental and spiritual life, and that a properly diffused 
 understanding of these is essential for social welfare ; • 
 that science, in addition to its purely theoretic interest, 
 has revolutionised the means of communication and 
 transport, the diffusion of luxury and of learning, the 
 advance of hygiene and longevity ; that mathematics is 
 the basis of physical science, and that the discoveries 
 most useful to mankind have often originated in pursuits 
 whose motive was scientific curiosity only ; in every 
 portion of the curriculum the boy must be taught to see 
 a bearing on his future activity in the world, and in this 
 way the reality of life as a whole will be impressed upon 
 him, and the energy of his ideas will be maintained. 
 
 5. It must bring with it pleasure or pain. Other 
 things being equal, an idea that is accompanied by 
 noticeably pleasurable or painful feelings is more likely 
 to possess energy and to attract attention than one 
 
 ' F. C. Schiller, M.A. , D.Sc, Studies in Htimanisfn, 1907, p. 23.
 
 70 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 which is neutral in this respect ; while for the energy to 
 be continued or developing, the affective state must 
 be pleasurable rather than painful. It is true that 
 the memory of a painful experience may possess a 
 durable energy, but its nature is inhibitory rather than 
 developing. 
 
 This position is too commonplace to need develop- 
 ment except in its particular application to the adolescent 
 mind. Boys have not got the self-control of adults, 
 neither have they the well-stored minds for which new 
 ideas easily become interesting ; yet it is a mistake to 
 suppose that on that account the interest must be 
 supplied by the teacher if a pleasure-tone is to accompany 
 the learning. A healthy boy is brimming over with 
 energy, and it is possible that passive interest, especially 
 if it is of long duration, appeals more to an adult than 
 it does to him. Boys like to be managed ; they like to 
 be given difficult tasks to perform, they like to have 
 problems to solve, they do not in the least object if 
 they are even driven to do a piece of work so long as 
 two conditions are forthcoming : {a) It must involve a 
 process of reasoning which they can just compass if 
 they really exert themselves ; {b) It must reach a 
 definite conclusion at the end of the sitting, and the boy 
 must realise pretty distinctly what he has got through 
 and completed. 
 
 Given these conditions, the harder the work is and 
 the greater the activity involved, the keener will be the 
 pleasure-tone for the average healthy boy. Soft options 
 do not really please schoolboys, and they certainly form 
 the worst possible preparation for suggestion. 
 
 In discussing these preliminaries we have often been 
 near the boundary-wall of suggestion ; we have treated
 
 PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS 71 
 
 the conditions of interest, and interest is often able to 
 lead to suggestive teaching, though it is not synonymous 
 with it. It is now time to cross the boundary, and 
 consider in what the essential factors of suggestion 
 consist.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PROCESS OF SUGGESTION 
 
 The conditions treated in the last chapter are those 
 on which depend the energy of ordinary ideas, their 
 capacity to attract attention, to initiate trains of associa- 
 tion, and to form centre points for idea systems. A 
 suggestive idea must possess energy ; it has indeed more 
 energy than any other idea. These conditions, therefore, 
 apply to it as well as to other ideas. Further, for a 
 suggestive idea to be effective it must find as material to 
 work upon groups of ideas that have arisen under these 
 conditions. In all preliminary work, therefore, they 
 must be strictly observed if suggestions are to produce 
 their full result. Live teaching depends on this, and 
 lifeless teaching can never lead to suggestion. 
 
 But the suggested idea, with the peculiar energy 
 which characterises it, arises under certain definite con- 
 ditions of its own. 
 
 I. It must be introduced by a person who is trusted, 
 loved, or feared ; or under circumstances that inspire 
 these sentiments ; or in a tone of voice or with a 
 manner that the subject has always associated with 
 ideas that are to be acted on or believed. One or other 
 of these qualities, or more often a combination of them, 
 is an invariable characteristic of the person who is 
 
 72
 
 THE PROCESS OF SUGGESTION 73 
 
 suggestive. In other words, a suggestive person may- 
 be one who can set up in another a state of emotion 
 sufficient to produce an unstable and easily dissociated 
 condition of mind, and thus to inhibit the rise or the 
 development of contrariant systems. 
 
 2. It must be introduced so that reaction is not set 
 up. It is characteristic of the general law of interruption 
 already mentioned that the point blocked in a train of 
 thought has attention drawn to it, but the ideas on both 
 sides of the blocked point are equally illuminated ; the 
 idea of not paying my bills, and the reasons why I 
 should not do so, are realised as vividly as the idea that 
 I ought to settle them at once, the development of which 
 they tend to arrest. A suggestive idea, however, must 
 possess more energy than the ideas with which it is 
 competing ; an idea, therefore, that initiates a strong 
 critical reaction will not be suggestive. 
 
 Reaction can be set up in tw^o ways, {a) When an 
 idea is presented to me that is wholly incompatible with 
 my mental content, my sentiments, and my aims, it 
 is immediately rejected. If I am bent on making a 
 fortune on the Stock Exchange, a suggestion that I 
 shall enter the Church will not be favourably received ; 
 similarly, when I am engaged in writing a theological 
 treatise the jargon of the stockbroker will fall on deaf 
 ears. If the reaction is sufficiently strong and immediate 
 it does not reach the critical stage ; it is when the state 
 of mind is sufficiently neutral for the new idea to obtain 
 a slight footing that the critical reaction of ideas that 
 are summoned up from the subconsciousness begins. It 
 must be borne in mind that the understanding of an 
 idea or of a position does not make me any the more 
 inclined to act upon it ; apperceived ideas are not
 
 74 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 necessarily suggestive. The theologian may have a 
 very clear conception of the advantages to be gained by 
 making a successful coup on the Stock Exchange ; but 
 he prefers to act otherwise. 
 
 (Jj) If the idea, though not very antagonistic or 
 possibly neutral, is introduced in too great a quantity or 
 too persistently, this may defeat its ends. In all mental 
 process that is not guided by a strong element of 
 conation, reaction is sooner or later certain to occur, and 
 this all the more surely if the ideas involved have a 
 strong feeling-tone. Association by contrast, or the 
 passing from one idea to its opposite, is for ideas viewed 
 on their cognitive side a questionable law, but it is 
 certain that feelings readily pass over into their opposites, 
 and to this truth no doubt is due the original acceptance 
 of "contrast" as a primary law of association. The 
 nervous centres which are excited by feelings of elation 
 easily become fatigued, and the succeeding state is one 
 of mental depression. With an emotional person love 
 is often succeeded by hate, joy by grief, confidence by 
 distrust. The changes of fashion in clothes and in social 
 observances afford abundant illustration. It is always 
 possible that the feeling-tone of an idea may by reaction 
 tend to inhibit the idea that gave it birth. When, for 
 example, it is first suggested to me by a circular that 
 I should purchase Jenkins' soap or hair-restorer, my 
 state of mind is indifferent. I may need soap or hair- 
 restorer, and the advertisement sways me slightly in 
 the direction of these particular articles. If after an 
 interval, during which the idea is absent from my mind, 
 I occasionally hear praise of these commodities, or learn 
 that my old friend So-and-so is using both with good 
 results, the tendency to buy may grow stronger and
 
 THE PROCESS OF SUGGESTION 75 
 
 stronger. If, on the other hand, the first circular is 
 immediately followed by a second, and the second by a 
 third ; if I am unable to take up the newspaper without 
 seeing the advertisement ; if I cannot raise my eyes 
 without finding it on a poster, a feeling of reaction arises 
 and develops within me, until, finally, I make up my mind 
 that were there no alternative I would willingly go bald 
 and unwashed rather than patronise Jenkins' specifics. 
 
 The too direct or persistent introduction of an idea 
 may thus result in a reaction against it and in the 
 complete destruction of its suggestive energy. Or the 
 reaction may be of a more general kind. Boredom and 
 listlessness may set in, or a moody state of antagonism 
 that will attach itself indifferently to the particular set 
 of ideas that gave rise to it, or to any ideas that are 
 unfamiliar, or to the person or situation that introduced 
 them. 
 
 This may be avoided by bringing forward the idea 
 very gradually. If possible it should be introduced so 
 that its very insufficiency makes the mind ask for more. 
 The most suggestive teacher is he who makes his pupils 
 feel that he is keeping back from them something of 
 value that they can have if they ask for it and are 
 worthy of it. The suggestive book is often one that 
 just glances at a certain topic, then deals with other 
 matters, and then returns skilfully to it again. The 
 suggestive idea may thus derive some of its energy from 
 being introduced marginally, and in this respect is 
 unlike the ordinary idea whose energy depends on its 
 filling the centre of consciousness. 
 
 Reaction, while not necessarily contrariance, affords 
 the conditions under which contrariance arises, and it 
 must therefore be (a) repressed, or (/?) avoided.
 
 76 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 (a) The suggestive person does not always prevent 
 the contrariant idea from coming into consciousness, 
 but he inhibits it at an early stage by the emotional 
 tone which he induces. The mind is first conscious of 
 the feeling of antagonism, and then of its gradual 
 subsidence. Such an emotional tone produced by a 
 good speaker or teacher gives rise in the pupil to an 
 unstable condition of mind which is, therefore, easily 
 dissociated and influenced by suggestion. The draw- 
 back of this state of mind is that it is weaker than a 
 more unified condition, and is liable to be influenced by 
 every suggestion. It cannot always be relied on. One 
 teacher may dissociate it and influence it in a certain 
 way at one time, and may flatter himself that he has 
 produced a permanent disposition. But the pupil 
 escapes from his influence, is dissociated by the society 
 of some companion, and finally succumbs to a different 
 suggestion. Much suggestion of this kind could scarcely 
 strengthen the mind. It is a process that can be justi- 
 fied only when it takes place seldom, when the mind is 
 at a certain stage of growth, and for the sake of intro- 
 ducing ideas of a specific kind which will, from their 
 intrinsic value, tend to concentration, and thus will 
 counterbalance the dissociation which preceded their 
 introduction. It is, moreover, not a bow for every man 
 to shoot with, since, if it is not absolutely successful, it is 
 a complete failure. There is no middle way. 
 
 (d) Thus, while it is certain that suggestion can often 
 be carried out in this direct manner, it is not so certain 
 that the process is a desirable one. Fortunately there 
 is a method that does not involve these drawbacks. It 
 has already been shown that new ideas can be introduced 
 so discreetly that no reaction is aroused, that sleeping
 
 THE PROCESS OF SUGGESTION 17 
 
 dogs can be let lie, and the subject remain sublimely un- 
 conscious that he is being " got at." The indirectness is 
 increased when dissociation takes place under the in- 
 fluence of a strong conative process, when the mind by- 
 sheer concentration on a certain system of ideas ousts and 
 inhibits other systems, including those of criticism and 
 contrariance. If when striving with all the energy of 
 which I am capable to bring to completion an important 
 piece of work I am daily brought into contact with a man 
 for whose religion, nationality, or manners I have a pro- 
 found dislike, this feeling of antipathy may be dissociated 
 and prevented from coming to the front by my concen- 
 tration on the matter in hand. While I am planning 
 out methods of getting round obstacles, of doing good 
 work with bad tools, and of keeping sulky workmen in 
 a good humour, it is possible that my colleague, on 
 repeated occasions, may have shown me a side of his 
 religious views or of his national characteristics that I 
 did not suspect before. In ordinary circumstances any 
 tendency to approve would at once be held in check by 
 my fixed antipathy ; but my set purpose gives my mind 
 no leisure to dwell upon this antipathy, the new ideas 
 fall on neutral ground, and by the end of our collabora- 
 tion may themselves have become strong enough to 
 inhibit my old tendency to reaction. 
 
 Stated schematically : if an idea A be introduced in 
 company with a conative series of ideas X, Y, Z, of which 
 it does not form an essential element, though it may 
 stand in some relation to it, the concentration of the 
 mind on X, Y, Z will render impotent the system that 
 might criticise and inhibit A, and A thus obtains a sug- 
 gestive value. 
 
 In such a state of mind the feeling tone is that
 
 78 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 strenuous one which accompanies all effort, and the idea 
 suggested in connexion with it will, even as a latent 
 disposition, possess that feeling tone which tends to 
 conation and therefore to unification of mind. It will 
 silently take its place and dimly be realised as an idea 
 which has an active value, it will tend to come to the 
 fore again when any process of conation that involves it 
 is at work, and when brought to the front by the 
 ordinary processes of association, it will by its very tone 
 tend to induce conation and the unity in diversity that 
 is characteristic of the sane mind. This gives the ideas 
 introduced by the indirect an immense advantage over 
 those introduced by the direct method. 
 
 In the latter case the ideas introduced when the 
 mind is dissociated through emotion and is in a purely 
 passive state will, it is true, have a suggestive value for 
 the moment, and in some cases may possibly have a 
 permanent value ; but their feeling tone will be one of 
 sentiment, and they will not be so certain to link them- 
 selves naturally to states of strenuous effort or to draw 
 them into operation in the future. 
 
 There is yet another advantage inherent in the 
 indirect method. If the new idea can be introduced 
 almost unnoticed so as to lie latent for a period and 
 then to assert itself, there is every chance that the pupil 
 will look upon it as originating with himself. In this 
 case he is little likely to bring contrariant ideas to the 
 front, as they will be inhibited by his own feeling of 
 self-esteem. When auto-suggestion of this kind can be 
 secured, it is probably the most effective form of 
 suggestion that there is. 
 
 In direct suggestion, on the other hand, the process of 
 communication has been as follows : — The subject has
 
 THE PROCESS OF SUGGESTION 79 
 
 been aware of contrariant ideas in his mind, and has 
 also been conscious of a desire on the part of the 
 speaker to counteract them. The effort of the speaker 
 has been successful through the emotional tone produced, 
 but if the subject is candid with himself, he can be under 
 no delusion as to the origin of the ideas which he feels 
 to be operative in his mind. In other words, such ideas 
 are far less likely to be received as auto-suggestions, 
 and are far nearer the danger of diminishing the subject's 
 belief in his own personality (though here a proviso 
 must once more be made in favour of the intrinsic 
 virility of certain ideas), than are the ideas which are 
 introduced indirectly, in connexion with effort, and 
 without consciousness on the part of the subject that 
 his views are being modified. 
 
 There is yet another condition that furthers the 
 suggestiveness of an idea. This is the suddenness with 
 which it is presented. If when sitting in a drawing- 
 room I say to an acquaintance suddenly, " There is a 
 rat crawling up your leg ! " his mind will immediately be 
 filled with the notion rat-leg to the exclusion of every- 
 thing else, and he will immediately jump up, or at least 
 look down, to see the supposed rat. His attitude of 
 mind will not be, " I shall look down at my leg to see 
 if what Jones says is true " ; he has not time to consider 
 the matter ; the idea through its very suddenness over- 
 flows into action at once before critical ideas are able to 
 arise. In addition, the idea, a repellent one, by its 
 suddenness gives a shock to the mental system and 
 tends to render dissociation easy. In this case, there- 
 fore, the conditions are (i) rapidity of presentation, 
 which does not give the contrariant ideas time to arise, 
 combined with (2) the shock of presentation, which helps
 
 8o SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 to hinder them from making a protest. If, on the other 
 hand, I say to my friend slowly, " Are you aware that 
 there is a rat crawling up your leg ? " his mind has 
 plenty of time to tackle the statement. Critical ideas 
 immediately point out to him {a) that it is extremely 
 unlikely that there should be a rat in the drawing- 
 room ; {b) that a rat is not' a small object, and that 
 he does not feel it ; {c) that if a rat were really there, 
 my tone of address and my manner would be more 
 agitated. As a result of this deliberation, instead of 
 jumping up or looking down at his leg, he either 
 takes no notice, or expresses his disbelief in well-chosen 
 terms. 
 
 The conditions of rapidity and of surprise are often 
 to be found in the " first impressions " mentioned in the 
 last chapter. A new idea, presented to a mind which is 
 unprepared for it, by virtue of the slight shock that it 
 administers, develops a high degree of energy if it is 
 sufficiently vivid, and either immediately or later on, 
 after a period of existence as a latent idea, becomes 
 suggestive and dominating. 
 
 The personal qualities that tend to give suggestive 
 force and to inspire confidence when dealing with 
 adolescents must now be considered. They are neces- 
 sary for indirect no less than for direct suggestion, 
 though in the former their operation is not so immediate. 
 Their possession is essential to the teacher in his relations 
 with younger and with older boys, though with small 
 children who are not very critical, and can be imposed 
 upon with comparative ease, they may be simulated 
 with good effect. With boys who are past the age of 
 puberty, who are critical with that severity which marks
 
 THE PROCESS OF SUGGESTION 8i 
 
 the immature mind, and who habitually discuss their 
 masters, a superficial veneer is easily detected. 
 
 1. The first of these qualities is self-control and 
 reserve. Unless a man can first control his own ideas 
 and impulses, he will be unable to influence those of 
 others. Signs of weakness or self-indulgence of any 
 kind are easily discerned by the thirty pairs of eyes that 
 daily scrutinise a master's movements. This self-control 
 must extend to his personal relations with his pupils. 
 It is not good that a master should be too familiar with 
 his class. They should feel that he is a friend, but 
 should not forget that he is a superior. A constant 
 attitude of reserve will give great weight to his views 
 and sentiments when he discloses them. 
 
 2. Closely connected with reserve is the quality of 
 inscrutability. A master about whom boys are never 
 able to make up their minds, who remains always to 
 some extent a sealed book to them, will keep them on 
 their mettle and in an impressionable state by the slight" 
 element of uncertainty involved. 
 
 3. Inscrutability is often to be found in close relation 
 with the quality of masterfulness, to the composition of 
 which a variety of causes may contribute. For the 
 modern schoolboy, as for the Hebrews whom Solomon 
 had in mind, fear is the beginning of wisdom, and the 
 affection that is based upon a wholesome awe is that 
 which the master should seek to inspire. 
 
 4. No device of teaching or of manner, no reserve of 
 information or of sympathy, will promote suggestion 
 unless the idea that is to be suggested is first vividly 
 imagined and keenly felt by the teacher. It is, of course, 
 possible for an unimaginative and unsympathetic man 
 to introduce a boy to an inspiring book ; but it takes a
 
 82 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 very suggestive and a very interesting book to withstand 
 the chilling dreariness of a dull teacher. Imagination 
 and feeling are both contagious. This contagion makes 
 itself felt through manner and play of features, but 
 most of all through good verbal expression. It is, 
 therefore, above all things necessary that a teacher 
 should speak well. He may address his class in 
 narrative form very seldom, but when he does so for 
 the sake of conveying any impression, care should be 
 taken that the exposition is really good. His manner 
 and mode of speech may, perhaps should, be easy and 
 colloquial in the ordinary course of nature, but when he 
 reads a piece of literature to his class, the performance 
 should be an artistic one. It is useless for him to feel 
 the idea that he wishes to convey unless he is able to 
 express it ; while unless the idea be there, the power of 
 expression is of no avail. Both are needed in com- 
 bination, and both must be assiduously cultivated. 
 The following description refers to a university pro- 
 fessor, but school no less than university teaching needs 
 just such a fusion of conviction and of utterance : — 
 " There was a magnetic quality in the tones of his 
 voice," writes a hearer of Lord Acton, "and a light in 
 his eye, that compelled obedience from the mind. 
 Never before had a young man come into the presence 
 of such intensity of conviction as was shown by every 
 word Lord Acton spoke. It took possession of the 
 whole being, and seemed to enfold it in its own burning 
 flame. And the fires below on which it fed were, at 
 least for those present, immeasurable. More than all 
 else, it was perhaps this conviction that gave to Lord 
 Acton's Lectures their amazing force and vivacity. He 
 pronounced each sentence as if he were feeling it,
 
 THE PROCESS OF SUGGESTION 83 
 
 poising it lightly, and uttering it with measured delibera- 
 tion. His feeling passed to the audience, which sat 
 enthralled. It was in truth an emotional performance 
 of the highest order — a wonderful work of art such as, 
 in all likelihood, will never again be witnessed." ^ 
 
 5. After a description of Lord Acton's eloquence, the 
 statement that the teacher must possess both sufficient 
 knowledge of his subject and sufficient general culture 
 sounds absurdly commonplace. Life, however, largely 
 consists of the commonplace, and education is not a 
 collection of purple patches. The able teacher supplies 
 the silver threads that bind together the fustian tissue, 
 and one of these threads is the efficiency that comes 
 from knowledge. Of this among the teachers of higher 
 forms there is usually no great lack, but the present 
 economic conditions of education, and the tradition 
 that the staff of a school consists of a headmaster and 
 of ushers, a tradition that in England we are very slow 
 to shake off, give us a copious supply of ignorance 
 among the teachers of smaller boys ; while the ludi- 
 crously excessive hours of work, again a traditional 
 survival, deprive the larger number of assistant masters 
 both of the energy and the leisure for adding to what 
 knowledge they possess. 
 
 And yet for the teaching of most English subjects or 
 of the classics to junior forms, a very considerable back- 
 ground of knowledge is required, and this knowledge, if 
 present, soon makes itself felt and wins the respect of a 
 class. Boys appreciate knowledge in a teacher more 
 than is generally recognised ; indeed, if once they take 
 it into their heads that he is exceptionally well informed, 
 
 1 Quoted in the Introduction to Lord Acton's Lectures on Modern 
 History, 1906, p. xi.
 
 84 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 they are quite ready to have an exaggerated notion of 
 his ability, and under these conditions listen with respect 
 to what he has to say. They are also insensibly affected 
 by his acquaintance with men and things, and for this 
 reason it is to be regretted that schoolmasters do not 
 occasionally pursue some other calling that brings them 
 more into contact with their fellow -men before they 
 finally devote themselves to teaching as a career. 
 
 6. It need scarcely be added, however, that all the 
 erudition in the world will be useless unless the other 
 qualities of a teacher are there, and in particular, the 
 general technique that for want of a better name may 
 be called business-like habits in the class-room. The 
 performance of routine work in a quiet professional 
 manner is not showy ; punctuality of appearance, regu- 
 larity with lists of marks, rigidity in setting and 
 demanding impositions, definitencss in the demand for 
 home work — these things are but the drab-coloured 
 background of efficiency. If absent they are missed ; if 
 present they are taken for granted ; but none the less 
 they work in with the other elements which command 
 respect, and it may be doubted if a teacher who neglects 
 them will in the long run be suggestive, no matter what 
 his gifts may be. 
 
 7. It remains to mention one personal characteristic 
 on which great stress is often laid, namely, athletic 
 qualifications. A teacher should, no doubt, be able to 
 interest himself in the pursuits of his pupils ; but the 
 athletic habit of mind is no substitute for any of the 
 above-mentioned qualities. It does not necessarily 
 imply self-control or even business-like habits, and if it 
 be accompanied by a lack of interest in ideas, the 
 authority that it gives may be far too dearly purchased.
 
 THE PROCESS OF SUGGESTION 85 
 
 Is it to be supposed that these qualities are to be 
 found in all suggestive teachers, or that the lack of 
 them renders suggestion impossible ? Probably not. 
 No foot-rule has yet been discovered that will measure 
 the things of mind with absolute certainty, no analysis 
 that does not involve a cross-division or allow some 
 element to escape through its meshes ; but for ordinary 
 mortals these are the permanent conditions. Let the 
 exceptional man, the born teacher, of whom we hear so 
 much and see so little, remember that his gifts bring 
 with them responsibility as well as freedom.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 
 
 If an action is suggested by one person, it may be 
 imitated by another, and the words " suggestion " and 
 " imitation " are often used as if they were correlative. 
 This use is a loose one. " Imitation " is a term generally 
 applied to movements. I imitate some one's manner of 
 walking, or of eating, or his habits of speech, or of facial 
 expression. I do not talk of imitating his feelings or 
 his wishes. Here the term "sympathy" seems more 
 appropriate. For general purposes, however, the 
 meaning of imitation may be extended to a com- 
 munity of ideas and wishes, and in this case it is 
 possible to say that imitation and suggestion appear 
 to be the same process viewed from the standpoint of 
 the active and the passive agent respectively. 
 
 This correlation of terms, though habitual and useful, 
 needs modification in detail. As we rise from instinctive 
 to conscious processes imitation goes through several 
 distinct stages. It is customary to distinguish Between 
 (i) the instinctive stage. Here the agent is wholly 
 unconscious that he is imitating. I rush into a hat- 
 shop and select a certain hat from among a number that 
 are shown me, and am quite unaware that my selection 
 is influenced by the style of hats worn by my friends, or 
 
 86
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION g; 
 
 that the hat has been forced upon me by a skilful sales- 
 man, in which latter case my chgice has been imitative 
 in the wider sense of the word. 
 
 (2) The conscious stage. Here it seems natural to do 
 what those like us are doing, and though we have a full 
 consciousness of our action, very little attention is given 
 to it. When 1 buy a hat of a certain kind because I see 
 that my friends have similar hats, I am fully aware that 
 in doing so I resemble them ; but I do not necessarily 
 act thus in order that I may resemble them. Out of 
 this state of mind there easily develops (3) the 
 purposive stage. I actually desire to imitate. 
 
 This desire may be actuated, by one of three motives. 
 (a) For the sake of imitation itself I wish to have a 
 hat like Jones's that I may not appear unusual, (d) For 
 practical ends. I want a hat like Jones's because it 
 appears to be a very serviceable one. (c) For reasons 
 of self-esteem. If the process of imitation has been 
 difficult, or if I may dread its impossibility, a feeling of 
 emulation arises. I want to get a hat like Jones's that I 
 may not seem to be left behind in the race for hats ; 
 and this leads to a desire not merely to imitate Jones, 
 but actually to outdo him. When women are selecting 
 hats this element of emulation is prominent ; imitation 
 has led to competition. 
 
 How far is it legitimate to use the term " suggestion " 
 as the correlative of all three stages of suggestion ? 
 
 At the lowest stage unconscious imitation is very like 
 the correlative of indirect suggestion ; but this likeness is 
 only partial. For in indirect suggestion the boy's un- 
 consciousness is not of the idea that is thus presented to 
 him, but rather of the thought that his teacher wishes 
 him to adopt it. Stages two and three in the same way
 
 88 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 are to some extent the counterparts of direct suggestion, 
 in so far as the agent feels a desire to act in a certain 
 way, and realises to some extent whence it arises. But 
 if suggestion be considered in connexion with the in- 
 fluence of adults upon adolescents, it will be evident 
 that the correlation is not absolute. For imitation takes 
 place essentially among beings who resemble one 
 another. 
 
 If I see a number of people streaming through a gate, 
 I feel a natural tendency to follow, and the more the 
 individuals of which the crowd is composed resemble 
 me, the greater is this tendency. Unconsciously I infer 
 that what interests people whose mental constitution is 
 like my own, will also interest me. In the same way, I 
 experience a tendency to wear the same hats as my 
 fellow-countrymen, and in particular, as those whose con- 
 ditions of life and whose incomes are similar to my own ; 
 but I have not the least wish to adopt a Chinese or 
 Mexican head-gear. Similarly, a number of sheep will 
 follow one another into a field, but will not follow 
 horses, cows, or men. Imitation is between similars 
 rather than between dissimilars. 
 
 You find 
 In this the pleasant pasture of our hfe 
 Much you may eat without the least offence, 
 Much you don't eat because your maw objects, 
 Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock 
 Open great eyes at you and even butt, 
 And thereupon, you hke your mates so well. 
 You cannot please yourself, offending them.i 
 
 It must be confessed that the teacher is different from 
 the boys whom he teaches. Upon the common basis of 
 
 ' R. Browning, " Bishop Blougram's Apology. "
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 89 
 
 humanity have been superimposed too many different 
 layers of interests and tastes for the resemblance to be 
 very great. Imitation will therefore be restricted in its 
 operation. It may be objected that inferior beings often 
 imitate those who are superior to them ; that the 
 manners and customs of conquerors become fashionable 
 and set the tone for the conquered. But the analogy is 
 not a complete one. The members of a conquered nation 
 are slow to confess that the conqueror is really superior 
 to themselves, and are always ready to attribute his 
 victory to chance or to circumstances that have no 
 connexion with their own bodily or mental inferiority. 
 While, therefore, their imitation of him is partially due 
 to his social superiority, it is equally, if not to a greater 
 extent, due to their belief that they are imitating equals. 
 Between the schoolmaster and his pupils the relations 
 are different. If he is too familiar with them, and is by 
 nature an inferior man, the boys, far from considering 
 that relations of equality exist between him and them, 
 rapidly class him as being a person who is worthy of no 
 consideration, and who certainly ought not to be 
 imitated. If he is a sturdy and able personage, the 
 feeling of affection that his pupils have for him is largely 
 tinged with fear, and we are not always inclined to 
 imitate those of whom we are afraid. It is not denied 
 that boys are to a great extent affected by a master's 
 habits and mode of thought, but the imitation is in- 
 stinctive ; the boy does not deliberately determine to 
 imitate. He may by suggestion and teaching be 
 induced consciously to act in a given manner, but this 
 suggestion is not the correlative of imitation. 
 
 Still less does the relationship of instinctive imitation 
 that exists between the master and the boy lead to
 
 90 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 emulation. The gulf between them is too great. We 
 emulate not those who are greatly our superiors, but 
 those who are only slightly in advance of us — whose 
 superiority may, we think, be apparent rather than real, 
 and may be disproved by a little effort on our part. 
 Neither in the class-room nor elsewhere do boys imitate 
 masters with that imitation which leads to emulation. 
 
 M. Tarde, in an interesting passage,^ states that (i) 
 the imitation of ideas precedes that of their expression ; 
 (2) the imitation of ends precedes that of means. In 
 proof of his assertion he points out that Spanish litera- 
 ture had already been imposed on France with the 
 Spanish power before fashions in dress in the sixteenth 
 century came to France from Spain ; that in the seven- 
 teenth century French literature had already reigned in 
 Europe before French art and dress followed ; that the 
 Italians of the Renaissance, when they imitated the 
 Graeco-Roman civilisation, did not begin by reflecting 
 its externals in statues, in frescoes, and in Ciceronian 
 periods, finally to be penetrated by its spirit, but that 
 their model began by affecting their heart. That 
 imitation, in short, begins with what is internal and 
 essential, and proceeds to the external.^ 
 
 It is difficult to accept either of these statements with- 
 out modification. The first may represent one order of 
 sequence in the development of social imitation between 
 nations ; but as between individuals who are in close 
 contact with one another, the internal, the guiding idea 
 or aim, first makes itself felt through its external 
 expression, and for educational purposes M. Tarde's 
 order must be reversed. If it is desired to produce a 
 
 ^ G. Tarde, Les Lois de [Imitation, 1895, p. 225. 
 * Ibid. p. 217,
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 91 
 
 sentiment in a pupil, the attempt to make him accept it 
 or imitate it directly will in most cases be fruitless. 
 One method, as already stated, is to introduce it to him 
 gradually, and this largely through imitation of the 
 processes in which it has been expressed. For instance, 
 though this example must not be taken as expressing 
 any undue preference for linguistic instruction of a 
 certain kind, when a pupil translates from another 
 language into his own the words and phrases in which 
 a thought has been crystallised, by making the form of 
 expression his own he is forced to place himself in the 
 mental attitude of the writer ; the adoption of the form 
 of expression brings with it to some extent the senti- 
 ment which produced the expression ; and when once 
 the sentiment is there it is a comparatively easy matter 
 to intellectualise it, and to emphasise the idea iii con- 
 nexion with which it originally came into existence. 
 
 The second statement is more in accordance with 
 fact, although its truth largely depends on the grade of 
 imitation. I may unconsciously and instinctively 
 imitate means to an end which I do not realise, though 
 they will have no import for my mind. I may imitate 
 them consciously, because I admire the person in whom 
 I see them embodied, though the end to which his 
 actions are tending is unknown or indifferent to me. 
 But, if I adopt the end at which I see a person to be 
 aiming, my imitation has reached the stage of conscious- 
 ness where a full realisation of the end and of its 
 meaning for the general purposes of my existence is 
 present. For educational purposes it is often impossible 
 to begin here. It is necessary rather that the pupil 
 shall be induced by suggestion to accept the earlier 
 stages in a progressive series of ideas long before the
 
 y 
 
 92 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 true meaning of the progress dawns upon him, as it 
 does at last when he reaches the end which illumines 
 the pathway that he has traversed. 
 
 The imitator thus plays the sedulous ape to the 
 expression of ideas and feelings which he is frequently 
 not in a position to understand. In the case of the 
 schoolboy the society in which he lives is an ideal one 
 for the propagation of such imitation. It represents, 
 indeed, the essentials of society according to M. Tarde. 
 Society is not primarily an economic combination in 
 which masters and servants, workers and exploiters 
 exist side by side, and in which the division of labour, 
 the differentiation of professions, and the inequality of 
 incomes produce a caste system. '* It is rather a mutual 
 determination of claims and acknowledgments of rights 
 and duties than a system of mutual assistance. This is 
 why it exists among beings either similar to or little 
 different one from the other. ... If beings that are 
 very different from one another can collaborate at some 
 common work ... it is because they have a common 
 basis of ideas and traditions, a common language 
 or translator, all narrow likenesses formed by education, 
 which is one of the forms of imitative transmission. 
 . . . One is, I repeat, in far closer relations with those 
 whom one most resembles by identity of calling or 
 education, even if they are rivals, than with those of 
 whom one has the greatest need." ^ 
 
 In the artificial society of the school as nowhere else 
 these conditions are found in their purity. The boys 
 are largely on the same plane of interests and ideas, and 
 there are no economic divisions. If imitation is of 
 similars by similars, and if emulation is of those who 
 
 ' G. Tarde, op. cit. pp. 66, 67, 70.
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 93 
 
 are superior, but separated by no great gulf of ability 
 or of income, they should exist in schools as nowhere 
 else. 
 
 In school education there are thus two distinct factors : 
 the influence of the master upon his pupils working 
 through suggestion and imitation, and the influence of 
 the pupils on one another working through imitation 
 and emulation. Every word that the master speaks is 
 spoken, not to one boy, but to a number, and its sug- 
 gestive force will be intensified by the link of imitation 
 among similars ; every process that he initiates will be 
 developed under the influence both of imitation and of 
 emulation. 
 
 The contagion of ideas is well, if somewhat fanci- 
 fully, brought out by Espinas in his work Des Societes 
 Animales. He points out that the buzzing of one wasp 
 in anger induces the other wasps first to buzz in unison, 
 and then to evolve the feeling of anger that originated 
 the first buzz. He continues : — 
 
 " I add that this anger will increase with their number. 
 The effect of number on living creatures is very curious. 
 We now know that man in isolation neither feels nor 
 thinks like the same man transported into the middle of 
 a crowd, and there is an observation often made by a 
 celebrated critic that at the theatre the presence of the 
 spectators alone makes them quite different from what 
 they would have been separately. Let us examine 
 what takes place in an audience to whom an orator is 
 speaking. I suppose that the emotion felt by him may 
 be represented by the figure 10, and that by his first 
 words, at the very commencement of his eloquence, he 
 communicates at least half of it to his hearers, who are, 
 say, 300 in number. Each one will react by applause or
 
 94 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 by a redoubling of attention; there will be in the attitude 
 of each a certain tension, and the combination of these 
 attitudes suddenly assumed will produce what the news- 
 papers call a ' sensation.' But this movement will be 
 felt by all at once, for the listener is quite as much 
 taken up with the audience as with the orator, and his 
 imagination is suddenly assailed by the sight of these 
 300 persons struck with emotion — a sight which cannot 
 fail to produce in him a real emotion according to the 
 law just enunciated. Let us admit that he feels only 
 the half of this emotion, and let us consider the result. 
 The shock felt by him will be represented no longer by 
 5, but by half 5 multiplied by 300, that is to say, by 
 750. If the same law is applied to the man who is 
 standing up and speaking in the middle of this silent 
 assembly, it is not the figure 750 that will represent his 
 internal agitation, but 300 times ^1-^, since he is the 
 focus to which all this crowd profoundly moved sends 
 back the impressions that he communicates to them. 
 This is why so many orators who are as yet inex- 
 perienced are struck silent after their first vivid 
 sentence by the very success of their words ; the effect 
 which they produce comes back to them so much 
 increased that they are, so to say, overwhelmed by it. 
 But when the orator succeeds in conquering his emotion 
 and reacts on the crowd, one can see what repercussion 
 of electric shocks must be established between him and 
 his hearers — how both one and the other are in a few 
 minutes carried far beyond their ordinary moral 
 intensity. 
 
 " The same phenomena are to be observed in any 
 gathering of sentient beings, of whatever kind they are ; 
 not only is the emotion of one of them communicated
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 95 
 
 to them all, but the larger the society the more intense 
 becomes the common emotion." ^ 
 
 Unfortunately, it is impossible numerically to work 
 out the dynamics of suggestion or of imitation on these 
 lines, but in any gathering the phenomenon described is 
 undoubtedly to be found. If we put on one side the 
 hypothesis of telepathy, the intensification of feeling that 
 is found under these conditions can be explained only by 
 motor imitation. Even before the speaker has opened 
 his mouth the audience adopts an attitude of attention. 
 All looks are directed towards him, unnecessary move- 
 ments are inhibited, and the whole assembly is physically 
 as well as mentally concentrated upon the one man who 
 is to address them. My own attitude, as a unit in the 
 mass, is intensified by and continues to draw support 
 from those of the persons on each side of me. I cannot 
 see the remainder of the audience, so that their posture 
 cannot act on me by direct imitation, but I know that they 
 also are in the same state of expectancy. This know- 
 ledge increases the confidence of my own anticipation, 
 and again tends to intensify my physical attitude, which 
 again reacts upon my mental state. The presence of 
 my fellow-auditors thus acts as a continual stimulus, and 
 prevents my original mental attitude from dying away. 
 It is the same when the orator is speaking. He makes 
 a point and I cannot refrain from a slight motion of 
 approbation ; neither can my neighbours. I am con- 
 fident that the hearers whom I cannot see are affected 
 in the same way, and presently, when at the climax of a 
 series of clever hits they break into a roar of applause and 
 my confidence is justified, my nervous system is worked 
 up to a high pitch of irritability which is prevented 
 
 ^ Espinas, Des Sociitis Aniinales, 1877, ?■ 200.
 
 96 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 from subsiding by the expression of the same condition 
 on the faces and in the persons of those around me. 
 The orator by his art allows me to anticipate what he 
 is going to say ; I experience a slight feeling of satis- 
 faction at my own perspicuity, and feel myself in direct 
 rapport with him. The same feeling has been experienced 
 by my neighbours (for the orator has accurately gauged 
 the temper and intelligence of his audience), and there is 
 the same motor expression and the same motor imitation 
 followed by the reduplication of the feeling already 
 there. And so the process continues indefinitely, limited 
 in scope only by the weakness of the nervous system, 
 which will not for long support such a strain without 
 fatigue. 
 
 In this condition the feeling that I am in immediate 
 mental connexion with my fellow-listeners is a common 
 one, and is easily accounted for by the hyperaesthesia 
 from which I am suffering. Under these circumstances 
 I lose my power of judgment, and am carried away by 
 arguments that would have no effect whatever upon me 
 in cold blood. At the beginning of the speech the 
 speaker will make only guarded allusions to the doctrine 
 that he wishes to bring home to his hearers, but at the 
 end, when motor expression and imitation have done 
 their work, he will pour it forth like molten lava, direct 
 suggestion will do its work, and I shall promise my 
 subscription, or undertake to further the cause with 
 alacrity. Half an hour later, when the audience has dis- 
 persed and the stimulus of imitation is removed, how 
 weak, when I go through them, do the arguments seem ! 
 I knew them already, but they never affected me 
 thus. This one is not an argument at all, but a gross 
 non sequitur ; this is a mere appeal to personal feeling,
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 97 
 
 and has no connexion with the matter in hand — yet I 
 never noticed it at the time. 
 
 Even among cool-blooded northern peoples imitative 
 contagion carries an idea through a community like 
 wild-fire. " Quiet, moderate-minded citizens in times 
 of political excitement become blind fanatics without 
 judgment. The suggestive element which in a single 
 citizen displays itself in its smallest and least observable 
 dimensions, in times of political excitement accumulates 
 in the common political life of a people until it pro- 
 duces mighty mass-effects." ^ 
 
 The history of finance and of religion affords numerous 
 examples of the manner in which these excitements and 
 enthusiasms suddenly take possession of a large number 
 of people at once. The persons affected may be of the 
 most diverse kinds ; all differences are levelled under 
 the influence of some one strong and overwhelming 
 passion which actuates all alike. Such a passion was 
 the tulip mania in Holland in the years 1634- 1637. The 
 desire to possess bulbs came gradually into existence, 
 and as it increased, the price of the better varieties 
 naturally went up. Dealers then began to speculate in 
 them, and did everything in their power to promote the 
 fashion. They did this with such success, and the 
 epidemic of tulip-buying spread so rapidly, that in 1637 
 one parcel of 120 tulip bulbs was sold for 90,000 florins. 
 The tide turned, some of the holders of bulbs grew 
 nervous, and, finally, the factor of collective suggestibility 
 which had brought this senseless mob-excitement into 
 existence destroyed it with equal rapidity. In a couple 
 of weeks the same tulip bulbs that had been worth their 
 weight in gold lost their value. A " Semper Augustus " 
 
 ^ StoU, Suggestion u?id Hypiotisfnus, 1904, p. 577. 
 
 7
 
 98 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 which had changed hands for 13,000 florins, sold for 
 50 only, and later on for 5. In spite of all the efforts 
 of the tulip dealers to stop the panic, prices fell to 
 nothing, and the speculators in tulips were ruined. Of 
 a similar nature was the investing craze caused by the 
 schemes of the financier John Law, in France, in 17 19. 
 Law promised vast fortunes to the shareholders from 
 gold mines in the Mississippi valley, and from trading 
 ventures in the East Indies, China, Africa, and elsewhere. 
 The whole of France went mad with the desire to buy 
 shares, although they possessed no information about 
 the countries concerned, the nature of the trade, or the 
 manner in which these vast profits were to be obtained. 
 The prices of shares rose to fabulous sums until, as in 
 the last -mentioned case, the whole thing suddenly 
 collapsed, and in ten months the shares of the Company 
 fell from 1 800 to 40 livres. 
 
 Illustrations of the same tendency in human nature 
 are afforded by the South Sea Bubble in England, by 
 the lottery craze in England and in the Southern United 
 States, and by the numerous runs on banks and financial 
 panics, of which every community has its tale. 
 
 The history of religious enthusiasms is still richer 
 in instances of the contagion of sentiment and of idea. 
 The fervoured meetings that lead to sudden conversions 
 and states of ecstasy, the manner in which an idea that 
 may be abhorrent to other countries or ages takes sudden 
 possession of a whole community, the acquiescence in 
 the brutalities of the Inquisition, the widespread belief 
 in witches, — all bear witness to the deep-seated tendency 
 in man to motor imitation. Of the countless examples 
 of this we will cite one only, which shows that children 
 as well as adults are subject to such infection. The
 
 N 
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 99 
 
 most remarkable episode of the fourth crusade, in 1212- 
 1213, was the piece of fanaticism known as The 
 Children's Crusade. The idea that children as well as 
 adults should play their part in the attempt to rescue 
 the Holy Sepulchre from the Turks took hold of a 
 number of boys and girls in France and in Germany, 
 and, fostered by the usual concomitants of visions and 
 revelations, spread like wildfire. Children of all ages 
 — many were not more than twelve — and of all classes 
 assembled together to the number, as is estimated, of 
 50,000. They started on their journey with the greatest 
 confidence, but without any adequate preparation, and 
 their friends and relatives tried in vain to hold them 
 back. In many cases the enthusiasm was communicated 
 even to adults, who helped the young pilgrims with 
 money and provisions. 
 
 The end of this misguided expedition is well known. 
 The German contingent made its way across the Alps 
 to Italy, where they were robbed by the peasants. Seven 
 thousand of them reached Genoa after suffering every 
 kind of hardship, and it was with difficulty that a 
 certain number struggled back to Germany again. The 
 French division fared worse. Assembling at Paris, they 
 proceeded as far as Marseilles, where two benevolent 
 firms in trade with the East offered them a free passage 
 and embarked them on seven ships. Two of the ships 
 were lost at sea ; the other five reached Alexandria, 
 where the children were sold to Mohammedans as 
 slaves.^ 
 
 It is the presence in schools of this factor of contagion 
 that makes school education so immensely powerful for 
 
 ^ Stoll, Suggestion, p. 361, quoted from Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, 
 iii. p. 616,
 
 lOO SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 good or for evil. A large class certainly increases the 
 work of the teacher out of school, but an observant 
 teacher knows well how much more interesting it is to 
 teach a large class than a small one, and how much 
 stronger the suggestive element can be.^ When Locke 
 and Spencer decide against the boarding-school as a 
 medium of instruction they omit all consideration of 
 the contagion of numbers. Had either of them been 
 a schoolmaster he could scarcely have failed to notice 
 the phenomenon, and probably would have arrived at 
 a different conclusion. Indeed, Spencer's argument 
 against the boarding-school, that it places the pupil 
 back into a state of society far less advanced than that 
 in which he was born, is in itself, for those who 
 believe in suggestion and realise how much imitation 
 may increase its power, a plea in favour of such in- 
 stitutions, since in this way it is insured that children 
 shall be placed in an environment suited to their stage 
 of development, and therefore likely to be suggestive, 
 and that they shall live under conditions of equality, 
 and therefore be likely to imitate one another. Comenius, 
 who as a schoolmaster had that experience of boys 
 and of schools without which it is illegitimate to treat of 
 the process of education, was wiser when he wrote : " It is 
 better that the young should be taught together and in 
 large classes, since better results and more pleasure are 
 to be obtained when one pupil serves as an example and 
 a stimulus for another. For to do what we see others 
 do, to go where others go, to follow those who are ahead 
 of us, and to keep in front of those who are behind us, is 
 the course of action to which we are all most naturally 
 
 1 It is assumed that the number of pupils in a class should in no case 
 exceed 30.
 
 SUGGESTION AND IMITATION loi 
 
 inclined. Young children, especially, are always more 
 easily led and ruled by example than by precept. If 
 you give them a precept it makes but little impression ; 
 if you point out that others are doing something, they 
 imitate without being told to do so." ^ 
 
 The master's suggestive influence is thus rendered far 
 more powerful by the tendency of boys to imitate one 
 another. He is like one who speaks below his breath in 
 a labyrinthine cave, to find that his words are bandied 
 from rock to rock and return to him with added volume. 
 With boys this contagion is imitative in the narrower 
 sense of the word. Among adults when a book or an 
 idea obtains a sudden vogue this is largely the result of 
 definite commendation by word of mouth. True, the 
 idea is, as we say, in the air, but the cause is the 
 whispered praise or the casual word. In school the 
 process is different. Outside the pages of the late Dean 
 Farrar's stories of school-life, boys, with rare exceptions, 
 confine their conversations to the social interests of the 
 daily routine in and out of school, and when an idea, let 
 us say, of good form, or the unwritten law that we call 
 good tone, becomes thoroughly diffused, the process has 
 been a far subtler one that depends upon a mixture of 
 contagion of feeling, operating in the manner described 
 above, with only the very smallest portion of verbally 
 expressed views on the matter. 
 
 But while much of the master's influence may depend 
 on the fact that he is dealing with a class, and while he 
 should never forget this, the effect of such human 
 association will be lost unless on every occasion the boy 
 believes that his teacher is interested in him personally 
 and separately. Most men begin their teaching careers 
 
 ' The Great Didactic, chap viii.
 
 102 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 by taking charge of a fairly large class, and, before they 
 are aware of it, acquire the habit of handling a class as 
 a whole without much reference to the units of which 
 it is composed. Such a teacher, judged by a certain 
 standard, is often an extremely good one. To teach a 
 class as a whole is one of the tests of schoolcraft. A 
 considerable amount of formalism and mechanism is 
 necessary to promote discipline and insure impartiality, 
 and these are the bases of good teaching ; but discipline 
 may degenerate into the repression of the drill-sergeant, 
 and the drill-sergeant may teach a class for a year with 
 little trouble to himself and with results that are good on 
 paper, yet without ever realising that his pupils differ very 
 much in character. Indeed, in his class-room and as far 
 as he gives himself the opportunity of judging, it is 
 quite possible that they do not. In such a case he will 
 not get into touch with the individual, he will not make 
 each boy feel that he is a friend as well as a teacher, 
 he will miss the countless opportunities of putting heart 
 into a despondent boy and administering judicious snubs 
 to a conceited one ; individually and collectively he will 
 not get the best work out of his class, and if the units 
 are not affected, contagious imitation between them is 
 impossible. It is said of Arnold that his success in 
 dealing with boys was due to his modest beginning with 
 a few pupils at Laleham. He thus acquired the habit of 
 realising that each boy had an individuality, and that 
 his business was to get into touch with it. Without this 
 personal contact there will not be the reverberation of 
 influence that class teaching promotes, and the scope of 
 suggestion will be correspondingly limited.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, AND SUGGESTION 
 
 To all teachers worthy of the name there comes at a 
 certain period an awakening of the educational conscience. 
 This awakening cannot be prematurely hastened ; it 
 must be a spontaneous growth. It demands a know- 
 ledge of educational conditions, but does not necessarily 
 arise out of it. It implies a sympathy with boy life, 
 yet frequently does not accompany it. Its essence is a 
 conviction that the idea environment supplied in the 
 curriculum is effective in building an ideal construction 
 in boys' minds, and that this ideal construction in the 
 last resort exercises a control on conduct. It involves a 
 belief that ideas ultimately tend to form character, and 
 the result of this conviction is a deepening of the interest 
 taken in school work. 
 
 The word " deepening " is advisedly used ; for it must 
 not be supposed that a teacher can take no interest in 
 teaching before the awakening comes. Far from it. 
 Some teachers, no doubt, cordially dislike their work at 
 first, though they come to take an absorbing interest in 
 it later on ; but it is none the less true that the majority 
 find enjoyment in it from the beginning. To many the 
 mere society of boys is pleasant ; to others of an organ- 
 ising nature it is congenial to possess authority and to 
 
 103
 
 104 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 exert it ; to others deeply interested in their subjects it 
 is at first sufficiently agreeable to expound, them. But 
 these interests are often transient. The time comes 
 when the question is asked : " Can the subject I am 
 teaching have any effect on my pupils' character and 
 conduct?"" The educational conscience is awakened, 
 and, unless some satisfactory answer can be given to the 
 question, enthusiasm may die away and nothing but a 
 sense of futility remain. 
 
 That this is not an imaginary situation is sufficiently 
 shown by the statements of experienced teachers, who 
 question not only the moral, but even the intellectual 
 value of the work in which they have been engaged. 
 Mr. Leighton, a headmaster of many years' standing, 
 writes : " The great boarding-schools turn out too high 
 a percentage of failures — young men who seem to be 
 useless for any forthcoming piece of this world's work. 
 . . . Only a minority of boys — about one in four — is 
 capable of profiting very much either by books or by 
 laboratories. Education as distinct from instruction 
 requires that the environment shall contribute more than 
 the schooling." ^ And again : " There are groundless 
 expectations, followed by disillusionment and scepticism. 
 . . . This scepticism which I contend to be almost 
 universal."" Another writer, also a schoolmaster, is 
 even more outspoken : " A generation is growing up in 
 which the clever boys are apt to be prematurely biases 
 with artificial learning, and the rest contemptuous of the 
 enemy who laid so blighting a hand on the golden days 
 of boyhood, and is now seen by the grown-up man to be 
 a mere toothless, mumbling giant. ... A few genera- 
 
 1 R. L. Leighton, The Boy and his School. 
 • Op. cit. p. 91.
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 105 
 
 tions more, and the nation will feel towards education as 
 the French before the Revolution felt towards their 
 religion — no longer able to believe in the one particular 
 form whose hollowness is at last too patently visible, and 
 yet incapable of grasping any other," ^ 
 
 If views like these are common, still more if they are 
 justified, it seems scarcely worth while to consider the 
 whole business of teaching with any seriousness. If, on 
 the other hand, the conviction is strong that ideas 
 properly introduced take possession of the whole mind 
 and affect the springs of conduct, the further question 
 arises : " What is the proper mode of introduction ? " 
 In other words, the problem of method becomes of para- 
 mount importance. The teacher of to-day is not the first 
 person who has asked for a method. Many wanderers 
 through life have felt the need of a method to guide their 
 conduct : Descartes was induced to seek a method to 
 guide his reasoning ; from Comenius to Rosmini writers 
 on education have sought a method by which clearness 
 in exposition may be secured. Our teacher differs from 
 these in that the possibility of attaining his end is vigor- 
 ously denied. No one doubts that the conduct of life ; 
 can be improved by a system, or that logical rules can / 
 aid the reasoning powers, or that the principles of grada- ! 
 tion and arrangement can facilitate clear exposition ; but 
 it is frequently asserted that ideas have no power to 
 modify conduct, to control emotion, or to form character, 
 and the position is a plausible one, for we are all familiar 
 with well-informed men who have no force of character, i 
 and with narrow-minded and ignorant ones who are self- 
 controlled and energetic, and who bring their surroundings 
 into harmony with their wishes in the most surprising way. 
 
 ^ Coulton, Public Schools and Public Needs, p. 207.
 
 io6 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 Writers who base their arguments on a superficial 
 psychological analysis or on none at all are ready to 
 maintain that character is innate and inalterable. " It is 
 easier for a blonde to convert herself into a brunette," 
 says Rousseau in his Nouvelle Heldise, " than for a man 
 to change his character." " Can a man change his char- 
 acter?" asks Voltaire, replying, "Yes, if he changes his 
 body." From another standpoint writers like Newman 
 deny that the idea environment given by a liberal educa- 
 tion can affect the springs of action. It is worth while 
 to quote in extenso a passage from Discourse V. in his 
 Idea of a University : " Liberal education makes not the 
 Christian, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentle- 
 man ; it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate 
 taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and 
 courteous bearing on the conduct of life ; but, I repeat, 
 they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscien- 
 tiousness. Taken by themselves they do but seem to be 
 what they are not : they look like virtue at a distance ; 
 but they are detected by close observers and in the long 
 run. . . . Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor 
 the vessel with a thread of silk : then may you hope 
 with such keen and delicate instruments as human know- 
 ledge and human reason to contend against those giants, 
 the passion and the pride of man." 
 
 Here Newman is speaking in the name of the Catholic 
 Church. He is decrying the influence of the intellectual 
 environment and the effective value of ideas as motive 
 power that he may extol the influence of religion. But 
 his standpoint, although it suits his religious convictions, 
 is not necessarily derived from them. His psychological 
 presupposition of a fully developed mind which will 
 function to its full extent if given the proper material to
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 107 
 
 work upon, the implicit doctrine of faculties, and the com- 
 plete absence of the conception that mind is in a con- 
 stant condition of becoming, make it extremely difficult 
 for him to justify the position that in the long run it is 
 ideas that are vitally important ; that, though they may 
 not constitute the whole mechanism, they set it in motion ; 
 that, without themselves being the trains of powder, 
 they are the sparks that fire the magazine. For New- 
 man the mind works in closed compartments. Liberal 
 education gives a justly proportioned outlook and a 
 capacity to enjoy intellectual pleasures ; over the passions 
 and the sentiments it exercises no control, and is there- 
 fore valueless for purposes of guidance in the more 
 difficult and dangerous situations of life. 
 
 Now this view, if accepted, must lead to educational 
 pessimism, and of this, as we have seen, there is no lack. 
 If ideas are powerless as controls, the value of class-work, 
 which to a great extent consists in placing ideas before 
 the young, appears on examination to be very small, 
 except in so far as these ideas represent knowledge of 
 conventional, professional, or commercial value. That 
 it gives exercise to the common factors of all mental 
 process, attention and observation, and that it involves 
 a wholesome compulsion to do what is distasteful, will 
 readily be admitted. But it may be urged that similar 
 opportunities are given by the situations of professional 
 and commercial life, and that it is therefore scarcely 
 worth while to expend much energy in considering 
 problems of method or of curriculum. Yet the greater 
 part of the energy and the time of the teacher is spent 
 in the class-room and in teaching definite subjects, 
 and it is therefore not surprising that men who are 
 interested in their profession readily embrace any theory
 
 io8 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 that appears to lend validity to the business of their 
 lives. 
 
 Such a theory is afforded by the Herbartian psy- 
 chology, and the insidious flattery that it supplies to the 
 teaching profession has insured its popularity among 
 those whose enthusiasm is greater than their critical 
 powers. For Herbartians feeling and will arise out of 
 the interplay of ideas ; and, as the introduction of ideas 
 in one form or another is a comparatively easy task, the 
 formation of character through curriculum and method 
 seems easy too. Alas ! investigation shows that the 
 Herbartian system is hopelessly one-sided. It leaves 
 out of consideration all the stubborn elements of inherited 
 instinct ; it fails to convince us that feeling and will are 
 not forms of mind as ultimate as intellect. It is, no 
 doubt, possible to interpret Herbartianism in such a 
 manner as to read into it the positions of modern psy- 
 chology ; but this method of dealing with a system which 
 has its definite place in the history of psychology is dis- 
 credited. The problem of the relation between knowledge 
 and conduct is one for which it is not likely that a final 
 solution will ever be found. Each age must conduct the 
 investigation from its own standpoint, and for educational 
 theory to coquet with worn-out psychologies is undigni- 
 fied, for it is a confession of weakness, and unconvincing, 
 for it brings an exploded psychology to support positions 
 that need whatever aid modern philosophy can supply. 
 
 It is from a modern standpoint, then, that the attempt 
 to show the influence of ideas on character must be 
 made, and a preliminary inquiry into the nature of 
 character is necessary. No term is more often used by 
 those who write on education, and to few terms can so 
 many different meanings be assigned. Yet when, with
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 109 
 
 a practical end in view, we seek for enlightenment as to 
 the elements of which it is composed, we find that the 
 answer is not so satisfactory as the claims of modern 
 psychology would lead us to suppose. Neither the 
 analysis of character nor the modes of influencing it, 
 which might be derived from such an analysis, have 
 advanced as far as was anticipated in the latter half of 
 the last century. It was J. S, Mill who, in England, 
 first drew attention to the great importance of the 
 subject in connexion with educational theory, and who 
 suggested the name Ethology for the science of which the 
 study of character would form the subject-matter, " A 
 science is thus formed to which I would propose to give 
 the name of Ethology, or the Science of Character, from 
 7]^o?, a word more nearly corresponding to the term 
 ' character,' as I use it here, than any other word in 
 the same language. The name is perhaps etymologic- 
 ally applicable to the entire science of our mental and 
 moral nature ; but if, as is usual and convenient, we 
 employ the name Psychology for the science of the 
 elementary laws of mind. Ethology will serve for the 
 ulterior science which determines the kind of character 
 produced in conformity to those general laws by any 
 set of circumstances, physical and moral. According 
 to this definition. Ethology is the science which corre- 
 sponds to the act of education, in the widest sense of 
 the term, including the formation of national or 
 collective character as well as individual," ^ 
 
 The science of Ethology, thus confidently adum- 
 brated, has made comparatively little progress, but this 
 is not because the subject has been wholly neglected by 
 psychologists. Although in Germany and in England 
 
 ^ J. S. Mill, Logic, Book VI. chap. v. sec, 4.
 
 no SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 little that is systematic has been done, a series of works 
 bearing the names of such distinguished writers of the 
 French school as Paulhan, Ribot, Fouill^e, and Mala- 
 pert, testifies to the natural interest of the Latin mind in 
 character-analysis.^ If the reader arises from a perusal 
 of these works with a feeling of disappointment, this is 
 probably because their aims have been too ambitious ; 
 starting from the analogy of a zoological classification, 
 they have been in too great a haste to formulate genera, 
 species, and subspecies of character to which any given 
 individual instance could be referred for explanation, 
 while all the time the analysis of the general basis of 
 character and the terminology of the subject have been 
 in a very imperfect condition. 
 
 Two clearly defined standpoints from which to treat 
 the subject have been adopted. That which refers 
 character to physical conditions, and attempts to give 
 a medicinal or physiological explanation of its varieties, 
 and the confessedly psychological mode of treating the 
 subject which considers character as a complex of 
 psychical elements and aims at tracing the laws of 
 their combination. 
 
 The physiological explanation takes us back to 
 Hippocrates, who systematised the scattered views of 
 Anaxagoras and Democritus into the theory of the four 
 humours — blood, phlegm, bile, and black bile ; which are 
 in turn related to the four fundamental elements in 
 nature — moisture, dryness, heat, and cold, with four 
 temperaments depending on them. This classification, 
 slightly modified, was adopted by Galen, who dis- 
 
 1 Paulhan, Les Caractires, 1893 ; Ribot, La Psychologic des Sentiments, 
 1896 ; Ribot, Essai sur les Passions, 1907 ; Fouillte, Le Temperament et le 
 Caractire, 1895 ; Malapert, Les ^Uments du Caracttre et leurs Lois de 
 Cotnbinaison, 1897.
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION in 
 
 tinguished nine temperaments, of which the four 
 composite ones were produced by the predominance 
 of heat and dryness, of heat and moisture, of cold and 
 dryness, and of cold and moisture, with the names of the 
 choleric, the sanguine, the melancholic, and the phleg- 
 matic temperaments. 
 
 This theory is of especial interest because, although 
 the physical and physiological ideas underlying it have 
 long been discarded, the terms still remain in use and 
 are commonly employed when discussing character. 
 We still refer to a friend as choleric or phlegmatic or 
 sanguine, and the terms, though not very well defined 
 in our minds, do nevertheless cover certain groups of 
 characteristics. We do not, however, imply that the 
 qualities in question are produced or even accompanied 
 by an excess of bile or of blood. 
 
 The explanation is that the classification of tempera- 
 ments was really a psychological rather than a physical 
 one ; it represented certain groupings of psychic qualities 
 which are commonly found together. Modern descrip- 
 tive psychology is content with a classification based 
 on observation, and with an attempt to trace the origin 
 and growth of complexes that seem to hang together. 
 It recognises the desirability of showing the connexion 
 between psychic process and nervous or organic con- 
 ditions ; but it deprecates any too hasty attempt to 
 establish this connexion, and is content to pursue 
 psychical analysis on the one side, and research into 
 the physiology of the nervous system on the other, and 
 to look upon the establishing of the psychical conditions 
 of a mental state as a sufficient explanation for the 
 time being. 
 
 It was not so with the earlier adventurers in the
 
 112 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 field. For them the psychical explanation would have 
 been as good as none, and they were therefore driven to 
 account for mental qualities by attributing them to the 
 agency of the bodily organs with which they were familiar. 
 How correct the classification of the temperaments was 
 on the psychical side is shown by the adoption of a 
 very similar arrangement by Wundt. 
 
 Starting with a distinction between the strength and 
 the speed of psychic movements, he points out that some 
 persons are inclined to have strong emotions, and others 
 to have weak emotions, which gives the distinction be- 
 tween the strong and the weak temperament ; that some 
 again vary their emotions rapidly, and others slowly, 
 which gives the distinction between the quick and the 
 slow temperament. Combining these qualities in pairs 
 we get a classification very similar to the old one of the 
 temperaments. The strong and quick temperament, the 
 choleric ; the strong and slow temperament, the melan- 
 cholic ; the weak and quick temperament, the sanguine ; 
 the feeble and slow temperament, the phlegmatic.^ 
 
 The tendency to supply an organic basis for mental 
 states, which is so well illustrated by the theory of 
 the temperaments, is as strong now as it was in the 
 time of Galen. In the first half of the nineteenth 
 century Descurets traced the passion of love to chronic 
 disease of the' heart and lungs, ambition to acute or 
 chronic inflammation of the digestive organs, and envy 
 and jealousy to the dilatation of the blood-vessels or to 
 hypertrophy of the liver.^ 
 
 A still more remarkable illustration is found in a 
 recent attempt by Mr. Jordan to establish a connexion 
 
 ^ W. Wundt, Grundzuge der Physiologischen Psychologic, 3rded. vol. ii. p. 422. 
 "^ Quoted by Ribot, Essai sur Us Passions, p. 52.
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 113 
 
 between anatomical and physiological structure and 
 mental disposition.^ He noticed that the women who 
 came into hospital suffering from injuries inflicted by 
 their husbands had something peculiar about their 
 personal appearance, " I came slowly to see that the 
 skin of the assaulted women was often clear, their hair- 
 growth was never heavy or long, and the eyebrows 
 were spare and refined. Their upper spinal curves were 
 so formed as to give a somewhat convex appearance to 
 the back and shoulders, and a more or less forward pose 
 to the head." 
 
 These women, he ascertained, were those with sharp 
 tongues who had been assaulted because they nagged 
 at their husbands continually. As distinguished from 
 them he observed a small number of women who were 
 brought in seriously injured or dead. They differed from 
 the others in skin and hair and skeleton. The spine was 
 straighter, the head and neck and shoulders were held 
 upwards and backwards, the hair-growth was abundant, 
 and the eyebrows marked. These, he discovered, were 
 the women who had been assaulted by husbands acting 
 under the influence of well-founded jealousy, and with 
 clearly murderous intent. On this basis he attempts to 
 distinguish between two temperaments existing in close 
 connexion with anatomical structure — the active or 
 tending to be active, and the reflective or tending to be 
 reflective. 
 
 " The less impassioned individuals are not merely 
 active, quick, practical ; they tend also to be changeable 
 and fond of approbation. When the mental endowment 
 is high and the surroundings favourable, the active and 
 less-impassioned temperament furnishes many of our 
 
 ^ F.Jordan, F. R.C.S. , Character as sce7i in Bodv and Parentage, 1896. 
 
 8
 
 114 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 finest characters. Sometimes, especially when the 
 mental gifts are slight, the character is less pleasing : 
 love of change may become mere fitfulness ; activity 
 may become bustle ; sparing approval may turn to 
 actual censoriousness ; love of approbation may de- 
 generate into a mania for notoriety. 
 
 " In the impassioned temperament, on the other hand, 
 we find quite another group of elements : repose or even 
 gentleness, quiet reflection, noiseless methods, tenacity 
 of purpose. The emotions, good or evil, are deep and 
 enduring. In this class also, especially when the 
 intellect is powerful and the training refined, lofty 
 characters are found. In it too are found probably the 
 worst and most degraded characters." ^ 
 
 Mr. Jordan's theory is of especial interest, and has 
 been quoted at some length because he is sufficiently 
 consistent to carry the physiological - temperament 
 position to its proper conclusion. " If character is for 
 the most part a product of organisation and parentage, 
 it follows that education is mainly a physiological art. 
 It is an art which should aim at strengthening feeble, 
 repressing exuberant, and correcting perverted nerve. 
 
 " The first duty of the physiological educational artist 
 who accepts the teachings of physiology, and who will 
 in future come to be the one supreme, confidential 
 ' Father Confessor,' is to study the character, that is, the 
 endowments, proclivities, conduct, the gifts, defects, and 
 eccentricities of the parents." '^ 
 
 ^ F. Jordan, F. R.C.S. , Character as seen in Body and Parentage, 1896, 
 pp. I, 2, 6. In the course of the work diagrams are given to show 
 that the less impassioned temperament is illustrated by the skeletal poise of 
 Newman, Napoleon, Wesley, and Spurgeon ; and the more impassioned 
 temperament by that of Burns, Dante, Hawthorne, and Byron. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 98.
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 115 
 
 If indeed the basis of character is entirely physio- 
 loeical. it is difficult to see what influence the teacher 
 can have upon it. Our only course will be to dismiss 
 the existing staff in all our schools and fill the vacant 
 places with qualified medical men. Before taking this 
 extreme step, the statement of the case from the other 
 standpoint, that of psychological analysis, must be 
 considered. 
 
 In summing up a man's character, says M. Paulhan,^ 
 we may call him (i) equilibrated and serious, or 
 capricious, contrariant, and incoherent ; or (2) calm or 
 passionate and vivacious ; or (3) a glutton or abstemious. 
 These judgments are on different planes. The first 
 depends on the nature or general form of the association 
 processes that control mental activity. The second 
 depends on the different manners in which the elements 
 can realise these general forms. The third depends on 
 the preponderance of certain tendencies. For purposes 
 of simplicity the classification may be reduced to a 
 twofold one : (i) The classes of qualities that depend on 
 the manner in which tendencies exist ; on their coherence, 
 their vivacity, and their tenacity ; that is to say, on the 
 forms of essential activity. (2) The classes constituted by 
 the tendencies themselves ; that is to say, by the concrete 
 tendencies which direct that activity. It may, of course, 
 be urged that the particular forms of association are the 
 effects of strong tendencies, and not their causes, and 
 in that case if the tendency is referred to an organic 
 basis, the matter remains much where it was under the 
 auspices of the temperaments. At the mention of 
 association, however, the teacher may regain his courage. 
 Association is a process over which instruction can 
 
 ' Paulhan, Les Car ac tires.
 
 ii6 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 exercise some influence. I cannot alter the poise of my 
 pupil's skeletal disposition, but I can affect his modes 
 of association ; I can at least to some extent control the 
 nature of the ideas that are associated. Still further 
 encouragement is given by M. Ribot. In his earlier 
 work he certainly lays more stress on the organic basis. 
 " The affective states are the deepest seated in the 
 constitution of character. They are the bed-rock ; the 
 intellectual dispositions are superimposed. Intelligence 
 is never a fundamental element in character. Intel- 
 lectual dispositions can operate only indirectly on its 
 constitution." ^ 
 
 From this standpoint desire appears to be supreme, 
 while intelligence is merely superficial, and character 
 is the preponderance of an instinct or of a group of 
 instincts. But the maturer-analysis to be found in his 
 Essai sur les Passions indicates an avenue of escape. 
 Emotional life still constitutes the basis of action, but 
 it is to be found at different grades of organisation. 
 There are (i) affective states of psychic life, the raw- 
 material ; tendencies and desires inherent in the psycho- 
 physical organism. (2) The emotions, which are nothing 
 but sudden reactions. The egoistic — fear and anger ; the 
 altruistic — pity, etc. (3) The passions, which are among 
 the important constituents of character. These are 
 opposed to the emotions by the predominance of an intel- 
 lectual state, by their stability and their relative duration. 
 Emotion is thus a primitive state, passion is a secondary 
 and more complex form. In the beginning the passion 
 is instinctive and impulsive.^ " More often the passion is 
 already formed before the consciousness is aware of it. 
 
 ^ Ribot, La Psychologie des Sentiments, 1896, p. 393. 
 2 Ribot, Essai sur les Passions, 1907, p. 138.
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 117 
 
 Without talking of the subterranean labour — unconscious 
 or subconscious — which is a very probable if not certain 
 hypothesis, there are produced in the consciousness first 
 fragmentary tendencies, scattered, momentary, all leading 
 in the same direction of attraction or repulsion for the 
 same person, the same thing, the same idea. This 
 movement of advance and recoil follows the law of 
 nervous excitation — it advances like an avalanche, it rolls 
 up like a snowball, or, to use scientific language, it works 
 by summation." Finally, it is intellectualised. " It is 
 a positive and precise fact which marks the moment 
 when the passion is constituted and which serves as its 
 criterion : it is the apparition of the ruling, guiding idea, 
 recognised as such." ^ 
 
 In this description of the development and organisa- 
 tion of the deep-seated, stable, and intellectualised impulse 
 which he calls a passion M. Ribot gives us the distinctive 
 marks of character as the term is used by the educationist. 
 The word may be and often is employed in a more 
 general sense. It may imply simply the characteristics 
 that distinguish one personality from another. It need 
 not even involve the conception of strength. " A very 
 colourless character," says La Bruyere, " is that of 
 having none." It is certainly a characteristic, like many 
 other peculiarities of disposition to which we should 
 shrink from applying the word character, though we 
 could not neglect them when passing judgment on their 
 possessor. At the next stage the term may be used to 
 denote the possession of strongly marked tendencies, 
 which though they may lack duration, and may manifest 
 themselves in a fragmentary and unaccountable manner, 
 still give an appearance of strength when compared with 
 
 ' Ribot, op cit. p. 139.
 
 ii8 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 the attributes of the colourless man. At the next and 
 last stage we find the original impulse so intellectualised 
 as to be stable and durable. The idea which is now the 
 conscious guide may develop into a whole system of 
 ideas, the greater or less complexity of which will 
 determine the fixity gf purpose. Further, the idea which 
 in " the beginning, as grafted on the organic tendency 
 had an almost parasitic existence, now tends rapidly to 
 modify and in some cases to destroy the parent stem, 
 and may even substitute for it another though cognate 
 impulse more suited to its matured form. We then 
 have a developed character the basis of which is less an 
 organic tendency than a system of ideas which embodies 
 a principle. When we talk of character in this sense 
 we have in mind not characteristics, but will ; we think 
 of a habit of reasoned action which is so stable that it 
 can be conceived of as functioning uniformly under vary- 
 ing conditions. The basis may have been organic, but 
 the finished product is psychic, and the means by which 
 it is reached are concerned with mental rather than with 
 physiological factors. By temperament a man may be 
 a weak phlegmatic, but this natural disposition may by 
 some intellectual passion be converted into a strong 
 phlegmatic, or electrified into vivacity. He may be of 
 an explosive disposition ; but the pursuit of an ideal 
 may necessitate constant control and equability, the 
 explosive tendency may find itself pent up behind a 
 triple wall of constraint and later of habit, until finally 
 it grows weak and perishes from lack of function. 
 
 For the educator to make good his claim as a moulder 
 of character, it is, in the first place, necessary for him to 
 show that ideas affect the direction of will ; that the 
 line taken by a certain quantity of mental energy is
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 119 
 
 determined by impulses, and that these in turn are partly 
 conditioned by ideas. 
 
 A common and a useful treatment of the will process is 
 to distinguish between the two elements impulse and idea 
 of end. When I act from impulse I tend to act blindly 
 and instinctively ; there is no preperception of the finished 
 act. In instinctive action the idea may be wholly 
 wanting. The young bird swims automatically when 
 placed in water for the first time : there has been no idea 
 of end in his consciousness ; he simply reacts upon his 
 conditions. Higher up in the scale it is difficult to 
 isolate the impulsive element and consider it apart from 
 the idea of end, because the two are usually found in 
 close connexion ; but it is easy to find an instance in 
 which the idea of end is very little illuminated in the 
 field of consciousness. The confirmed drinker whose 
 hand finds its way automatically to a tumbler is little 
 conscious of a guiding idea : his impulses have been 
 developed by habit, until the smallest possible idea 
 stimulus will excite them to action. At the next 
 stage we have a well-marked fusion of impulse and idea, 
 as when a lady's charitable impulses are quickened by 
 the sight of a poor man, almsgiving being the result ; 
 while at the other end of the scale we may find the idea 
 developed, but the impulse weak. Here the idea of 
 almsgiving may be present to the mind, and the distress 
 of the beggar may be thoroughly understood, but there 
 is no charitable instinct, there is no impulse that can be 
 galvanised into action, and the result is that no action 
 follows. 
 
 We have here three cases : the impulse that works 
 almost instinctively as soon as the necessary situation 
 and the smallest possible amount of idea stimulus are
 
 I20 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 present, the impulse that works normally when it fuses 
 with a clearly realised idea, and the well-developed idea 
 that fails altogether to issue in action because no 
 impulse is there to make it an efficient motive. Unless 
 the spontaneous tendency to action which we have 
 called "impulse" be there, the idea is powerless, no 
 matter how far it be developed or how vividly it may be 
 present in consciousness. No matter how skilfully the 
 evil effects of drink are demonstrated to a confirmed 
 drunkard, his conduct is not in the least affected thereby. 
 He understands the ideas presented to him ; he probably 
 recognises their logical validity ; but on his conduct 
 they make no impression. There is no impulse for 
 them to coalesce with, and thus they remain dead and 
 inert. And yet not more dead or more inert than most 
 of the ideas with which the mind of the average man 
 is filled at the end of a period of average education. By 
 far the greater part of the ideas that have been so 
 carefully worked into his mental system find no echo 
 in his prevailing impulses, and stand in scarcely any 
 relation to his actions. 
 
 From a certain standpoint a pupil may be looked 
 upon as a parcel of impulses. Without this element, 
 action of any kind, whether momentary or continuous, 
 is not found ; and the object of the educator is to 
 introduce ideas in such a manner that they stimulate 
 these impulses and bring them into action. Over the 
 impulses themselves his control, if less direct and less 
 easy, can still be effective. Undesirable impulses may 
 be given no chance of functioning, and will therefore 
 atrophy ; desirable impulses may be fostered, and the 
 ideas that encourage them may be kept to the front. 
 In cases where the exact nature of the impulses present
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 121 
 
 is uncertain, a variety of stimulating ideas may be 
 introduced, in the hope that one of them will meet with 
 a response from among the spontaneous tendencies 
 present. These impulses may be compared to a 
 number of rifles lying loaded : they are silent and 
 ineffective until the right idea is introduced and pulls 
 the trigger. In the man who seems to know, but who 
 is unaffected by his knowledge, some one of the 
 conditions is lacking. Either the rifles are not loaded 
 or the trigger mechanism is faulty, in other words, the 
 impulses are absent or lacking in strength, or the right 
 idea is not there to pull the trigger ; or, even if there 
 be an idea, and, viewed objectively, it seem to be the 
 right one, there is something that renders it ineffective : 
 for some reason or other it does not work, and dead 
 knowledge is the result. The impulse is there, and the 
 idea is right enough ; but nothing happens, and we are 
 driven to believe that the method of presenting has been 
 Vfaulty. 
 ^^ Given these premisses, our problem is how to present 
 ideas so that they really do vitalise impulses, and we are 
 again brought back to the question of method. 
 
 To the older writers on method the problem was a 
 simple one. " There is in the world no rock or tower 
 of such a height," says Comenius, " that it cannot be 
 scaled by any man (provided he lack not feet), if ladders 
 are placed in the proper position or steps cut in the 
 rock, made in the right place, and furnished with 
 railings against the danger of falling over. It is true 
 that very few scale the heights of wisdom, though many 
 start gaily on the journey, and that those who get any 
 distance do so at the cost of toil, loss of breath, 
 weariness, and giddiness ; this, however, does not prove
 
 122 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 that there is anything inaccessible to the human 
 intellect, but only that the steps are not well disposed, 
 or are insufficient, dangerous, and in bad repair — in 
 other words, that the method is complicated. It is an 
 undoubted fact that any man can attain any height 
 that he may desire by means of steps that are properly 
 disposed, sufficient in number, solid, and safe." ^ 
 
 This is the method of grading and demonstration. 
 It is one of the triad of essential methods. It is the 
 first that every teacher must master. To demonstrate 
 well, if not the whole of good teaching, is an absolutely 
 necessary foundation. This is an art that cannot be 
 acquired in a few months. To realise into what sections 
 a subject is naturally divided, how many distinct stages 
 or processes of thought are involved in mastering each 
 of them, what are the difficulties involved, and for which 
 types of mind they are particularly formidable ; to un- 
 fold a subject, chapter by chapter, during the term, 
 avoiding unnecessary repetitions, and repeating the 
 essential elements in a form that is ever fresh, so that 
 tedium is avoided ; to show how a conclusion is reached 
 from particular instances, and to illustrate a general 
 position by concrete examples ; to work over one's 
 subject from the teaching standpoint till the vital parts 
 stand out in clear relief ; to have in reserve a storehouse 
 of illustrations and associations ; to use this apparatus 
 without any appearance of artificiality ; to develop the 
 course of work genially, whimsically, humorously, so 
 that at the end, brought together out of an apparently 
 spontaneous and heterogeneous mass of detail, each 
 part lies in its proper place, and the whole, properly 
 arranged and understood, is in the pupil's mind — all 
 
 ' J. A. Comenius, The Great Didactic, chap. xii.
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 123 
 
 this takes labour and time, the labour and the time that 
 no teacher by conviction is likely to grudge. 
 
 For conviction, however, some assurance is needed 
 that the labour is fruitful, and it is not easy to be con- 
 vinced that the very best demonstration of a system of 
 ideas will insure that the hearer's conduct shall be 
 modified by it. Experience teaches that the reverse 
 is often the case. The most painstaking and logical 
 exposition of vegetarianism, of abstinence from alcohol, 
 of a new social system, of a new or of an old religion, 
 may compel our attention, may excite our admiration 
 and convince our reason, but as far as action is con- 
 cerned may leave us cold. We agree that alcohol is 
 harmful, and order a fresh supply from the wine 
 merchant ; the advantages of vegetarianism are evident, 
 but as long as we have cash or credit we purchase meat. 
 The method of demonstration has not solved our 
 problem. 
 
 The second method in the triad is heurism. Rousseau 
 discovered it ; so, apparently, did Prof. Armstrong. 
 It is a simple method — as stated by its advocates. 
 " Heuristic methods of teaching are methods which 
 involve our placing students, as far as possible, in the 
 attitude of the discoverer — methods which involve their 
 finding out, instead of being merely told about things. 
 It should not be necessary to justify such a policy in 
 education. Unfortunately, however, our conceptions 
 are blunted by early training — or, rather, by want of 
 training. Few realise that neither is discovery limited 
 to those who explore dark continents or Polar regions, 
 nor to those who seek to unravel the wonders of Nature ; 
 that invention is not confined to those who take out 
 patents for new devices ; but that, on the contrary,
 
 124 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 discovery and invention are divine prerogatives, in some 
 degree granted to all — meet for daily usage ; and that 
 it is consequently of importance that we be taught the 
 rules of the game of discovery and learn to play it 
 skilfully. The value of mere knowledge is immensely 
 overrated, and its possession overpraised and over- 
 rewarded ; action, although appreciated when its effects 
 are noted, is treated as the outcome of innate faculties, 
 and the extent to which it can be developed by teaching 
 scarcely considered." ^ 
 
 This is the new policy, and it is forced upon us as 
 a cure for all educational evils, and, in particular, for 
 the canker of dead knowledge, the knowledge that is 
 never applied and that is not convincing enough to 
 influence conduct. Armed with this new instrument, we 
 are told, the teacher can insure that his pupils' ideas 
 are living and effective, a stimulus to action and an 
 ever - present guide to conduct. So great is the 
 enthusiasm of the modern heurist for his new play- 
 thing, and so firm his conviction that the new method 
 is absolute and of universal application, and, it must 
 be confessed, so much good has already been done 
 by the elements of virtue that it possesses, that it is 
 legitimate to shrink from criticising it. We must, 
 however, ask how far the method is possible, how 
 far it can be used alone, and whether ideas gained 
 through its means are necessarily living. For its 
 validity as an exclusive method two conditions are 
 necessary. The first is an inexhaustible fund of 
 curiosity in children, and the second is infinite time. 
 Many children are inquisitive, but they are particularly 
 inquisitive about matters that are not pressed upon 
 
 1 Armstrong, Teaching of Scientific Method, p. 236.
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 125 
 
 them as class work. The suggestion that the in- 
 vestigational process shall be continued longer than 
 is quite pleasant has been known to destroy the whole 
 of that eager thirst for knowledge of which the heurist 
 tells us. The fund of curiosity is limited, and not to be 
 relied on : it may fail us at any moment. Neither is 
 our second condition forthcoming, and, without it, the 
 portion of material treated will be too small for any 
 effective appreciation of the subject to result. As a 
 matter of fact, all application of heuristic methods is 
 carried out by means of a large admixture of demonstra- 
 tion, and this alters the whole situation. Instead of a new 
 method which can effectively be applied by any one, we 
 have a new element which is useful in combination with 
 other elements, but which needs in its user insight, 
 experience, and many other qualities. 
 
 That ideas which have been arrived at by our own 
 efforts are more likely than others to take possession of 
 us, that the impulse that leads us to discovery is likely 
 in turn to be powerfully stimulated by the ideas which 
 discovery gives, may at once be conceded ; but unaided 
 heurism is impossible, and when we find it fused with 
 demonstration we find also a third element present. 
 Indeed, a critical examination of heurism is justified, 
 because its supporters, by exalting it to be the leading 
 principle in method, have completely overlooked a more 
 important element, that of suggestion, while a sympa- 
 thetic treatment of the arrogant claims put forward by 
 the wild heurist is demanded by the great value for the 
 promotion of suggestion of this element in the method 
 complex. 
 
 Method, then, as a whole comprises these three 
 factors : demonstration, heurism, and suggestion. Their
 
 126 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 proportions may vary, sometimes one, sometimes another, 
 taking the lead ; but in all teaching which is to be 
 effective, and especially for the guidance of conduct, 
 suggestion must be given its due place. The subjects 
 that we teach are ethical, logical, or aesthetic ; their 
 domain is the good, the true, or the beautiful, or they 
 contain these elements in varying proportions. When 
 we are dealing with a train of reasoning heurism is our 
 surest method. In the elementary theory of arithmetic, 
 for example, the pupil with a minimum of guidance can 
 be made to do his own reasoning, and this holds good 
 of experimental science, though to a smaller extent. In 
 literary subjects, while heurism is by no means ruled out, 
 demonstration and suggestion play a large part, and in 
 all ethical teaching suggestion must be supreme. The 
 whole art of the teacher consists in finding the exact 
 blend of the three ingredients that will just suit his 
 subject, his pupils, and himself. The conditions vary so 
 much that the accuracy of the physician's prescription is 
 impossible: even the vague directions of the seventeenth- 
 century cookery - book are forbidden. Each teacher 
 must mix his colours on the spot. We can say only 
 this, that in every case all the elements are needed. In 
 the laboratory, where heurism is supposed to reign 
 supreme, it is nevertheless necessary to demonstrate to 
 the pupil how the apparatus is to be used, and to suggest 
 to him that the experiment is interesting, and in every 
 way a desirable one to carry out. 
 
 What light does the method of suggestion throw on 
 the problem of conduct and character? If the nature 
 of the suggestive idea is as it has been represented, if an 
 idea can be introduced in such a way as completely to 
 avoid the arousing of contrariant and critical ideas, and if
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 127 
 
 it finds a system of living ideas in conjunction with 
 selected impulses to work upon, its power to affect the 
 direction of conduct can scarcely be denied ; and if, 
 further, the suggestive idea has been introduced when 
 the mind is dominated by a strong effort of attention 
 or conation, and remaining in a latent state is after- 
 wards accepted as an auto-suggestion, we have here a 
 constant source of guidance, a lever that turns the flood 
 of mental energy into one channel, and by so doing 
 inhibits activity in other directions ; we insure a constant 
 depression of all the impulses that might oppose, and by 
 degrees deprive them of their faculty of being vitalised 
 by a suitable idea. Examples of such suggestive ideas 
 have been already given in the cases of Frederick Myers 
 and J. J, Rousseau.^ 
 
 It might be urged that this is not to affect character 
 viewed as the small habits and tendencies, often of 
 no great importance in themselves, that make up the 
 sum of personality ; that the direction of energy may 
 be altered, but that characteristics remain unchanged. 
 We answer that this is indeed the case, and that the 
 possibility of affecting outlook on serious matters, of 
 inculcating principles and giving ideals of life, without at 
 the same time interfering with the mass of peculiarities 
 that make one person unlike another, is the very element 
 that renders education desirable instead of the reverse. 
 If it were true that character could be affected only by 
 running all boys into the same mould, by rubbing off 
 corners and eccentricities, by doing away with that differ- 
 ence of potential which leads to progress, it might then 
 safely be maintained that education would be desirable 
 in inverse proportion to its influence on those subjected 
 
 ^ ViJ. sup. p. 60.
 
 128 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 to it, and that when it gripped it could produce nothing 
 but dull mediocrities, creatures of habit brought up to 
 walk along the straight path of a cramping social code, 
 virtuous because possessed of too little initiative to kick 
 over the traces, supplied with a moderately good taste 
 because too inert to question the literary standard im- 
 posed upon them. 
 
 Such mediocrities might easily, would almost certainly, 
 be produced by a course of interesting demonstrations 
 given to a certain type of docile boys by a teacher 
 sufficiently energetic to make them attend and submit 
 to a rigid school-routine, and their production might not 
 be avoided by such heuristic work as can be attained in 
 school ; but they could scarcely be the result of a skilful 
 combination of the three elements of method, with stress 
 laid on the suggestion that produces auto-suggestion at 
 a later date. Such teaching would not tend to rub off 
 corners or to diminish eccentricities, but would turn a 
 given character with the peculiarities and roughnesses 
 characteristic of it to exploit its ruggedness in a desirable 
 channel rather than in an undesirable one. 
 
 Can education do more than this? Is it possible not 
 merely to direct but actually in some sense to increase 
 the disposable mental energy of an individual ? This is 
 a problem that must be attacked in the following chapter. 
 For the present one thing may be considered as certain. 
 At any cost of trouble or of time the proper guiding 
 ideas, the ideas that will produce interests, enthusiasms, 
 and noble passions must be introduced, and in the right 
 way. The phlegmatic boy who sits two-thirds of the 
 way down the form, and who seems to oppose a passive 
 resistance to all efforts to interest or arouse him, is the 
 very boy who must on no account be neglected. If an
 
 CHARACTER, METHOD, SUGGESTION 129 
 
 idea grips it will grip him surely ; its development may 
 be slow, but it will be very certain, and once it has 
 guided him into a certain path of conduct nothing will 
 turn him from it. Sooner or later this boy of tardy 
 development will be goaded into activity by the economic 
 stress of life. A lower motive than those to which he 
 has been exposed at school, the crudely utilitarian aim 
 of the merchant or the stockbroker, will convert him into 
 a strenuous and active man. He will be a person of 
 substance when the clever, talkative, and suggestible 
 boy at the top of the form is struggling to keep his head 
 above water in a learned profession. It will be the 
 fault of his teachers if he does not use the influence that 
 wealth confers in the promotion of the intellectual and 
 moral welfare of society.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 
 
 We have seen that an idea by its suggestive force can 
 determine the direction in which any mental powers 
 shall be applied. Can education by the presenting of 
 ideas or by any other means do more than this ? Is it 
 possible for it actually to increase the mental powers of 
 the individual or of the community ? The question has 
 been answered with various degrees of optimism and of 
 pessimism. " The importance of the law," wrote Robert 
 Owen in 1849, "that to educate man is to manufacture^ 
 i a character for him has never yet been fully appreciated 
 by any nation, people, or individual in any period of 
 man's history except Lycurgus ; and according to the 
 machinery used for the purpose the character will be 
 well or ill manufactured, and the individual will of 
 necessity become inferior, mixed, or superior in his 
 qualities. This principle being known, it becomes as 
 easy to manufacture the Spartan character to-day as 
 when Lycurgus lived, if there could now be utility in 
 forming a character of high military spirit, and with 
 great personal prowess and self-denial. But the time 
 is now passing to require any mere sectional character 
 which has now or previously been manufactured in any 
 latitude or longitude. The period has arrived when the 
 
 130
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 131 
 
 ^'"progress of knowledge ~aemands a character, physical, 
 mental, and moral, of full -formed rational men and 
 women ; and the machinery is now required to manu- 
 facture from human nature this superior fabric, for the 
 benefit of all who live and for future generations. ... In 
 short, to know scientifically how to manufacture the 
 material of human nature — the most ductile of all 
 materials — in its endless capacity for varied knowledge, 
 goodness, and happiness, is to know how to change the / 
 present universal disorder, vice, crime, and misery into 1 
 a terrestrial paradise ; in which the onward spirit of each 
 inhabitant will be to prevent the existence of any form 
 of evil." 1 
 
 Could any proposal be more confident or rose- 
 coloured? Character is to be manufactured to order — 
 'inferior, mixed, or superior, whichever you happen to 
 
 ywant at the time. The Bengali peasant can be infused 
 with the military spirit, and the Sikh can be imbued 
 with a love for husbandry, according to the demand for 
 soldiers or for farmers. It is true that the language in 
 which the promises are made is very loose, and that 
 there is no actual undertaking that the amount of 
 micntal energy will be increased ; but the writer evidently 
 does not anticipate any limitations, and is prepared to 
 guarantee anything to those who will help his educa- 
 tional schemes. 
 
 In matters of education we seem in this century to 
 be less sanguine than in the last. *' We talk of forming 
 a character," writes the President of Magdalen College, 
 " or again, in somewhat ambiguous language, of licking 
 a boy into shape, as though the teacher had absolute 
 
 ^ Robert Owen, The Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Humafi 
 Race ; or, the Coming Change from Irrationality to Rationality, 1849, p. 74.
 
 132 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 control over an inert and plastic material. The metaphor 
 of the shower and the flower is more apt than that of 
 the potter and his clay, or of the she-bear of legend and 
 her cubs. . . . The educator has not as much liberty as 
 the gardener. . . . He must deal with his human seeds 
 as he finds them. Taking them thus, education cannot 
 produce any faculty that is not in the human being 
 already. It may appear to do so, but this is only 
 because of the marvellous complexity of human nature. 
 The more simple, to use scientific terms, is its relation 
 to the environment, the less possibility is there for 
 education. But the human being is not a simple \ 
 organism, but one infinitely complex, and the interacting >;/ 
 play of its faculties is infinitely various." ^ 
 
 This brings us down to earth with a thud. We can 
 only feed the Sikh, drill him, and give him a gun ; and 
 in the same way we can only supply the peasant with 
 food, drink, and a spade. There is no ^cape from the 
 onslaught of the argument. While the CTithusiastic (and 
 probably inexperienced) schoolmaster is extracting the 
 President of Magdalen's bullet from his leg, Mr. Leighton 
 gives him his quietus with a well-aimed shot. " No 
 subject, no teaching, no plant or apparatus, however 
 lavishly supplied, can create brain power, we can only 
 save it from running to waste." ^ 
 
 Now character can certainly be modified to some 
 extent in its development, and brain power can certainly 
 be saved from running to waste ; the exact problem is 
 to ascertain whether it is possible for education to 
 
 1 T. H. Warren, Education and Eqimlity, pp. 18-19. 
 
 2 Leighton, The Boy and his School, p. 65. This work can be strongly 
 recommended to the student of education. It is apparently WTitten by a 
 disiUusioned headmaster, and in it is to be found almost every fallacy of^ 
 educational theory, put forward in good and sometimes racy English.
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 133 
 
 produce what is not already there potentially — whether 
 " brain power," or preferably " mental energy," can in 
 any sense be created. 
 
 It is well to begin by realising that in one sense it 
 is a truism to say that nothing can be produced which is 
 not already present. Without materials construction is 
 impossible. The clay vessel, the steam engine, the new 
 chemical compound, the new flower formed by cross 
 fertilisation, the variety of hound produced by careful 
 breeding, all of these depend on the previous existence 
 of raw clay, pig-iron, simple salts, and common varieties 
 of flowers and of dogs. Even in the case of Mozart's 
 musical compositions the materials were there and only 
 needed working up. Without the existing European 
 scale and system of counterpoint Mozart's peculiar 
 temperament might have produced Chinese melodies or 
 early Church music, but not the particular compositions 
 that made him famous. The intervals and the keys 
 that he used were the same as those employed by the 
 contemporary composers of popular songs, just as the 
 colours employed by Titian were the same as those 
 used by the local sign-painter. But when we speak of 
 creation, and the use of the word in connexion with 
 aesthetic production points to the real meaning of the 
 term, we imply something more than the mere piling 
 together of pre-existing elements ; we assume that some 
 meaning has been given to matter that previously 
 possessed none, or that additional meaning has been 
 given where comparatively little was to be found. To 
 the engineer, to the merchant, to civilisation, the steam 
 engine means more than do brute heaps of iron and of 
 coal ; to the housewife the earthen vessel means more 
 than an unformed mass of clay ; to the musician one of
 
 134 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 Mozart's symphonies means more than the same notes 
 arranged in the scale of C major or as a music-hall ditty. 
 If, therefore, it is true to say that each act of produc- 
 tion is merely the rearrangement of existing materials, 
 or even that each act of discovery is nothing but the 
 combination and application of previous discoveries in 
 the same field, it is equally true to say that each 
 arrangement, if it has any end in view, if it is more than 
 an idle destruction of previous combinations, is at the 
 same time an act of creation in so far as it gives fresh 
 meaning to the raw material used, and it may be that 
 the teacher in manipulating and reorganising the mental 
 elements and possibilities that he finds in his pupils is a 
 creator in the truest sense. 
 
 Before we consider more closely the nature of the 
 mental elements that he finds to hand, it will be well to 
 deal with one other standpoint from which the enemy can 
 decry the teacher's work. " There is now," he will say, 
 " no greater a supply of Shakespeares or of Newtons 
 than before the dawn of modern education with its 
 elementary schools and its provincial universities ; yet, 
 if education had fulfilled the hopes of its promoters, 
 men of surpassing talent ought to abound, whereas 
 actually we find an increase among mediocrities of a 
 certain standard and a relatively smaller number of 
 outstanding personages." Stated thus, the argument is 
 not wholly true, nor, if it were true, is it in place here. 
 The question at issue is whether or not the amount 
 of mental energy in a nation or in an individual can be 
 increased. The minds of Shakespeares and of Newtons 
 are no doubt extremely energetic, but the appearance 
 of such men on the scene implies a great deal more 
 than energy. It involves a particular combination of
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 135 
 
 great energy of mind, of peculiarities of temperament, of 
 accidents of upbringing, and of social conditions. The 
 genius arises much as freaks arise in nature. Out of the 
 greatest possible variety of combinations one particular 
 combination is produced which just happens to fit the 
 surroundings or the present needs, and the greater the 
 number of the elements to be combined, the greater is 
 the number of combinations and the greater the chances 
 that the particular combination that we call genius may 
 arise. The two essential factors are energy in the 
 individual and in the community, and the varieties of 
 temperament and of circumstance that may give it its 
 peculiar productive quality. All that we can ask from 
 or expect of education is that it shall increase the first 
 factor and that it shall not diminish the second. If it can 
 satisfy both these demands its claims on the community 
 are absolute ; but these considerations must be postponed 
 till later while we review the teacher's materials. 
 
 The ideas that occupy the field of consciousness form 
 but a small part of our mental life, and any conception 
 of mind that restricts it to the connexion of ideas and 
 feelings that can be immediately observed is wholly 
 inadequate. In psychology nothing is more baffling to 
 the introspector than to find that most of the processes 
 which he is anxious to observe and to explain, in terms 
 of their connexion with one another, go on as it were 
 behind the scenes, while only the finished product 
 emerges on to the stage. All the details of stage 
 management, all the manipulation and coaching of the 
 actors, all the busy details of preparation are hidden 
 from view, and have to be either dimly felt or laboriously 
 inferred ; the doors of the workshop are tightly barred, 
 and we are allowed to have first-hand acquaintance only
 
 136 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 with the finished goods in the shop window. This is 
 true of every department of psychic process. We 
 commit to memory and store the ideas in the cellars of 
 our mind, hoping that they will be preserved intact. 
 While they are there we are debarred from following 
 their fate, yet when we recall them they are seldom or 
 never the same. Sometimes they have shrunk, some- 
 times they have grown ; corners have been clipped, fresh 
 elements have been added ; we notice the result, of the 
 process we can observe no part. 
 
 I am in need of an idea ; I know exactly the kind of 
 idea that I want, I realise its empty form, the part that 
 it must play in the completed structure, but I cannot 
 hit upon it. What can I do? In one respect I am 
 helpless. I cannot operate on the hidden springs ; the 
 mechanism and the levers that control it are concealed 
 and unknown. But I know by experience that if I get 
 into a certain attitude of mind, if I -keep firmly before 
 me my mental needs and group together what ideas I 
 have, the required mental content may suddenly be shot 
 up into my consciousness. Of the immediate conditions 
 of its production we know nothing, and though we may 
 conceal our ignorance by terminology, though we may 
 say that the idea has been evolved by imagination or 
 by association, these terms are merely convenient modes 
 of stating our conviction that there is some mechanism 
 — that ideas, like meteors, though they come out of the 
 unknown, must have started from some given spot and 
 ^ under definite conditions. When our ideas are largely 
 controlled by logical considerations, the influence of the 
 subconscious is often obscured. If I solve a problem in 
 geometry, and write the solution out at length, the 
 whole idea sequence seems to have been present to
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 137 
 
 consciousness. Each element seems to be sufficiently 
 conditioned by that which precedes it and by the goal 
 of proof that is before me. But when the mind wanders 
 unguided except by chance association, when in a 
 daydream I pass from one idea to another, suddenly 
 awakening to discover that I have travelled far from 
 my starting-point, the subconsciousness generally has to 
 be invoked somewhere to account for the links in the 
 journey. In many cases, no doubt, I can say of the 
 sequence of ideas that it is due to associations of con- 
 tiguity which are easily accounted for : a was suggested 
 by b^ b hy c, c by d, and so on ; but then we reach an 
 idea x which seems to have no connexion whatever with 
 that which preceded it ; the wires are hidden, they are 
 below the threshold, I am looking at the sea when 
 suddenly I find in consciousness the idea of a friend 
 with whom I was once at school, and there seems to be 
 no connexion between this and the idea of breakers 
 which preceded. Yet I am driven to suppose that there 
 was some connexion. I may once have been to the 
 seaside with this friend, though I have now forgotten the 
 fact ; or there may be some subtle connexion between 
 my feelings as I look at the sea and those that I once 
 experienced in his society. Whatever the hypothetical 
 connexion that I imagine may be, it is hidden from 
 me, it is the work of my subconsciousness. 
 
 Though the operations of the subconscious are always 
 present, they do not force themselves upon the notice 
 of those who lead a routine life, whose mental transac- 
 tions consist in piecing together the percepts drawn from 
 daily observation in order to reach a result that is 
 already known, much as a child fits together the frag- 
 ments of the picture puzzle that lie before him on the
 
 138 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 table, and whose stock of ideas is so limited that no one 
 of them is below consciousness for long at a time. It is 
 with men of original and creative minds that its working 
 is chiefly felt, often with startling force, "What, you 
 ask," writes Mozart to a friend, " is my method in writing 
 and elaborating my large and lumbering things ? I can, 
 in fact, say nothing more about it than this : I do not 
 myself know and can never find out. When I am in 
 particularly good condition, perhaps riding in a carriage 
 or on a walk after a good meal, and in a sleepless night, 
 then the thoughts come to me with a rush and best of all. 
 Whence and how — that I do not know and cannot tell. 
 Those which please me I retain in my head, and hum 
 them perhaps also to myself — at least so others have 
 told me. If I stick to it there soon come one after the 
 other useful crumbs for the pie, according to counter- 
 point, harmony of the different instruments, etc. That 
 now inflames my soul, namely, if I am not disturbed. 
 Then it goes on growing, and I keep on expanding and 
 making it more distinct, and the thing, however long it 
 be, becomes indeed almost finished in my head, so that I 
 afterwards survey it at a glance like a goodly picture or 
 a handsome man, and in my imagination do not hear it 
 all in succession as it afterwards must be heard, but as a 
 simultaneous whole. That indeed is a feast. All the 
 finding and making goes on in me as in a very vivid 
 dream." * 
 
 The conception of the subconscious is necessary for 
 the explanation of mental process ; it is still more 
 necessary for the explanation of conduct. I am con- 
 scious that I have just acted in a manner which was 
 
 ^ Quoted by von Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious., Eng. trans., 
 vol, i. p. 279.
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 139 
 
 wholly opposed to my ultimate interests. I analyse the 
 situation. Let us suppose that I played golf instead of 
 attending to my business. When making up my mind 
 I realised clearly that my presence was needed at my 
 office. I knew that my health was excellent and that I 
 could not plead this as an excuse ; all the motives for 
 playing golf when weighed proved insufficient, and I 
 resigned myself reluctantly to the decision that I must 
 work as usual. Yet shortly, without any further delibera- 
 tion, I started for the golf-links. My conduct has been 
 determined by something outside or just on the margin 
 of consciousness, by the complex of ideas, feelings, and 
 impulses that forms the background of all conscious life, 
 and that are themselves but dimly realised, occasionally 
 rising out of the depths where in some form or other 
 they lie concealed, only to baffle us by disappearing 
 when we try to scrutinise them and discover their true 
 nature. These subconscious elements are the basis of 
 character and condition conduct to a far greater extent 
 than the view of life that we express and by which we 
 believe that we are actuated. When we see the better 
 but follow the worse the blame must be laid at the door 
 of the subconsciousness. 
 
 This subconsciousness, then, that plays such a part in 
 conduct, must be organised or formed by the teacher who 
 wishes ultimately to affect his pupil's conduct, and we 
 have to ask what exactly the subconsciousness is. The 
 term is a convenient one, and has been used as a rag-bag 
 into which to stuff everything that proves difficult of 
 explanation. In what state is an idea preserved when 
 it passes out of my consciousness ? As I am able sub- 
 sequently to recover it again, either it or the conditions 
 that produce it must exist somewhere. For an answer
 
 140 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 we naturally turn to those who first started us on the 
 way of ideas, to the founders of the associationist school 
 in England and in Germany ; but Locke, though he 
 realises that the ideas which through the medium of 
 sense-perception find their way into the empty cabinet 
 of our minds must exist somewhere, when through lack of 
 room they have to make way for other ideas that crowd 
 them out, is not very explicit as to the nature of the 
 limbo in which they await the time for their reappearance. 
 He hints, indeed, that the brain is concerned, or animal 
 humours, but goes no further than a hint. Herbart, it is 
 true, goes into much greater detail about the mechanism 
 through which he supposed the expulsion and the re- 
 instatement of ideas to take place. " We must," he says, 
 "explain the expression 'threshold of consciousness,' 
 which we shall often have occasion to use. An idea is 
 in consciousness in so far as it is not arrested, but is a 
 true idea. It enters into consciousness when it just 
 raises itself out of a condition of complete inhibition. 
 In this case it is on the margin of consciousness." ^ 
 When it is completely inhibited it is below this threshold, 
 but like Locke, Herbart gives us no information about 
 its exact nature when it is, so to say, an idea but yet not 
 a presentation. 
 
 A brief discussion of the relation of the mind 
 to the nervous system may help towards a clear 
 position. Although of recent years there has been 
 forthcoming overwhelming evidence that mental life is 
 conditioned by neural process, there has at the same 
 time arisen a disposition even among physiological 
 psychologists to look upon mind as essentially different 
 from the nervous system that conditions it, and to 
 
 1 J. F. Herbart, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, Sechste Auflage, 1900, p. 18.
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 141 
 
 confess that the meaning of an idea and the physiological 
 process that accompanies it are wholly disparate. The 
 crude materialism of the middle of the nineteenth century, 
 typically represented by a book like Biichner's Kraft unci 
 Stoff, which was ready to maintain that consciousness 
 is produced by the nervous system, is no longer in 
 favour. Wundt, it is true, states that " wherever we 
 observe the mental functions, they are accompanied by 
 the processes of nutrition and reproduction " ; and adds 
 that, " on the other hand, the general phenomena of life 
 may be manifested in cases where we have no reason for 
 supposing the presence of a mind." ^ He is, however, far 
 from adopting the position that mind can be produced 
 by the processes of nutrition and reproduction. 
 
 If we put on one side the definitely materialistic 
 position, and if it be granted that we find the mind and 
 the nervous system existing together, two theories are 
 possible as to their connexion. The first is the theory 
 of psycho-physical parallelism. This simply states the 
 fact that mental processes are accompanied by neural 
 processes. It supposes a physical train of causation 
 accompanied by a series of mental states each of which 
 is sufficiently conditioned or explained by its pre- 
 decessors. The latent idea is alluded to as a " dis- 
 position," a term which is intended to be a guarded one 
 and to avoid the imputation of materialism. This view 
 has powerful supporters, but its weak point is that it is 
 too guarded and explains nothing. It is not denied that 
 the mind and the nervous system are found in close con- 
 nexion, and psycho-physical parallelism merely restates 
 the position. 
 
 The other and more intelligible view is the theory 
 
 ^ W. Wundt, Pnnciples of Physiological Psychology, Eng. trans., vol. i. p. 27.
 
 142 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 of interaction. This assumes that mind and the nervous 
 system are found in juxtaposition, that the nervous 
 system can influence mind, and that mind in turn can 
 influence the nervous system. It is claimed that this 
 is on the whole a description of the facts as far as we 
 can observe them ; while to the objection that it is 
 impossible to conceive how two such disparate entities 
 as mind and matter can influence one another it is 
 retorted (i) that though the concept of causation is 
 borrowed from natural science, and though in natural 
 science we find interaction of this kind only between 
 fragments of matter, the concept was in the first place 
 originated through the consciousness that by an exercise 
 of the will we can ourselves move matter, and that 
 therefore we are but making the full use of a concept 
 whose extent for the purposes of convenience has been 
 erroneously limited by physics. (2) That the causation 
 of physical science is itself, like the causation of the 
 interaction theory, unintelligible without a further 
 metaphysical treatment. 
 
 If we adopt the theory of interaction, how do we 
 stand as regards the subconsciousness in which the 
 remembered idea has in some form been stored ? 
 Unless we are careful we shall find that we return to 
 the older and cruder materialistic position. A strong 
 advocate of the interactionist view, Mr. M'Dougall, 
 maintains that the latent idea remains only as a trace in 
 the nervous system. "If the ideas themselves," he says, 
 " do not continue to exist in the interval between per- 
 ception and representation, then those links which we 
 call the association of ideas, and which are the essential 
 conditions of the reproduction of the ideas of objects in 
 an order determined by the order of their perception.
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 143 
 
 cannot be links between ideas, but must be links 
 between the nervous dispositions that are the necessary- 
 conditions of the revival of ideas, and must themselves 
 be nervous dispositions," ^ 
 
 It is not easy to see how this differs from the 
 materialistic position that is satisfied with regarding 
 consciousness, or at any rate the content of conscious- 
 ness, as produced by the nervous system. The whole 
 basis of personality, in so far as this consists in the 
 memory of past experiences and the reference of these 
 to the same experiencing subject, is placed in the 
 nervous system, and no loophole is left for the perma- 
 nence of the person as an organised mind. The most 
 obvious position to which the view leads is that of von 
 Hartmann's Unconscious Mind, which is impersonal, 
 and uses as its instrument any neural system into 
 contact with which it is brought, the results of experi- 
 ence and latent ideas being deposited in the brain, and 
 the mind itself being unable to remember and thus 
 to become organised. 
 
 This objection might not in itself be sufficient if 
 logical consistency demanded that the subconsciousness 
 should be solely physical. This, however, is not the 
 case. If we start with ideas in consciousness and 
 conditioned by brain, we have no right to assume that 
 the idea when in the subconsciousness is detached 
 either from mind or from the nervous system. We are 
 driven to suppose that the latent idea is present in a 
 subconscious mind, and that in this state it is conditioned 
 by or connected with a physical disposition, as is the 
 idea in consciousness. The term " subconscious," and not 
 " unconscious," has been used because it is necessary to 
 
 1 W. M'Dougall, Physiological Psychology, 1905, p. 119.
 
 144 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 suppose some consciousness remaining as a correlative 
 to the neural trace, which we must conceive of as 
 possessing the characteristics of neural life though not 
 of full neural function. 
 
 In what sense can we conceive of the latent idea as 
 in consciousness. To do so it is necessary to realise 
 that all consciousness is not self-consciousness. We are 
 conscious of self when we definitely set ourselves to 
 consider our own personalities, when we actually com- 
 pare present with past experiences, and when we find it 
 necessary to adjust our attention, as when we are 
 attending to a percept on the margin of consciousness, 
 or find our minds wandering during the process of 
 attending, or when we reach the end of a process of 
 conation and are switching our energies on to another 
 track with another aim in view. In all these cases, 
 except the actual attending to the concept of self, 
 there are processes of adjustment involved, and it is 
 on these occasions that the feeling of personality is most 
 prominent. 
 
 From this state of mind the consciousness that is 
 not self-consciousness must be distinguished. When, 
 in working out a problem or developing a conception, 
 I become absolutely absorbed in the process — when 
 ideas come readily — when there is no hitch, and the 
 stream of thought flows steadily on, — on these occa- 
 sions, which for most people come but seldom, I am 
 oblivious of all around me, of my organic feelings, of 
 my personality. My mind is, it is true, retentive, other- 
 wise each link in the train of thought would not be 
 conditioned by what precedes, but I do not remember 
 in the narrower sense of the word. It is not until the 
 end of the train of thought is reached that a sense of my
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 145 
 
 personality returns to me. Then, as I look back on the 
 state of mind that is over, I am conscious that the 
 ideas passed before me as if they were wholly out of 
 my control. I seem to have been present at an act of 
 thinking in which as a person I took no part, and 
 of which at the moment I was but half-conscious. It 
 is only when the train of conation comes to an end that 
 I am fully conscious of what has been in my mind, and 
 realise that, as the process was originated by me, it is 
 mine and can be referred to my personality. 
 
 Now imagine this state of absorption indefinitely 
 prolonged. In that case the train of thought which 
 is developing will not be realised, there will be no pause 
 during which the self will rapidly review it and recognise 
 it as its own before proceeding to the next stage. 
 Imagine, further, that the train of thought is never 
 brought to an end. In that case it will develop con- 
 tinuously, unremembered, unrealised, unreferred to the 
 self It is in consciousness, but not in self-conscious- 
 ness. If this state of consciousness is imagined as less 
 intense, at a very low stage of activity and accompany- 
 ing, not a developing train of thought, but a simple 
 content of meaning which is thought and retained 
 continuously, but is not remembered or realised, it is 
 possible to have some idea of the condition of mind in 
 which the latent idea is retained as a subconscious state, 
 ready to be called up whenever it is needed, and to be 
 linked on to the self-consciousness that is performing 
 the work of readjustment to the environment of new 
 impressions that ever crowd in from the outside world, 
 even ready in conjunction with other latent ideas to split 
 off as a separate system, and to emerge with a special 
 pathological self-consciousness of its own, as in the 
 
 10
 
 146 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 distressing cases of plural personality which have 
 recently occupied the attention of psychologists. 
 
 It is in this mind, at least, as much as in the modifi- 
 cations of nervous tissue that we must believe experi- 
 ences and meanings that have passed from consciousness 
 to persist. Its presence allows us to believe in the 
 development of personality as a psychic growth and 
 organisation, and does not exclude the supposition that 
 while the subconsciousness is normally to be found in 
 connexion with a nervous system that has grown up 
 with it, it may, in virtue of its organisation, as meaning 
 continue to function and preserve the elements of its 
 personal growth under other conditions or in connexion 
 with a different system of suitable matter. From this 
 standpoint every process of thought and every reasoned 
 act helps to knit the self closer to the psychic system 
 that it has itself organised, and those who attempt to 
 train mental processes may thus hope to deepen the 
 sense of personality at the same time that they widen 
 the content of mind. 
 
 We have, then, a series of mental states which, while 
 they are generally found in combination, can each be 
 imagined as existing separately. Self-consciousness, in 
 which the mind is throughout aware of its existence as 
 an entity which possesses permanence, and which assigns 
 wishes and desires to itself, and not to other minds ; 
 consciousness, embodying retention and a continuous 
 train of thought, which is not aware of itself, but which 
 can be recalled and referred to the self; higher sub- 
 consciousness, when ideas that have been on the margin 
 of consciousness cannot directly be recalled, but have to 
 be inferred from their effect upon our mental content 
 or our feelings ; and lower subconsciousness, which, in
 
 EDUCATIOxN AS CREATIVE 147 
 
 spite of its remoteness, may yet influence the conscious 
 mind, although until recalled to further some train of 
 thought, that is to say, until it is wanted, it forms no 
 part of our conscious life. 
 
 Correlated with these states we are bound to imagine 
 a neural system in different stages of activity. The 
 neural system and the mind mutually condition one 
 another. In the mind is stored the meanings that have 
 been in our consciousness ; in the nervous system is 
 stored the neural dispositions that these meanings have 
 produced when coming into existence in our minds. 
 
 There are two avenues through which the educator 
 can influence this combination of nervous tissue and of 
 mind : he can drill the nervous system by habit, and he 
 can change and enrich the mind content by introducing 
 new meanings. The methods must often be employed 
 together, but in their essence they are separate. One 
 mark of a habit in nervous process is that it does not 
 develop. You may train a dog to perform certain 
 operations ; once they are learned they are invariable, 
 they do not initiate a train of other processes. An 
 animal will not combine two processes that he has 
 learned to make a third. Lack of plasticity is the mark 
 of nervous habit. It is through this very rigidity that 
 complicated mental process is rendered possible, since it 
 presupposes a number of subsidiary processes that have 
 become automatic. A large portion of early education 
 consists in giving habits. Boys must be taught to read, 
 to write, to be punctual, to have a stock of traditional 
 knowledge, and to use the conventional symbols of daily 
 social life ; and of these acquisitions even those that 
 imply knowledge are little removed from the plane of 
 habit. It may be asked whether these latter should be
 
 148 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 called habits of mind or habits of nervous structure. In 
 so far as their rigidity is mechanical, and can be altered 
 only by continued practice, they are habits of nerve ; in 
 so far as it depends on meaning and logical structure, 
 and can be altered by the addition of fresh meaning, 
 they are habits of mind. In many cases the term " habit " 
 is used loosely to cover both aspects. When I talk of a 
 habit of attention, I mean in part that the neural system 
 connected with the mind adjusts itself readily to stimuli, 
 but I also imply that the mind possesses a large stock of 
 meaning which is imposed upon the new ideas that are 
 presented to it. This is a habit, and possesses rigidity 
 only in the sense that the stock of meaning is always 
 present. Otherwise its essential mark is that it is vari- 
 able, that is to say, that the right meaning to suit circum- 
 stances is continually brought to the front. 
 
 The second method, then, of building up the subcon- 
 sciousness is by introducing meaning. The essence of 
 ideas or of systems of ideas is that they develop, that 
 they are in a constant process of being fused and separ- 
 ated, and that under the influence of purpose the ideas 
 that are used to attain the end are constantly reformed 
 and given fresh meaning by the new contexts in which 
 they appear. We are driven to believe that these con- 
 tents of meaning have some connexion with the nervous 
 system, but it is extremely difficult to imagine any com- 
 bination of neurones and synapses that could be the 
 physiological counterpart of a meaning, and we must 
 content ourselves with saying that mental process at a 
 low level, when its connexion with nervous process is 
 intelligible, comes under the law of nervous habit, and 
 that mental process at a higher level, whatever may be 
 the nature of its physical counterpart, does not.
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 149 
 
 For the educator this distinction is of far-reaching 
 importance. Teaching of the conventional kind that 
 trains nervous habit beyond the necessary degree of 
 rigidity is to be dreaded in all educational development. 
 The law of habit is so strong that it may well be believed 
 that if the necessary steps were taken, and if education 
 were carried out with the thoroughness that modern 
 organisation will in the future provide, the educational 
 mechanism might prove a powerful instrument for reduc- 
 ing all minds to the same level of conventional knowledge 
 and process ; that tradition and reverence for established 
 custom of any kind, quite apart from its meaning for 
 social or mental development, might become paramount, 
 that initiative might be wholly checked, and the exam- 
 ination-bred youth be turned out well groomed and 
 drilled, but without the mental energy that is so essential 
 for breaking new ground. We have an example of this 
 in China, and other instances are not wanting nearer 
 home. Under such conditions the only hope of progress 
 would be in those boys, and, fortunately, there would 
 always be a few who are too sturdy to submit to the 
 habituation process, or who, coming of wealthy parents, 
 are enabled to escape the close-grinding mill and grow 
 up under freer conditions, who inherit dispositions to 
 command rather than to obey, to reform what is given 
 to them rather than to accept it blindly, and who at the 
 same time do not succumb to the enervating influence 
 of luxury in the home and the prospect of economic 
 security in the future. 
 
 The manner in which the premature ingraining of 
 habits may stunt mental growth is well brought out by 
 Mrs. Boole. " Parents should form a clear idea what 
 is the scientific condition of mind, . . . they should
 
 ISO SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 know in what consists the preparation for it. The 
 typically scientific mind may be described as one which 
 stands in a definite relation to As-Yet-Unknown 
 Truth, and especially to that portion of the As-Yet- 
 Unknown which is just below the horizon of knowledge. 
 In proportion as a mind is non-scientific the occurrence 
 of an unfamiliar phenomenon stimulates it to form some 
 immediate classification or judgment. A new statement 
 is hailed at once as true or false ; a new fact is classified 
 as good or bad, nice or nasty ; an unfamiliar action as 
 right or wrong, etc. In proportion as a mind is 
 scientific, the occurrence of a new phenomenon tends to 
 set it vibrating with a consciousness of coming revela- 
 tion, and to start a certain cycle of mental attitudes, a 
 cycle of the following kind : Homage, Attention, Observa- 
 tion, Analysis, Antithesis, Synthesis, Contemplation, 
 Effacement, Repose, Judgment, or Classification, The 
 cycle varies in duration ; each phase may occupy a 
 few seconds, or many months or even years. But the 
 tendency to fall into some such sequence as that above 
 described at the touch of a new fact is what constitutes 
 the essentially scientific condition." ^ 
 
 The training, on the other hand, in which habit has 
 played too great a part leads to the hasty reference of 
 new facts to conventional categories, whether they really 
 fit them or not, and the automatism of the process by 
 its rapidity prevents that suspension of judgment, that 
 gradual feeling of the way, that readiness to adopt fresh 
 modes of attack which are signs of the really active 
 mind. 
 
 This situation of mediocrity and stagnation, while 
 quite possible as the product of a certain kind of training, 
 
 ' M. E. Boole, Preparation of the Child for Science, 1904, p. 15.
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 151 
 
 is none the less wholly unnecessary. Education need 
 not be mechanical ; habit need not be unduly enforced ; 
 convention need not be our guide ; the teacher can intro- 
 duce meaning at every step ; and when he introduces it 
 by the suggestive method, especially when he can pro- 
 duce auto-suggestion, he may feel assured that one 
 suggestive idea, the result, perhaps, of a few moments' 
 labour on his part, may develop and produce a rich 
 crop of conceptions which will systematise themselves, 
 and slowly give rise to a habit of mind which is a habit 
 only in name, because the relation of each part to the 
 others is determined by meaning. 
 
 In teaching of this kind lies safety for the future. 
 How little this is realised may be seen in another quota- 
 tion from Mr. Leighton. In making an estimate of the 
 effect that schooling is likely to have on the pupil, he 
 says : " If you reckon that a boy sleeps 63 hours of the 
 week, spends 30 hours in school, and 12 more in pre- 
 paration, these 42 hours of schooling only come to 40 
 per cent of his waking hours in a week of full work ; 
 taking the whole year and allowing for vacations, the 40 
 per cent sinks to 30, and every one knows that even the 
 30 per cent is subject to enormous deductions under the 
 heads of absence, and still more of inattention ; but the 
 70 per cent assigned to the forces other than schooling 
 is liable to no deductions, unless it be for longer hours of 
 sleep." 1 
 
 In other words, he would say, the influence of teaching 
 is directly proportional to the percentage of the boy's 
 life that is subject to it. For that portion of education 
 which consists of the drilling in mechanical habits this is 
 probably true ; indeed, it may be doubted whether, at 
 
 ^ R. L. Leighton, The Boy and his School, p. 2. 
 
 ri
 
 152 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 day schools at all events, the school routine can ever 
 in this respect counterbalance the home surroundings if 
 these exercise an adverse influence. But from the stand- 
 point of suggestion nothing could be further from the 
 truth. The length of school hours is largely a tradition 
 from the days when boys were sent to school chiefly to 
 keep them out of the way, and a little suggestive teach- 
 ing may do far more to induce the pupil to give himself 
 habits of a certain kind than the excessive drill which is 
 cast off as irksome at the first opportunity. 
 
 We may now return to our original question, and once 
 more ask if the amount of mental energy can be 
 mcreased, or if our efforts must be restricted to guidance. 
 On the side of the schoolmaster's work that is connected 
 with drill and habit the physical law of the conservation 
 of energy holds good. You cannot get more power out 
 of any piece of mechanism than is either there to start 
 with or is put into it from without. Drilling the young 
 in habits consists largely in repression ; one process is, 
 selected and is repeated until it becomes ingrained, to 
 the exclusion of other processes. In the process of 
 repression and selection there can be no increase of 
 what was originally present. If I block up three water 
 channels and divert all the water into a fourth, I do 
 not increase the total volume of water ; if in the same 
 way I direct a number of streams of nervous energy 
 into one channel, and allow them to wear a broad 
 groove for themselves, the volume of nervous energy 
 remains unchanged ; its direction only is altered. In 
 each case, however, an addition has been made : the 
 arrangement may for certain purposes be more effective ; 
 it has, in other words, been given additional meaning.
 
 EDUCATION AS CREATIVE 153 
 
 On the side of education that deals with meaning 
 the law of conservation of energy does not apply. In 
 matter energy is limited, in mind it is not. The 
 conception of energy was first derived, like that of 
 causation, from the feeling of energy within us, and it 
 received its limitation in the field of physical science 
 because such limitation proved desirable. Not that 
 physical science can ever prove that no energy has been 
 added to the total complex, it can only demand that 
 the energy on one side of the equation shall equal that 
 on the other ; if energy were added to both sides in 
 equal amounts it would be unnoticed. In mental 
 processes the two sides of the equation cannot be equal, 
 for the simple reason that the concept of equality does 
 not apply. Mind cannot be measured, it can only be 
 valued. A content of meaning has no quantity, but it 
 has a value, and this value may be increased without 
 limit by the proper development of the meaning. 
 Meaning may be added to meaning, the fusion may be 
 quite unlike its component parts and may have 
 additional meaning, and consequently, for mental life 
 may be of far greater value, and possess far more mental 
 energy. When dealing with this side of the teaching 
 process the schoolmaster has theoretically an unlimited 
 scope. When he introduces meaning to his pupils he is 
 building up within each of them a world of meaning, 
 and in doing so he is not diminishing his own stock. 
 Each new insight on the part of those taught is wholly 
 to the good. Further, it is the nature of meaning that 
 it may develop from within as well as from without, 
 that by analysis of its own content fresh meaning is 
 produced. Suggestive and auto-suggestive ideas have 
 this power, and when they are present mental vitality
 
 154 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 will be great. Consequently, if the teacher makes it his 
 first aim to see that the subconsciousness of his pupils is 
 a mind of meanings not always fully realised, but felt as 
 desirable and ready at any moment to develop into 
 auto-suggestions, he will be not only a director, but a 
 creator of mind, a true producer of mental energy. 
 
 Meanings of this kind, when they develop, do so on 
 the lines of the personality to which they are attached, 
 and tend to accentuate it. The development of the 
 suggestive idea can never be conventional ; its mode of 
 operation defies analysis ; it frequently disappoints 
 expectation, and as often it astonishes by its rate of 
 o-rowth. With an increase in mental energy comes a 
 differentiation between the personalities in whom it is 
 manifested, whereas with a drilling of personalities to 
 sameness is found a lessening of mental energy. Given 
 a sufficient number of suggestive teachers, and a con- 
 sequent differentiation of one personality from another 
 among their pupils, the play of circumstances will see 
 to it that the freaks whom we call men of genius are 
 produced in increasing numbers.
 
 CHx^PTER IX 
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 
 
 In previous chapters the relation between suggestion 
 and the other great principles of method has been 
 discussed, as well as the general conditions of the 
 teaching, which, while not suggestive in the Narrower 
 sense of the word, is yet necessary as furnishing the 
 mind with living ideas for suggestion to work upon. 
 It remains to ask what are the school subjects that 
 most readily lend themselves to be the medium of 
 suggestion, and what are the methods of teaching that 
 the principles of suggestion demand. 
 
 In the early years of the last century, when the only 
 subjects taught in our secondary schools were the 
 Latin and Greek classics, with very occasionally a little 
 mathematics, the question that has just been asked 
 would have seemed meaningless to most schoolmasters. 
 Even Arnold's curriculum at Rugby in 1835, though 
 in many respects far in advance of the school practice 
 of the time, since it included French, geography, and 
 some mathematics, in addition to the ordinary classical 
 grind, omitted altogether such subjects as English 
 literature and natural science. As the century 
 progressed, under the influence of external pressure 
 exercised by men of science like Huxley and of money 
 
 155
 
 156 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 grants from the Science and Art Department at South 
 Kensington, and given additional force by the natural 
 tendency of the struggling professional man to demand 
 for his son an education that possibly might cultivate 
 the income-earning capacity, natural science and an 
 increased dose of mathematics found their way into the 
 curriculum. The tendency towards encylopaedism has 
 steadily grown, and many headmasters who at first were 
 hostile to the newer subjects, have ended by acquiescing 
 in the existence of modern sides, though they seldom 
 express much confidence in the cultural value of the 
 instruction given in them. As result, in many schools 
 the educational sack is filled to bursting, the solution is 
 saturated, subject is piled upon subject with a complete 
 disregard of the doctrine of diminishing returns, which 
 comes into operation in education as in every other 
 process, and at a much earlier stage than would be the 
 case if only a few of the simpler maxims for the 
 compounding of a curriculum were attended to. As 
 soon as a boy has opened his books at the right places 
 or got his instruments into working order, and is 
 beginning to get interested in the subject, the end of 
 the period of work is on him, a bell rings, there is a 
 shuffling of feet, books and apparatus have to be thrust 
 away, and five minutes later a different lesson in a 
 different subject, which for the boy often has no con- 
 nexion with the last, is under way. 
 
 Most teachers and headmasters feel the congested 
 state of the curriculum acutely. The tension becomes 
 greater, and it is realised that something has to be given 
 up. In many cases it is suggested that to clear out 
 of the way the subject which has hitherto occupied 
 most of the time, the Latin and Greek classics, is the
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 157 
 
 best means of giving room for expansion to the subjects 
 that remain ; that if this Jonah be thrown overboard the 
 pedagogic bark will be guided straight to its appointed 
 haven with fair winds and an even keel, and all will be 
 for the best in the best of all scholastic worlds. The 
 distinguished author of From a College Window deplores 
 that at the end of the school training in which he took 
 an active part for twenty years, there used to depart 
 " a slow river of cheerful and conventional boys, well 
 dressed, well mannered, thoroughly nice, reasonable, 
 sensible, and good-humoured creatures, but knowing 
 next to nothing, without intellectual interests and, 
 indeed, honestly despising them," the result being that 
 " intellectual cynicism was the note of the place " ; and 
 he thinks " that the solution is a very obvious one : it 
 is at all costs to simplify and to relieve pressure. The 
 staple of education should be French, easy mathematics, 
 history, geography, and popular science. I would not 
 even begin Latin or Greek at first." ^ Nothing is said 
 about the methods of teaching these subjects, and we 
 are asked to believe that in the hands of the same men, 
 or of the same type of man, under whom "a great 
 quantity of pedantic grammar was taught, and time 
 was wasted in trying to make the boys compose in 
 both Latin and Greek when they had no vocabulary 
 and no knowledge of the languages," and who thus 
 seemed to have lacked the educator's flair for the 
 elements that really matter, as well as the knowledge 
 of method that is no substitute for insight and 
 does not necessarily produce it, but which may 
 develop it when it exists in germ, the newer curriculum 
 would produce intellectual interests and intellectual 
 
 1 A, C. Benson, From a College Witidow, 1906, pp. 155, 156.
 
 158 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 enthusiasm. It may be permitted to doubt this, and to 
 believe that the newer subjects handled with the same 
 lack of system and the same stupidity in selection that 
 has sometimes characterised the teaching of the older 
 ones, would produce just the same dreary tone and 
 distaste for knowledge that is deplored in the finished 
 products of such instruction. Are there no historical, 
 geographical, and French pedants ? Or is it likely that 
 they will not be produced if they have to prepare their 
 pupils for the numerous examinations that spread their 
 nets for the middle class, and even for the upper class 
 schools, examinations which appear to take but scant 
 notice of the newer and more fruitful methods that 
 are daily being suggested and demanded, and which 
 wind their paralysing tentacles round the young 
 enthusiast who wishes to work out his own methods 
 on scientific principles ? 
 
 Whatever may have been the faults of the older type 
 of teacher (and, it may be added, of the rigid examina- 
 tion), he had one good quality that must be placed to 
 his credit. He made his pupils work hard at subjects 
 that they did not like. No one now believes that the 
 chief object of sending children to school is to teach 
 them to suffer injustice and to endure ennui ; but we 
 may from every point of view question the value of 
 an education that does not habituate those subjected to 
 it to bring to completion tasks which they dislike, 
 and to concentrate themselves on subjects that do not 
 appeal to them. From the newer subjects, apparently, 
 the salt of drudgery which would season tlie boy for the 
 drearier situations that life presents may be altogether 
 omitted. " Why," says Professor Armstrong in an 
 address to the British Association, " should there be any
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 159 
 
 set lessons in subjects such as history and geography? 
 Nothing is worse, more stereotyped, more cramping to 
 the intellect, than the set lesson of so many lines or 
 pages of a sort of Liebig's Essence of information, with 
 attendant obligation of committing the facts recorded 
 in them to memory. The child, like the restive, high- 
 mettled young steed, wants to be off and away — not to 
 be held severely in hand. Why should not the method 
 by which we get up a subject in later life be followed in 
 schools ? At least it should be properly tried. Let us 
 give freedom to children, and at least during early years 
 lead them to read hard and wisely ; they will do so 
 gladly." ^ If they do so gladly, there is at least some 
 result, if there is no discipline ; but what if they do not ? 
 
 Concurrently with the tendency towards encyclo- 
 paedism, a tendency towards classification has marked 
 the intellectual progress of recent years. 
 
 When scientific studies first came into prominence in 
 the latter half of the nineteenth century, they found the 
 field occupied, it is true, by the humanities, but not 
 mapped out as in the possession of a number of 
 organised subjects, well equipped with rigorous methods, 
 which could claim to be real training-schools of reason 
 and perseverance. The classics undoubtedly afforded 
 abundant opportunities for diligence and thought, but the 
 methods employed in teaching them were often faulty, 
 while the other subjects usually classed as humanities — 
 history, English literature, and geography — were either 
 not taught at all or were taught on no method. There 
 was, therefore, some validity in the claims of natural 
 science that through its means for the first time the 
 
 1 H. E. Armstrong, Ph.D., F.R.S., The Teachitig of Scieiitijic Method, 
 1903, p. 85.
 
 i6o SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 principles of observation, classification, and inductive 
 reasoning would be taught in schools. The situation 
 did not long remain unchanged. Partly owing to the 
 increased interest taken in the humanities, partly to the 
 stimulus that natural science had given to the concep- 
 tion of method, and partly to the rise of scientific 
 psychology, the view rapidly gained ground that human 
 life and thought give as much scope as physical nature 
 for accurate investigation and rigorous method, while as 
 a result of this tendency we have to-day on the one 
 hand the physical sciences and mathematics with their 
 paraphernalia of methods and techniques, and on the 
 other the sciences of human nature: sociology, economics, 
 geography, and history, with their new apparatus for the 
 investigation and establishing of fact. 
 
 On each side, therefore, we have subjects of instruc- 
 tion which admit of organisation, and in which a 
 technique could be devised which might be compared with 
 that of the classics when well taught, and which would be 
 far more rigorous than that of the classics when badly 
 taueht.^ Natural science can no longer claim to be 
 the only subject that teaches observation, hypothetical 
 reasoning, inductive working, and the manipulation of 
 experimental problems ; it can certainly claim to provide 
 these advantages, but not to a greater extent than the 
 humanities, and, it must be added, in a subject-matter 
 which deals with a side of life far more remote from the 
 daily experience of the ordinary citizen than are the 
 conceptions of conduct and motive that the humanistic 
 teaching can supply. 
 
 -.., It is not denied that some moral ideas can be intro- 
 duced through the medium of natural science. The 
 conceptions of exactitude and truth can be given by
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS i6i 
 
 mathematics and science, and these subjects, quite apart 
 from all questions of practical utility, could never be 
 omitted from the curriculum, because they illustrate a 
 particular kind of exactitude and a particular aspect of 
 truth. It is because they involve the elements of truth \ 
 and exactitude that the humanistic subjects can be ^ 
 made as profitable as the scientific ones, and it is because 
 their subject-matter is of greater importance to the life / 
 of conduct and of action that greater prominence must 
 be given to them. ' For the subjects through which 
 moral ideas can be introduced are primarily the 
 humanistic : history, literature, and geography. It 
 is in connexion with these that ideals of conduct and 
 suggestive human situations are to be found, and if 
 suggestion is to be indirect, the first necessity in such 
 humanistic subjects is that they shall possess a strong 
 technique of their own, that they shall lend themselves 
 to problem work, that in the process of instruction the 
 pupil shall have his work to do as well as the teacher, 
 and that the pupil's part shall, if anything, be harder 
 and involve more reasoning than the teacher's. All 
 these elements are necessary, and all these history, at 
 any rate, supplies, if taught in the right way. 
 
 If, however, it is used, as the followers of Herbart 
 would use it, solely for the sake of giving examples of 
 conduct, it may fail lamentably in this direction. The 
 too constant pressing upon a boy of examples of con- 
 duct, or the sententious handling of episodes, is certain 
 to arouse suspicion in his mind. ^ In fact, the whole 
 doctrine of influence by suggestion is wholly at variance 
 with the principles that underlie what the school of 
 Herbart calls character-forming instruction (Gesinnungs- 
 Unterricht). ," Character- forming instruction is that 
 
 1 1
 
 i62 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 instruction which has as its aim the production of 
 character in the young ; the awaking, grounding, training 
 of the religious and moral will, at least in its beginnings ; 
 the inducement to recognise and imitate examples of 
 religion and morality, and the furthering of the first 
 developments of faith and morality. ^ These aims are 
 the essential, necessary signs of character-forming in- 
 struction. V They are to be found above all in religious 
 and historical instruction. Both of these are, above all, 
 character-forming subjects. No other subject has like 
 them the professed aim of promoting a religious and 
 good character." ^ 
 
 The aim " to recognise and imitate examples of 
 religion and morality " is not peculiar to the Herbartians, 
 and is not objected to by other schools of educational 
 thought. Neither can exception be taken to the state- 
 ment that historical instruction is the medium through 
 which examples of morality and ideas that deal with 
 conduct and with society can most readily be presented 
 to the young. It is the method that seems inadequate, 
 and indeed mischievous. " Character-forming instruc- 
 tion arises out of deep-seated, immediate experiences 
 of feeling." - It is true that the feeling must not 
 be too strong. The emotional dissociation that has 
 been objected to in direct suggestion is deprecated. 
 " Character-forming instruction rejects all religious and 
 ethical instruction through the emotions. It sees in 
 violent shocks to the feelings, in agitation, in excess of 
 feeling, nothing but hindrances to a firm and sincere 
 religious and ethical direction of the will." ^ The 
 " immediate experience of feeling " is thus to be a mild 
 
 1 Rein's Encyclopaedisches Handbuch der Paedagogik, Art. " Gesinnungs- 
 Unterricht. " ' 2 /^/^/_ 3 /(j/^_
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 163 
 
 one ; and we may ask the question whether this mild 
 feehng will be sufficient to counteract the very consider- 
 able feeling of contrariance that the average boy ex- 
 periences when assaults are made upon his moral 
 standards. There may perhaps be something peculiar 
 in the method by which this gentle feeling that will 
 repel contrariance is brought about, and we might 
 reasonably expect, in conformity with the Herbartian 
 intellectualistic position, according to which feeling arises 
 out of the interplay of ideas, that stress might be laid 
 on intellectual effort in this connexion. Unfortunately 
 the modern Herbartian has not got the educational 
 insight of his master, and hampers himself with an 
 obsolete psychology. To our surprise we find that 
 " The method of character-forming instruction is wholly r 
 different from the method of the natural sciences, as 
 different as the ethical from the theoretical mode of 
 treatment, as different as knowledge is from faith, as 
 ethical insight is from the concepts of the understanding. 
 It is therefore an error to place character-forming in- 
 struction under the yoke of the inductive method." 1 
 
 To the question what the exact method is to be, 
 if it is not to be inductive (and presumably a deductive 
 method is equally excluded), the answer is given by a 
 recent writer. Dr. F. H. Hayward. \ It apparently con- 
 sists in simply placing before the young examples of 
 conduct, and it seems to be taken for granted that the 
 gentle "experience of feeling" will result. "How 
 immensely important, then, is the work of presenting to 
 mankind — and especially to the scholars of our schools 
 — the inspiring biographies which history has to offer. 
 
 1 Rein's Encyclopaedisclies Handbuch der Paedagogik, Art. ' ' Gesinnungs- 
 Unterricht. "
 
 i64 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 Such biographies, presented in an historical setting and 
 preceded by fairy tales, constitute the ' Gesinnungs- 
 Stoff ' of the Zillerians, the materials for ' Gesinnungs- 
 Unterricht' — character -forming instruction. In such 
 material must be included, of course, the priceless 
 biographies with which the Bible can suitably provide 
 the school ; unless such material, biblical, national, and 
 cosmopolitan, is presented in rich abundance to the 
 youth of England, we must expect well-nigh with 
 astronomical certainty that the youth of England will 
 grow up barbarous, uncultured, and immoral."^ That 
 concrete examples of conduct should be " presented" to 
 the young, few will be found to deny ; but neither will 
 any candid teacher of experience deny that in the great 
 majority of cases the presentation is without any effect 
 on character. 
 
 The method of presentation is the important matter, 
 a^d for the Herbartian this is briefly to see that the 
 receiving mind has in it the ideas necessary for an 
 understanding of what is to come, and then to display 
 the new conception to its admiring gaze. " Education 
 , . . can give moral instruction, arraying in its service 
 historical and biblical examples, and pointing to their 
 moral import ; this at present it does imperfectly." - 
 The method, apparently, is to bring together examples of 
 moral conduct, and to " point out " their import. It is 
 easy enough to do this ; to give moral instruction on 
 these terms is child's play ; but if there is any validity 
 in the doctrine of reaction and contrariance, such in- 
 struction may be as futile as it is easy. Dr. Hayward 
 is probably correct when he says : " It is doubtful whether 
 any idea or maxim or exhortation, however abstract, is 
 
 1 F. H. Hayward, The Secret of Herbart, p. 50. - Ibid. p. 62.
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 165 
 
 entirely ineffective in building up the structure of 
 morality"; but only on the condition that the term 
 " morality " is interpreted as meaning the attitude 
 towards conduct as conditioned by the whole after 
 effects of such exhortations, including all the reactions 
 set up by the moral truths to which the finger of 
 Education " points," reactions which may well hurry off 
 the learner in a direction widely different from that 
 intended by the Herbartian. It is scarcely an exaggera- 
 tion to say that the missionary cause could have found 
 no surer method of alienating schoolboy sympathy than 
 the countless sermons and addresses in school chapels 
 that it has organised. Even if the Herbartian premisses 
 were granted, and if this presentation of instances 
 produced a gentle feeling of sympathy (and it is not for 
 a moment admitted that feelings spring from intellectual 
 ideas, though they may, of course, accompany them), a 
 gentle feeling is not enough to stem contrariance ; for 
 this the deeper emotions that stir human nature to its 
 depths are necessary, but their production is not always 
 desirable, and indeed with most teachers is not possible. ^ 
 
 As concrete examples two extracts may be given 
 from F. J. Gould's The Children's Book of Moral Lessons, 
 those illustrating Temperance and Courage: — "In ancient 
 times there dwelt in Greece a famous people called the 
 Spartans. They were a very temperate nation, though, 
 like John Howard, they were more strict than most 
 people need to be. The boys were taught to labour, to 
 drill, to fight, and to endure hardships ; and they slept 
 on beds made of reeds which they had cut with knives 
 on the banks of the river ; but in winter they were 
 allowed to strew thistledown on the beds, to make them 
 softer and warmer. The houses of the Spartans were
 
 i66 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 built of plain logs of wood, hewn only by the axe ; and 
 the doors were simply cut by the saw, and had no 
 ornament ; the beds, tables, and other furniture were of 
 the simplest character. The money they used was but 
 iron coins. Lest they should become idle by resting on 
 couches at home, or feasting too richly, it was ordered that 
 all men should eat their meals ... at the public tables, 
 about fifteen persons sitting at each board. In these 
 ways, and by sports and long exercises, the Spartans 
 were prepared for war, and they advanced to battle 
 without flinching, and would die rather than yield to a 
 foe. . . . Thus you see the temperate Spartans were very 
 BRAVE. And you boys and girls also wish to be brave, 
 though not with that bravery which aims only at 
 shedding blood. They are brave men who face the fire 
 of burning houses, who toil on the sea, who labour in 
 mines and quarries and docks — ah, yes, all men and 
 women can be brave in bearing pain, in doing the daily 
 work, in saying right words, in resisting what is unjust. 
 And to be brave we need the noble temper : we must 
 be TEMPERATE." 1 
 
 Or again on Courage. " Let us look closely at the 
 word 'courage.' Some of you perhaps learn French. If 
 I take away the syllable ag-e, what will remain ? The 
 syllable coia\ Suppose, now, I write on the blackboard 
 this syllable, with the addition of the letter e. Here 
 we have the word cceur, and co'ur means heart. You 
 remember the famous English king who wielded the 
 heavy battle-axe against the Saracens in the Holy Land. 
 His very name made the people fear ; and when a 
 Saracen's horse started nervously, his rider would say : 
 ' What, dost thou think thou seest King Richard behind 
 
 1 op. cit. p. 55.
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 167 
 
 that bush ? ' This brave Richard was known as Coeur 
 de Lion, or Lion Heart, for he had the heart or courage 
 of a lion. You know the African mothers have a 
 curious idea about the wonderful power of the lion's 
 heart ; and when the father has slain a lion in the chase 
 he brings the heart of the fierce beast to the mother, and 
 she cooks it and gives some to her boys to eat. As 
 they eat she thinks the courage of the king of the desert 
 enters into the breast of her sons." Various stories 
 follow giving examples of different kinds of courage. 
 
 To the subject - matter of this teaching no ex- 
 ception need be taken. It is good to give boys 
 examples of conduct, it is good to teach them the 
 meanings of words denoting modes of action, it is right 
 to make them discriminate between cognate virtues ; 
 but it is necessary to realise that these are ideas about 
 morality and not moral ideas, not the ideas that will 
 of necessity themselves take concrete form as moral 
 actions. Mr. Gould in his preface states that the book 
 is intended for children aged from ten to fourteen years, 
 and hints that for older children different language, but 
 not a different method, is needed. Yet for many boys 
 who fall far short of fourteen years the very title, Book of 
 Moral Lessons, would be sufficient to bring up the resolve 
 that under no circumstances would any of the moral 
 apothegms therein contained be permitted to touch 
 the springs of action. The anecdotes, however, apart 
 from the moral exhortation that accompanies them, 
 are attractive, and with very young children might find 
 favour. 
 
 For the treatment of similar topics in a purely didactic 
 and abstract manner there is, pace Dr. Hayward, nothing 
 to be said. Witness the teaching of temperate habits
 
 i68 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 in a French manual of moral instruction : — " I told you 
 yesterday what hygiene recommends. To-day I want 
 to tell you what it forbids. Hygiene forbids several 
 things : the abuse of drink, the abuse of tobacco, 
 excesses at table and elsewhere. Wine, and even 
 spirits, taken in moderate doses are a useful stimulant 
 \^ for men who work hard. As soon as they are abused 
 they injure the mind. Further, as bad habits grow 
 quickly, it does not take long to produce a drunkard, 
 that is to say, a wretch who is no longer his own 
 master, enfeebled in body and mind, liable to attacks 
 of madness, dangerous to himself and to others, 
 and often destined to end by succumbing to a terrible 
 malady, delirium tremens. Those who have it suffer 
 from delirium, during which dreadful visions pass before 
 their eyes, their whole body trembles and degenerates ; 
 finally, when they are saturated with alcohol, it sometimes 
 happens that they catch fire when smoking a pipe, for 
 instance. Then the whole body burns in a few hours, 
 and the suffering is great. This is called spontaneous 
 combustion. All excess is unworthy of a man. Man as 
 a reasonable being must hold himself above it ; and 
 reason is the faculty of controlling and moderating one's 
 conduct." ^ 
 
 The writer does not believe that this exposition 
 of drunkenness would have awakened in him as a boy 
 the zeal of the temperance reformer ; in fact, he has a 
 distinct recollection that the phenomenon of spon- 
 taneous combustion, as depicted in one of Captain 
 Marryat's novels, inspired him with no disgust, but 
 struck him rather as being an attractive incident. If 
 there is any real tendency to drink, or if the boy's 
 
 ^ A. Burdeau, Devoir et Patrie, 1891, p. 66.
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 169 
 
 surroundings are likely to lead him astray, it is not 
 likely that this treatment of the drink question will 
 act as a deterrent ; and the pictorial illustration which 
 accompanies it, and which is here reproduced, does not 
 help matters. Systematic lessons in hygiene or in elemen- 
 tary physiology may or may not be desirable ; but it can 
 be productive of no good to place before boys moral 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 After A. Burdeau {Devoir et Patrie, Schleicher Freres, Paris). 
 
 " Des qu'on abuse des boissons alcooliques, elles troublent la raison." 
 
 apothegms thinly disguised by an anecdotal or hygienic 
 dress. If the lessons in hygiene are made hard or 
 systematic enough, if the physiology is taught on sound 
 and investigational lines, suggestions as to conduct may be 
 made in this connexion ; but the one thing necessary is 
 that there shall be a rigorous method, and that the boys' 
 attention shall be diverted from the moral undercurrent
 
 I70 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 For suggestion, let it once more be repeated, it is not 
 sufficient to have a sympathetic manner, an enthusiasm 
 for the subject taught, and a happy knack of hitting upon 
 the aspects of it that are Hkely to interest boys. The 
 teacher who has these quaHties is thrice fortunate. He 
 possesses naturally what cannot be bought for gold or 
 acquired by taking thought. But if in the confidence 
 arising from his own gifts he pays no attention to the 
 systematic handling of his subject, and hopes to be 
 suggestive by habitual geniality or occasional fervour, 
 he may easily miss the mark altogether. If the subject 
 be history, it must, first and foremost, be taught in 
 accordance with its own scientific technique. The pupil 
 must be made to trace the connexion between cause 
 and effect ; to interpret, abstract, and compare extracts 
 from contemporary authorities ; to contrast character 
 with character, and to make up his mind to what extent 
 circumstances produced one character, while another 
 practically decided the sequence of events and is the 
 key to the whole political situation ; to draw inferences 
 from data and to estimate the value of evidence ; and to 
 realise that there are certain simple criteria by means 
 of which the accuracy of a statement in history may be 
 I tested. He must be so much occupied with these 
 ^matters that the moral and social teaching discreetly 
 given by a reticent master will produce no contrariance. ) 
 He must be lectured to very little, but questioned a 
 great deal ; he must never be allowed to take the short 
 cut to a premature conclusion, when the longer way 
 with its obstacles and pitfalls of conflicting opinion is 
 possible. He must be enticed, urged, or even driven, 
 if need be, to wring out of a document every atom of 
 pertinent information that it may contain. The subject
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 171 
 
 must be mapped out for him in problem form suited to 
 his years, and through this systematic series of exercises 
 he must cut his path, ever feeling from day to day that 
 his control over his subject-matter and over the instru- 
 ments that are placed in his hands is increasing. 
 
 Against such a background of strenuous and thought- 
 compelling routine suggestions may be given, and given 
 with success ; and in connexion with a well-organised 
 subject that commands the boy's respect owing to its 
 difficulty they are likely to be far more effective than 
 are those given when the subject is a soft option. It is 
 their strong and definite technique that gives the Latin 
 and Greek classics, when properly taught, their pre- 
 eminent value as suggestive subjects, and renders 
 peculiarly effective the history taught through their 
 medium. It is because their strength in this respect 
 is not realised that the movement to oust them from 
 our schools has gained support. The boy has plenty 
 of work to do : he has to know his paradigms, his lists 
 of words ; he has to apply his syntactical rules, and to 
 see that his translation passes muster in class. All 
 this leaves no room for suspicion that an attack can ' 
 be made on his code of morals, his sentiments, or his "^ 
 ideals. Yet how fruitful classical teaching can be in 
 this direction only the experienced classical teacher 
 can know. The secret is that the contrariant ideas 
 are quite dormant — even sententious disquisitions are 
 hailed as a godsend by a boy whose one dread is that 
 his turn may come and his ignorance be exposed. 
 
 " There is hardly any prose in Latin fit for boys to 
 read," says Mr. Benson. " Cicero is diffuse, and often 
 affords little more than small-talk on abstract topics ; 
 Tacitus a brilliant but affected prosateur ; Caesar a dull
 
 172 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 and uninspiring author." ^ The last statement, at any 
 rate, may be contradicted with safety. Given the 
 proper conditions and methods, Caesar can be made 
 as interesting and as inspiring as any other author that 
 is Hkely to be prescribed for class-room work. (For it 
 is useless to disguise the fact that the boy, if left to 
 make his own choice unrestrained, would probably 
 prefer Henty.) Let all the school editions of special 
 books of the Gallic War be burned by the common 
 hangman, they exist only to swell publishers' profits 
 and advertise their editors. Let the boys have in their 
 hands the complete unannotated text of the Gallic War, 
 and let them at some time read the translation of 
 Plutarch's Life of CcBsar ; let the class-room be provided 
 with an efficient wall map of modern Europe, and let 
 there be also a few sections of the Ordnance Survey map 
 to illustrate strategic points, such as Caesar's march 
 through the Burgundian gate to repulse Ariovistus, so 
 that the campaign may not take place in a No Man's 
 Land. Further, let the teacher be provided with a 
 first-rate book of reference, such as Holmes's Ccesar's 
 Conquest of Gaul, with a proper knowledge of his 
 business as a teacher, and with an adequate stock of 
 common -sense, and let the work be read as a whole, 
 not inaccurately, but with a right selection of the 
 important episodes, and an understanding of the parts 
 omitted, so that the campaign and its importance may 
 be realised. 
 
 Under these conditions there is no difficulty in 
 interesting the class, in giving them abundance of hard 
 and problematic work of every kind, and of making 
 moral suggestions upon this basis of effort. 
 
 ^ op. cit. p. 163.
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 173 
 
 If Temperance be in question the teacher has the 
 following opportunities : — Book ii. ch. 15 : "The Nervii 
 touched their borders ; on inquiring about their character 
 and customs, Caesar ascertained the following facts : that 
 merchants had no access to them ; they suffered nothing 
 in the way of wine or of other things tending to luxury 
 to be imported, because they considered that by these 
 means their spirits were unmanned and courage relaxed; 
 they were savages and very brave ; they railed at and 
 upbraided the rest of the Belgae for having surrendered 
 themselves to the Roman people and cast aside their 
 hereditary valour ; they positively declared they would 
 neither send ambassadors nor accept terms of peace." 
 Book iv. chs. 1-2 : " The Suebi do not live much on corn, 
 but for the- most part on milk and cattle, and are much 
 engaged in hunting ; this fact, owing to their kind of 
 food and their daily exercise and the freedom of their 
 life . . . not only fosters their strength, but also makes 
 them men of huge bodily stature. . . . They do not 
 allow wine to be imported to themselves at all, because 
 they think that thereby the minds of men are softened 
 and effeminated for enduring labour." Book vi. ch. 21 : 
 " The whole life of the Germans consists in hunting and 
 in the pursuits of war ; from their childhood they devote 
 themselves to toil and hardihood. Those who are 
 slowest to outgrow their boyhood receive the greatest 
 praise among their friends ; they think that this fosters 
 growth and fosters strength and sinews. To indulge 
 in sensuous pleasure below twenty years of age they 
 regard as the deepest disgrace." Ch. 24 : " There was 
 a time in former days when the Gauls surpassed the 
 Germans in valour, invaded them unprovoked, and, 
 owing to pressure of population and want of land, sent
 
 174 SUGGESTION IX EDUCATION 
 
 colonies across the Rhine. . . . Now also the Germans 
 continue in the same state of need and endurance, living 
 and dressing as of old ; whereas the Gauls, owing to the 
 neighbourhood of the Province and their knowledge of 
 transmarine products, have ample additions to their 
 wealth and conveniences ; having been gradually ac- 
 customed to be overcome, and having been vanquished 
 in many battles, they do not even put themselves on a 
 level with them in valour." 
 
 He would be a stupid teacher who could not make 
 suggestions of a valuable character when reading these 
 passages, who could not give his pupils others of a like 
 kind in classical literature, and, what is more, suggest 
 some exercise or problem to be worked out in connexion 
 with them. If courage be the virtue to be illustrated, 
 instances are to hand in numbers. There are, firstly, 
 the cases of envoys sent at the risk of their lives, 
 Book i. ch. 47 : " Caesar considered that it would be 
 very dangerous to send one of his own officers as 
 ambassador, and expose him to savages. The best 
 course seemed to be to send to him Gaius Valerius 
 Procillus, a young man of great merit and of the 
 highest culture, both on account of his fidelity and 
 his knowledge of the Gallic language." The danger 
 incurred by this envoy is given in his report after his 
 rescue. Ch. 53 : " He said that they had drawn lots 
 three times in his presence as to whether he should be 
 burned to death on the spot or reserved for another 
 occasion." Book iv. ch. I2 : The bravery of Piso, who 
 rescued his brother in battle at the cost of his own 
 life. Ch. 25 : The bravery of the standard-bearer of 
 the tenth legion, who jumped overboard at the landing 
 in Britain, and led on the hesitating soldiers. The
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 175 
 
 bravery of the two centurions mentioned in Book v. 
 ch. 44, who "kept up an incessant dispute with one 
 another as to precedence, and every year contended in 
 rivalry for the first places," and who, under stress of 
 this competition, performed remarkable feats of valour. 
 All these instances can be compared, the attention of 
 the class being largely given to the linguistic involved,' 
 and in addition the boys can be asked to analyse the 
 motives for bravery in each case, to compare them and 
 appraise them. 
 
 If truth be the virtue to be inculcated, there is 
 abundance of opportunity for estimating Caesar's veracity 
 as a historian and accuracy as a geographer. The 
 various episodes which he might naturally be suspected 
 of wishing to conceal or to misrepresent may be taken, 
 and it may be shown that on some occasions, at any rate, 
 when he has an opportunity of glozing over a disgraceful 
 defeat, he seems to go out of his way to give the 
 exact details. Witness Book iv. ch. 12, where he has 
 no hesitation in relating how the Germans with only 800 
 horsemen inflicted a crushing defeat on 5000 of the 
 Roman cavalry. His accuracy as a geographer can 
 easily be considered while reading his account of the 
 Meuse and the Vosges in ch. 10 of the same book. 
 
 CcBsar's Gallic War has been taken as an illustration 
 for the very reason that it is not the book which first 
 enters into the mind of one who has had a classical 
 education when he attempts to sum up either the interest 
 or the moral training that he gleaned from the classics. 
 If these elements are to be found in the author whom 
 most of us look back to as supplying some of the 
 dreariest experiences of our youth, how much more 
 abundant are they in, say, Plato's Phaedo or Apology.
 
 1/6 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 It is difficult to think of any literature that gives similar 
 opportunities for introducing a boy to serious thought 
 on great subjects, and that enables this to be done 
 incidentally, without an atmosphere of priggishness, 
 and in company with the feeling -tone that results 
 from strenuous effort and rigid intellectual discipline. 
 Consider the chances offered to a live teacher by such 
 plays as the Alcestis and the Prometheus Vinctus, by 
 many episodes in Homer and in Virgil's Aeneid, by 
 passages in Livy and in Tacitus, by portions even of 
 Xenophon's Anabasis, a work which when taught by 
 dull people has been responsible for an appalling number 
 of dull school-hours ; in every case the conditions are 
 the same, the pupil has plenty of work to do, and is 
 not on the look-out for assaults upon his moral code. 
 
 The classical languages, then, give exceptional oppor- 
 tunities for suggestion, because in addition to a human 
 content they present at the same time linguistic matter 
 to which a rigid method can be applied. The mode of 
 treating them too often adopted, by which they are 
 used as a formal training only while the subject-matter is 
 virtually ignored, is, it need scarcely be added, in itself 
 not suggestive, and has done more than anything else 
 to discredit classical studies as a school subject.^ 
 
 In suggestion through the medium of English 
 literature the same general position holds good. The 
 harder the technique of the subject, and the more it is 
 
 1 The same danger threatens the teaching of modern languages. It is 
 impossible to read the Modern Language Monthly, an organ conducted by 
 experts for experts, and not to be struck by the small amount of reference to the 
 subject-matter that should be read in schools. Apparently there is a failure 
 to reahse that the labour spent in perfecting the technique of linguistic in- 
 struction is justified only if the ideas introduced through the medium of the 
 language are worth introducing. If they are not, or if the attention paid to 
 this element is not fully equal to that given to hnguistic, the subject has com- 
 paratively little claim upon oiu- akeady overcrowded time-table.
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 177 
 
 studied for itself, the more will the conditions for indirect 
 moral suggestion be present. Take, for example, the 
 following passage from Tennyson's Ode on the DeatJi of 
 the Duke of Wellington : — 
 
 Not once or twice in our rough island-stoiy, 
 
 The path of duty was the way to glory : 
 
 He that walks it, only thirsting 
 
 For the right, and learns to deaden 
 
 Love of self, before his journey closes, 
 
 He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
 
 Into glossy purples, which outredden 
 
 All voluptuous garden-roses. 
 
 Not once or twice in our fair island-story. 
 
 The path of duty was the way to glory : 
 
 He, that ever following her commands, 
 
 On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 
 
 Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 
 
 His path upward, and prevail'd. 
 
 Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 
 
 Are close upon the shining table-lands 
 
 To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 
 
 Such was he ; his work is done. 
 
 But while the races of mankind endure, 
 
 Let his great example stand 
 
 Colossal, seen of every land. 
 
 And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure : 
 
 Till in all lands and thro' all human story 
 
 The path of duty be the way to glory : 
 
 And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame 
 
 For many and many an age proclaim 
 
 At civic revel and pomp and game. 
 
 And when the long-illumined cities flame 
 
 Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 
 
 With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 
 
 Eternal honour to his name. 
 
 12
 
 178 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 In this passage the teaching is not concealed ; it is 
 definite and emphatic, and both the choice of words and 
 the devices of metre combine to bring the lesson home. 
 To expound the conception sententiously might easily 
 be fatal, and in many a boy's mind would engender a 
 dislike for the Duke of Wellington similar to that often 
 felt for the excessive virtue of the Pius ^neas. The 
 sermon has its place, but it is not in the class-room, or 
 at any rate only on very rare occasions. The passage 
 should, of course, be read with solemnity, and it should 
 be read well. It is one of those passages that should 
 never be entrusted to a bungler. The class should feel 
 that the teacher appreciates it, and if they also feel that 
 his appreciation makes him shrink from expounding it, 
 so much the better. It is, however, necessary to dwell 
 on the subject-matter, and this can be done from the 
 analytical if not from the mandatory standpoint. If the 
 class be asked as an exercise to analyse Tennyson's 
 conception and treatment of Duty, and to compare it 
 with the treatment of the same subject in Wordsworth's 
 Ode to Duty, they will, from a purely intellectual 
 standpoint, be busied with the subject-matter, and the 
 moral teaching will be far more suggestive and far less 
 likely to set up a tone of reaction than if thrust down 
 the boys' throats by a fervid address. 
 
 To a younger class an easier exercise might be 
 given. They might, for example, be asked to compare 
 the virtues which were characteristic of the Duke of 
 Wellington with those demanded from the knights of 
 romance, and might be directed to re-read the Morte 
 d'Ar'thur and Sir Galahad, if they were already 
 acquainted with these poems, and to pick out the 
 references to knightly duties that are to be found there.
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS i79 
 
 The object is the same, to keep the subject-matter 
 before them and to avoid sententiousness by judiciously 
 directed activity. It is scarcely necessary to add that, 
 although in the process of indirect suggestion the teacher 
 should to some extent keep himself in the background, 
 the stronger is his personality the more effective will the 
 indirect suggestion be. The nearer he approaches to 
 the dividing line that separates indirect from direct 
 suggestion, the more does the need of personality make 
 itself felt, while without considerable force of character 
 it is almost useless to make suggestions of the more 
 violent kind, to tear off the whole covering of reserve, 
 to force boys, whether they wish it or not, to view in 
 their nakedness questions of conduct and morality that 
 are generally evaded by them, or shrouded as rapidly 
 as possible in schoolboy sophism and excuse. Without 
 personality the effort is useless or even harmful ; with it 
 almost anything may be done. A man who is obviously 
 sincere in what he says, who evidently feels for his pupils 
 a disinterested and in some cases a personal affection, 
 in whom there is the element of sternness which com- 
 mands respect, and who has in addition some instinct 
 for a dramatic opportunity, may with effect speak to 
 boys about matters otherwise better left untouched. It 
 is, for example, not desirable to discuss with boys the 
 importance and the nature of the suggestive influence that 
 the school surroundings and society should have upon 
 them. To do so under ordinary circumstances would 
 be as unwise as to talk over the methods of teaching 
 that you adopted and to dilate upon their excellence. 
 And yet as they come from Arnold's mouth the words 
 carry with them their own justification.
 
 i8o SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 It seems to me that the advantage of great places of 
 education are very considerable, and the benefits of such 
 foundations as ours, of which the day has naturally reminded 
 me, impose a great responsibility on all of us. I said the 
 advantages of great places of education ; and I meant to lay 
 a stress upon the epithet. It seems to me that there is or 
 ought to be something very ennobling in being connected 
 with any establishment at once ancient and magnificent, where 
 all about us and all the associations belonging to the objects 
 around us should be great, splendid, and elevating. What an 
 individual ought and often does derive from the feeling that 
 he is born of an old and illustrious race, from being familiar 
 from his childhood with the walls and with the trees that 
 speak of the past no less than of the present, and make both 
 full of images of greatness ; this, in an inferior degree, belongs 
 to any member of an ancient and celebrated place of education^ 
 In this respect every one has a responsibility imposed upon 
 him which I wish that we more considered. We know how 
 school traditions are handed down from one school generation 
 to another, and what is it if in all these there shall be nothing 
 great, nothing distinguished, nothing but a record, to say the 
 best of it, of mere boyish amusements, when it is not a record 
 of childish follies ? Every generation in which a low and 
 foolish spirit prevails does its best to pollute the local influences 
 of the place — to degrade its associations, to deprive the thought 
 of belonging to it of anything that may enkindle and ennoble 
 the minds of those who come after it. And if these foolish 
 or tame associations continue they make the evil worse. . . . 
 
 So the spirit gets lower and lower ; and instead of finding a 
 help and an encouragement in its place of education, the 
 ingenuous mind feels them all no more than a weight upon its 
 efforts ; they only tend to thwart it and to keep it down. This 
 is the tendency not only of a vicious tone prevailing in a great 
 place of education, but even of a foolish and childish one ; of 
 a tone that tolerates ignorance and an indifference about all 
 save the amusements of the day. On the other hand, what- 
 ever is done here well and honourably outlives its own
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS i8i 
 
 generation. In smaller schools one cannot look forward to 
 posterity ; when our children are of an age to commence 
 their education, a total change may have taken place in the 
 spot, and all its associations may have vanished for ever. 
 But here it is not so ; the size, the scale, the wealth of a great 
 institution like this insure its permanency so far as anything 
 on earth is permanent. The good and evil, the nobleness or 
 the vileness, which may exist on this ground now, will live and 
 breathe here in the days of our children ; they will form the 
 atmosphere in which they will live hereafter, either wholesome 
 and invigorating or numbing and deadly. This roof under 
 which we are now assembled will hold, it is probable, our 
 children and our children's children ; may they be enabled to 
 think when they kneel, perhaps over the bones of some of us 
 now here assembled, that they are praying where their fathers 
 prayed; and let them not, if they mock in their day the 
 means of grace here offered, encourage themselves with the 
 thought that the place had long ago been profaned with 
 equal guilt ; that they are but infected with the spirit of our 
 ungodliness.^ 
 
 Neither would the straight hitting of the following 
 passage produce the desired effect with the boys who 
 need it most, unless the hitting were very straight and 
 the words delivered with the immense force of fearless 
 simplicity : — 
 
 " Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were 
 better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he 
 were drowned in the depth of the sea." — Matt, xviii. 6. 
 
 Now, then, you see what the text means and you feel how it 
 applies to you. You know that there are amongst you many 
 boys who remember and wish to keep the lessons that they 
 have received at home, and you know^ also how much it is the 
 fashion of schools to teach just the contrary. And I will take 
 the two instances which will have come, I fear, often within 
 
 1 Sermons by Thomas Arnold, D.D., Third Series, 1876, p. 144.
 
 i82 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 the experience of you all. I mean the case of idleness and 
 the case of extravagance. 
 
 First for idleness. There are boys who have either never 
 learnt or have quite forgotten all that may have been told them 
 at home of the duty of attending to their school lessons. We 
 know that there are boys who think all their lessons merely 
 tedious, and who are resolved never to take any more trouble 
 about them than what they cannot possibly avoid. But being 
 thus idle themselves they cannot bear that others should be 
 more attentive. We all know the terms of reproach and 
 ridicule which are thrown out against a boy who works in 
 earnest and upon principle. He is laughed at for taking 
 unnecessary trouble, for being afraid of punishment, or for 
 wishing to gain favour with the masters and be thought by 
 them to be better than other boys. Either of these reproaches 
 is one which a boy finds it very hard to bear ; he does not 
 like to be thought mean or as plodding or as wishing to 
 court favour. He has not age or sense or firmness enough to 
 know and to answer that the only fear of which he need be 
 ashamed is the fear of his equals, the fear of those who are in 
 no respect better than himself, and have therefore no sort of 
 right to direct him. To be afraid, then, of other boys is in 
 a boy the same sort of weakness as it is in a man to be 
 afraid of other men ; and as a man ought to be equally afraid 
 of fearing men and of not fearing God, so a boy ought to be 
 ashamed of fearing boys and of not fearing his parents and 
 instructors. And as in after life the fear of God makes no 
 man do anything mean or dishonourable, but the fear of man 
 does lead to all sorts of wickedness and baseness ; so amongst 
 boys this fear of their parents and teachers will only make 
 them manly and noble and high-spirited, but the fear of their 
 companions leads them to everything low and childish and 
 contemptible. Those boys, then, who try to make others idle, 
 and laugh at them for trying to please their masters, are 
 exactly like the men who laugh at their neighbours for being 
 religious and for living in the fear of God ; and both are like 
 the more hardened ruffians in a gang of thieves or other
 
 SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 183 
 
 criminals whose amusement it is to laugh at the fear of justice 
 which beginners in crime have not yet quite got over. In all 
 these instances there is not only the guilt of our own sin, but 
 the far worse sin of encouraging sin in others ; and as I showed 
 you last Sunday how your school faults, although very trifling 
 in their worldly consequences, were yet as serious in the sight 
 of God as the faults of grown-up men, because they showed 
 that you were not serving or loving Him, but serving and 
 loving evil ; so it may be said, without the least going beyond 
 the truth, that a boy who, being idle himself, tries to make- 
 others idle also, is exactly " offending one of these little ones 
 who believe in Christ," and is in the daily habit of that sin 
 which Christ says it were better for him to die directly than 
 to be guilty of.^ 
 
 For utterances like these to have the full magnetic 
 value that they must possess, unless they are to be 
 regarded as the conventional discourse of the school 
 pulpit, which is listened to with interest, perhaps, at 
 the time of utterance, but leaves no later echo in the 
 moral fibre, there should be behind them a single- 
 minded self-sacrifice to the rising generation pervading 
 all the routine of school duties, and making each 
 individual who comes into contact with the speaker 
 feel that his moral welfare is of interest to at least one 
 other person besides himself. Then and not otherwise 
 will the preacher's voice 
 
 Like a trumpet . . . rouse 
 Those who with half-open eyes 
 Tread the border-land dim 
 'Twixt vice and virtue.^ 
 
 1 Sermons by Rev. T. Arnold, D.D., Second Series, 1874, p. 53. 
 2 Matthew Arnold, Rugby Chapel.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SANCTION OF SUGGESTION 
 
 In hypnotic suggestion the personaHty of the subject is 
 entirely obscured ; he becomes a mere puppet dependent 
 on the person who pulls the strings. With direct sug- 
 gestion in the waking state, though the personality is not 
 obscured, the subject tends to become a reflection of some 
 one else ; his sentiments are echoes, and the develop- 
 ment of his original self is so far hindered. Even with 
 indirect suggestion and the auto-suggestion that arises 
 out of it, although the suggestion developes along the 
 lines prompted by natural characteristics, and although 
 the development of these in many cases may be fostered 
 rather than repressed, the thoughts and feelings of the 
 subject become different from what they would have 
 been without the conscious effort on the part of others 
 to lead them in a certain direction. Although the char- 
 acter may have developed, the mode of development has 
 none the less been affected, and we have to ask by what 
 right one person may take it upon himself to implant in 
 another ideas and sentiments which will ultimately lead 
 to action, which cannot fail to determine personality, 
 and for which the subject himself in the beginning 
 expressed no desire. The rights even of a father over 
 his children are now restricted. He no longer, as in 
 
 184
 
 THE SANCTION OF SUGGESTION 185 
 
 primitive times, is allowed to deprive them of life. Are 
 we going to refuse him this right and yet give him full 
 control over the personality which may be more durable 
 than life ? Or are we prepared to go farther, and allow 
 him to delegate the right to any casual person ? What 
 are the rights of the child in the matter? It is on 
 account of the widespread and often justifiable scepticism 
 about education, to which reference has already been 
 made, that these questions do not receive their proper 
 share of attention. Once it is established that ideas 
 properly suggested in connexion with the right habits 
 of mind have indeed the powders ascribed to them, this 
 scepticism must disappear. As long as education is 
 ineffective, as long as it is a mere fashion, gratifying to 
 the instinct that prompts us to make others like our- 
 selves, but really unable to do more than impose a thin 
 veneer of knowledge and of social convention, it is of 
 comparative indifference what views on social matters 
 are inculcated during the period of school life. In pro- 
 portion as education becomes a real factor in determining 
 the conduct and beliefs of the younger generation, the 
 question as to sanction becomes increasingly insistent 
 and refuses to be placed on one side. 
 
 It is, in the first place, impossible to withdraw a child 
 from all suggestive influences, unless he is brought up in 
 air-tight isolation. He will receive suggestions from 
 servants, from companions, from shop -windows, from 
 the life that he sees in the streets. The efforts that are 
 sometimes made to bring up a child with an impartial 
 mind on matters of religion, morality, or politics, in 
 order that he may be free to take his own line when he 
 is of a fit age to judge, are bound to end in failure. 
 From birth he is exposed to contagion on every side.
 
 i86 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 and long before he reaches maturity will be tinged with 
 prejudices which render true impartiality of judgment 
 difficult if not impossible. Impartiality is a state of 
 mind that arises out of mature knowledge, and after a 
 long process of examination and rejection of prejudices 
 or preconceived opinions. With immaturity and igno- 
 rance it cannot exist. The child, therefore, while he has 
 a right to his characteristics, has no claim to be left 
 wholly unaffected by suggestions consciously made, for 
 this claim is meaningless. A sick man is not turned into 
 a chemist's shop and asked to make his own choice of 
 drugs, and similarly a child must not be exposed to 
 the countless suggestions that press in upon him with- 
 out some effort to select and sift them, or to provide 
 him with a guiding idea that may help to protect him 
 from the more harmful of them. 
 
 All suggestions do not present equal difficulty. 
 Arranged in order of legitimacy they are: (i) Suggestions 
 in connexion with accepted elements of moral conduct 
 or the habits which promote such conduct; (2) Esthetic 
 suggestions ; (3) Social and political suggestions ; (4) 
 Religious suggestions. 
 
 I. The first kind are not likely to be called in question 
 either by the future adult or by the parent. No one can 
 regret that as a child suggestions were made to him of 
 temperance, of self-control, of self-sacrifice, of courage, 
 of kindliness. To make such suggestions is the first 
 duty of the teacher: Indeed, it is upon the inculcation of 
 truth, the basis of all morality, that a great part of school 
 training is concentrated. The training in accuracy, 
 in habits of neatness, and in logical reasoning, which 
 is given by the formal element in rigid school studies 
 such as classics, mathematics, and science, while not in
 
 THE SANCTION OF SUGGESTION 187 
 
 itself a suggestion of truth, produces the right temper of 
 mind to receive it. With this training as a basis, sug- 
 gestions of the beauty of scholarship, of the moral value 
 of taking into consideration all the facts before attempting 
 to form a conclusion, of the deplorable moral results of 
 slipshod work, slipshod reasoning, and half-conscious 
 concealment of data, may effectively be given. If sug- 
 gestions of this kind raise any problem, it is that of the 
 teacher's responsibility rather than of his right to suggest. 
 
 2. Neither do aesthetic suggestions present much 
 difficulty. It is true that standards of taste in literature 
 and in art differ widely, and that therefore for those 
 who believe in a close connexion between aesthetic and 
 moral insight the selection of the proper standards will 
 be of great importance ; but the adult who looks back 
 on his school-days is likely to be grateful if any sugges- 
 tion has been made that has opened up for him a field 
 of aesthetic enjoyment, even though he recognises that 
 with juster appreciation or greater knowledge on the 
 part of the teacher his aesthetic insight and interest 
 might have been deeper or of more rapid development. 
 
 3. With social and political matters the case is 
 different, and the remodelling of the school curriculum 
 adds to the difficulty. As long as the basis of school 
 studies was the classics taught from the standpoint of 
 grammar and syntax, and supplemented by a mainly 
 formal study, such as mathematics, it was not necessary 
 to consider the effect of school training on social views 
 and political standpoints. It is now recognised that in 
 school studies the humanities are paramount, that neces- 
 sary though a knowledge of science may be as giving an 
 interest in a powerful factor of social development, and 
 training the mind to accurate thought in a well-defined
 
 i88 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 class of subject-matter, it must be preceded by an insight 
 into human aspirations and character. For the first time 
 in the course of education since the Renaissance a fair 
 ount of attention is given to modern history, Hterature, 
 fnd geography, and the suggestion is made that they 
 all be properly taught. But let there be no hesitation 
 n facing the situation. Either these subjects will remain 
 ham subjects, always prone to degenerate into conven- 
 tional knowledge, in which case it is sheer waste to spend 
 either public or private money upon them ; or they will 
 be taught as serious branches of human life and expres- 
 sion, and in this case it is almost impossible to avoid 
 innumerable questions of the gravest kind which few 
 adults can discuss without some difference of opinion. 
 In the history lesson it is impossible to avoid a treatment 
 of the religious questions under the Tudors and of the 
 political questions under the Stuarts. Bain realised this, 
 and though he is astute enough to see the difficulty, his 
 lack of insight into educational practice led him to 
 conclude that in the interests of peace history must be 
 excluded from the class-room ; ^ in the literature lesson, 
 if properly conceived as an introduction to the serious 
 study of human sentiment and ideals, debatable questions 
 of some kind are seldom absent ; in the geography lesson 
 such topics as empire, the rights and the treatment of 
 .inferior races, the duties and the dangers of colonisation, 
 
 vT-- 1 A. Bain, Education as a Science, 8th ed. , 1892, p. 287. "A very searching 
 inquiry into modern events brings out such a variety of opinions on practical 
 politics, and still more in religion, as to make an obstacle to the introduction 
 of the subject into the higher schools and colleges. This difficulty is felt in 
 Germany, where professors are more outspoken than in England ; it also 
 occurs in connexion with the Irish Roman Catholics in the Queen's Colleges. 
 A history of the Reformation could hardly be thorough if it offended neither 
 Protestants nor Roman Catholics ; a history of the first centuries of the Chris- 
 tian era, if it dissatisfied nobody, would be worthless to everybody. '
 
 THE SANCTION OF SUGGESTION 189 
 
 can be avoided only at the risk of sterilising the 
 subject. 
 
 The solution which most readily rises to the mind is 
 that of an impartial treatment. In the handling of all 
 controversial questions the teacher might refrain from 
 taking one side or the other, might content himself with 
 indicating in a clear-cut fashion the oppositions of view 
 and of standpoint involved, leaving the pupil free to 
 bestow his sympathies as he wishes, and guided by them 
 to draw his own conclusions as to motive and character. 
 As a result of this, it might be hoped that the pupil 
 would acquire the habit of impartial and detached judg- 
 ment. Stated in general terms, this solution is a specious 
 one ; when examined in detail it is seen to make an 
 impossible demand. There are subjects about which it 
 is impossible for a serious man to be impartial. Every 
 one who has studied history with any attention has his 
 views upon the various religious controversies, upon the 
 rights of the people and of the crown, and on the claims 
 and dangers of democratic development ; and in expound- 
 ing his subject, such a man cannot fail to indicate what 
 these views are. In fact, his very efforts to be impartially 
 may give to his own views, when they happen to filterj V 
 through, even greater suggestive force./ If he were to 
 display a violent partisanship, it is not at all improbable 
 that a reaction would be set up, and that his pupils would 
 deliberately range themselves on the other side ; while 
 the evident anxiety not to obtrude a genuine enthusiasm 
 will disarm opposition. Doubtless there are men who 
 take no interest in religious, political, and social ques- 
 tions, but these are not the men who should be selected 
 to give instruction in humanistic subjects. If such men 
 attempt to give a carefully-balanced statement of the
 
 ipo SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 merits and demerits of any position or of any personality, 
 they are, as result, far more likely to produce in their 
 pupils a spirit of scepticism than one of impartiality, a 
 dreary attitude of indifferentism rather than a burning 
 enthusiasm for the subject combined with a resolution in 
 the interests of fairness to check the tendency to favour 
 one side rather than the other. Interest and enthusiasm / 
 should be the outcome of all lessons in the humanities ; 
 a sense of impartiality is desirable in conjunction with 
 these, but is no substitute for them. 
 
 It seems, therefore, as if in dealing with the humanistic 
 subjects the teacher must either suggest his own opinions 
 or be wholly ineffective. There are, however, two 
 palliatives of this position : — (a) He may confess that he 
 has certain views, and while he makes no concealment 
 of them may keep them in the background and state 
 the opposite views with force. In this case, by not 
 exciting curiosity as to his opinions, he will diminish the 
 suggestive force of his own ideas, while yet allowing the 
 class to see that to him the subject is a serious one. 
 
 (d) In a large school it is improbable that all teachers 
 will hold the same opinions, and thus the pupils in passing 
 from one class to another will hear conflicting views. 
 These to some extent will neutralise one another, and 
 the view that ultimately becomes suggestive may be that 
 which is in sympathy with the boys' natural inclinations 
 or home up-bringing. 
 
 But when all is said, if the curriculum is good it will 
 contain debatable matter, and if the teacher is good he 
 will be suggestive in one direction or another, and we 
 have once more to ask by what right he suggests his 
 own convictions in matters where varied opinions are 
 possible.
 
 THE SANCTION OF SUGGESTION 191 
 
 Two situations are conceivable. (i) He may be 
 teaching in a school of private or semi-private character. 
 In this case it may be assumed that he has been selected 
 by a school in which views of a certain kind are held on 
 the more important features of religion and politics, and 
 thus that his line of thought has been settled for him 
 and acquiesced in by him. If the parent chooses his own 
 school, and has a sufficient choice of schools, the problem 
 is largely solved ; although even here the State may have 
 a right to intervene and to demand that its future citizens 
 shall not be brought up in too narrow a spirit. 
 
 (2) When the teacher is paid either wholly or in part 
 by the State, and when his pupils are drawn from 
 families representing every variety of opinion, the 
 position is not so simple. If many parents are of a 
 democratic way of thinking, is he justified in suggesting 
 to his class that the execution of Charles I. was a crime ? 
 When the pupils are drawn from families whose views 
 are conservative, is he to be debarred from pressing upon 
 them the virtues of the Commonwealth ? 
 
 The desire to secure freedom of view for the teacher 
 has led to a demand that definitely religious instruction 
 shall be excluded from the curriculum of State-aided 
 schools ; but if this method were extended to all the 
 subjects in which variety of opinion is possible, little 
 that is worth teaching would be left, and therefore this 
 solution cannot be entertained. Neither can it be 
 admitted that the State as paymaster has the right to 
 draw up a syllabus of the views that may be suggested 
 and of those that may not. Such a syllabus would 
 represent the views of the dominant party for the time 
 being, but might be wholly opposed to those of a large 
 minority. In German secondary schools teachers of
 
 192 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 history are instructed to use the history lesson as an 
 instrument for inculcating respect for the Hohenzollerns 
 and distrust of social - democratic principles ; and 
 similarly an ultra -democratic party when in power 
 might demand the teaching of social-democratic views, 
 and the stern repression of any tendency towards con- 
 servative or monarchical sentiment on the part of the 
 younger generation. If under such a regimen the 
 subjects that we have in mind were taught at all, the 
 new tyranny would effectively repress in the teacher all 
 enthusiasm and all human feeling ; he would become a 
 dull mechanism, competent to place before his pupils 
 formal antitheses, but unable to excite in them real 
 enthusiasm or to communicate to them real insight. 
 With such conditions, suggestion would be impossible 
 and education a mockery. For a teacher to be effective 
 he must be untrammelled by any direct external coercion, 
 he must be free to take the line in which his instincts 
 lead him, and when deep-seated feeling compels him to 
 adopt a certain position he must be under no constraint 
 to conceal his views. Whence is the sanction of this 
 freedom to be derived ? 
 
 From two sources : the principle of averages and the 
 professional position and spirit cff the teacher. It is 
 unlikely that in the long run views of a one-sided nature 
 will be predominant among teachers taken as a class. 
 Teachers are drawn from the whole society, and the 
 relative proportions of opinions in the community will 
 be faithfully represented in the limited section to whom 
 education is confided. In any one school, as we have 
 seen, it is probable that a variety of opinions will be 
 represented by the staff, and it is as necessary that a 
 pupil should be brought into contact with conflicting
 
 THE SANCTION OF SUGGESTION 193 
 
 views as that, through the subjects taught in a varied 
 curriculum, he should become acquainted with the 
 particular mode of reasoning embodied in the technique 
 of each separate branch of study. \ 
 
 But it is from the professional spirit of the teacher that 
 the main sanction must be derived. To the teacher as a 
 professional man the community confides the upbring- 
 ing of its children ; the more effective his intellectual 
 and professional training has been, and the more he 
 realises his responsibility, the greater the extent to which 
 he can be trusted. He must be free from external 
 coercion, from internal constraint he can never be re- 
 lieved. His whole teaching life must be permeated by 
 a sense of the grave duties of his position and of the 
 trust reposed in him. This spirit, if it be present, will 
 lead to a severe pruning of crude views and unruly 
 enthusiasms. Under its guidance he will give his pupils 
 the most moderate expression of the opinions which 
 finally he finds himself driven to uphold, and he will 
 refrain from communicating to them those which arise 
 from passing moods or temporary irritation. He will 
 be an example to them of reticence and of balanced 
 judgment, and will give them only of his best, the fruits 
 of all the self-criticism of which he is capable. More 
 than all other professional men he must be mindful of 
 his responsibility. If suggestion is indeed a force in 
 education, if the passing remark of a gifted teacher 
 may set in motion a train of ideas that ever grows from 
 within until ultimately it forms a dominating system 
 and a constant guide of conduct, the schoolmaster's craft 
 demands from those who enter upon it continual watch- 
 fulness and continual self-control, and needs as inspiration 
 a single-hearted devotion to the welfare of the young. 
 
 13
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE RELATION BETWEEN MENTAL DISSOCIATION AND THE 
 SYMPTOMS OF HYPNOSIS AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
 
 Mlle. R. L., twenty-eight years of age, had been a somnam- 
 bulist from infancy. Her childhood was spent in the country 
 with her parents ; later she was governess and companion in 
 rich families. In a state of somnambulism she jumped into a 
 pond and afterwards had a severe fever. Later on her attacks 
 of somnambulism increased. "She dreams of her mother. 
 Wishes to go into the country ; packs in great haste, ' for the 
 carriage is waiting,' runs to say good-bye to the people in the 
 house, not without shedding a good many tears. She rapidly 
 descends the staircase, does not stop till she reaches the street 
 door, the key of which she has taken the precaution to hide, 
 and sinks down in distress near it. For a long time she resists 
 any one who persuades her to rise and go back to bed, com- 
 plaining bitterly of the tyranny of which she is a victim. She 
 ends, but not always, by returning to bed, usually without 
 entirely undressing, and it is this which tells her on awakening 
 that she has not slept quietly; for she has no memory of 
 anything that has happened during the attack." 
 
 Some of her attacks are of a different nature. " It is eight 
 o'clock in the evening : several women are working round a 
 table on which is placed a lamp. Mlle. R. L. directs the work, 
 and herself takes an active part, chatting gaily. Suddenly a 
 noise is heard as her forehead falls sharply on the edge of the 
 table : her shoulders are bowed. This is the beginning of the 
 attack. She straightens herself after a few seconds, tears off 
 
 195
 
 196 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 her eyeglasses spitefully, and continues the work which she 
 had commenced. She no longer needs the glasses which 
 considerable short-sightedness render necessary in her normal 
 state, even though she places herself so that her work is less 
 exposed to the lamplight. If she needs to thread her needle 
 she throws both hands under the table, feeling in the dark, 
 and in less than a second succeeds in putting the silk through 
 the eye — a thing which she does with difficulty in the normal 
 state, even when she is aided by eyeglasses and a bright light." ^ 
 More remarkable still is the case of Miss Beauchamp, 
 observed and admirably described by Dr. Morton Prince of 
 Boston. 2 Miss Beauchamp while attending to her duties as a 
 hospital nurse suffered a mental shock. " She returned to her 
 duties much agitated. For several days she was in an excited 
 state. She walked the wards by night, and in the daytime, 
 when off duty and supposed to be asleep, slipped out of the 
 hospital and wandered about on the fields. Then she began 
 . . . gradually to change in character." It was in this condition 
 that she first came under Dr. Prince's care. As the con- 
 ventional modes of treatment did not benefit her, it was 
 decided to try hypnotic suggestion. She fell readily into a 
 state of deep hypnosis and various suggestions were made to 
 her which considerably benefited her mental health. This 
 treatment was continued. Her personality under hypnosis 
 was not noticeably different from that of the waking state 
 except that she was more submissive and amenable to 
 suggestion. On several occasions, however. Dr. Prince was 
 surprised to find that her character in hypnosis was completely 
 altered, that she denied facts which she had previously 
 admitted, and talked of Miss Beauchamp as She, whereas 
 when hypnotised she had always alluded to herself in the first 
 person. This proved to be the birth of a fresh personality, 
 which later on chose for itself the name of Sally. At a later 
 date a third personality developed unlike either of the others, 
 and the final state of disaggregation which this unfortunate 
 
 ^ A. Binet, Alteratiotis of Persojiality, 1896, p. 22. 
 ^ Morton Prince, M. D. , The Dissociation of a Personality, 1906, p. 215.
 
 APPENDIX 197 
 
 lady's mental system displayed may be schematised as 
 follows : — 
 
 B. I. — The personality which came to Dr. Prince for treat- 
 ment, and which he imagined to be the real Miss Beauchamp. 
 Her characteristics were saintliness, meekness, reserve, great 
 depression about herself, and aboulia or inability to do or 
 to say what she wanted. She could read and understand 
 French. 
 
 B. II. — B. I. hypnotised. In many respects she was like 
 B. I., but in some ways more normal. 
 
 B. III. — A totally different personahty. Mischievous and 
 apparently quite devoid of any moral sense. When she got 
 the upper hand, her great delight was to play pranks and do 
 things calculated to irritate B. I. She was wholly ignorant of 
 French, and presented some curious symptoms of anaesthesia. 
 
 B. IV. — A different personality again, more like B. I. than 
 B. III., but with totally different likes and dislikes. She was 
 more normal than Miss Beauchamp, did not suffer from 
 aboulia, had more self-control and more courage, but was 
 quick-tempered when restrained or placed in circumstances 
 which she did not enjoy. 
 
 B. V. — This was B. III. hypnotised. 
 
 B. VI. — This was B. IV. hypnotised. 
 
 These personalities alternated with alarming rapidity. On 
 the occasion of a visit to Dr. Prince, who had been perplexed 
 by the inconsequence of his visitor, it was elicited "that it 
 was B. I. who started to make the call, and on the way had 
 changed several times back and forth with Sally and B. IV. 
 B. IV. walked on in a mechanical way without any particular 
 knowledge of what she was going to do. It was B. I. who 
 had rung the door bell, changing on entering the house to 
 B. IV., then back again to B. I. on the staircase, finally enter- 
 ing the room as B. IV." ^ 
 
 The knowledge that each had of the others differed greatly. 
 Both B. I. and B. II. were for a long time in ignorance of the 
 
 1 Op. cit. p. 181. 
 
 i3«
 
 198 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 existence of B. III., and never knew anything about her except 
 what they were told. 
 
 B. I. knew nothing about B. XL, but her memory was good 
 for the whole of her previous life. 
 
 B. III. knew everj'thing about herself (i.e. her memory was 
 continuous) as well as about B. I. and B. II. She knew B. I.'s 
 inmost soul. She knew what B. IV. did, but was ignorant of 
 her thoughts. 
 
 B. IV. when she first came into existence had no know- 
 ledge of anything. Later on she knew of her own experiences 
 and developed a fragmentary knowledge of B. I. 
 
 The following episode illustrates well the relations between 
 Sally and B. I. " On one occasion Sally smoked cigarettes, a 
 thing that B. I. would never have done. Miss Beauchamp, 
 when awakened, entirely ignorant of what she had been doing, 
 complained of a bitter taste in her mouth, but could not 
 identify it. At the next interview I remarked to Sally, 
 ' Wasn't it fun to see Miss Beauchamp when she tasted the 
 tobacco in her mouth and did not know what it was.' Sally 
 laughed and thought it a great joke. ' Yes, she thought you 
 had been putting quinine in her mouth, but did not dare ask 
 you.' This remark, later verified by Miss Beauchamp, \vas 
 one of many which showed that Sally had knowledge of Miss 
 Beauchamp's thoughts." ^ 
 
 Miss Beauchamp was finally restored to health. The basis 
 of the real Miss Beauchamp turned out to be B. II., or the 
 hypnotic state of B. I. With this by suggestion were com.bined 
 B. I. and B. IV., and the result was a stable personality whose 
 memory covered all the other personalities except that of Sally. 
 On the fusion of I., II., and IV., Sally disappeared. 
 
 This case brings out very forcibly the close relation between 
 dissociation and suggestibility. As we have seen, suggestions 
 of anaesthesia or negative suggestions are easy to produce in 
 the hypnotic state. With Miss Beauchamp they could be 
 produced in the waking state. "I say to Miss Beauchamp, 
 
 1 0J>. cit. p. 55.
 
 APPENDIX 199 
 
 ' Sensation will disappear from the forefinger of your right 
 hand,' at the same time stroking the finger with Hght touches. 
 The finger becomes profoundly anaesthetic, so that a pin may 
 be thrust into the skin and the joints bent without anything 
 being felt. All forms of sensation are included in the 
 anaesthesia, which is profound for all objects and stimuli." 
 
 In the following experiment the anaesthesia is of a some- 
 what different character : — " I hold up a metal rod (an electrode 
 for an electrical machine) before her eyes and say, ' Close your 
 eyes for a moment. When you open them this electrode will 
 have disappeared.' She closes her eyes, and on opening them 
 cannot see the metal rod, though it is held directly before 
 her. She sees my hand as if holding something, but she sees 
 nothing else. I tell her to feel the rod. She puts her hand 
 upon it and says that she can feel it ; in fact, she fingers it and 
 follows the outline of the metal rod and the ball at the top. 
 She feels something that she cannot see. I now say, 'I shall 
 pass the electrode from one hand to the other. When it is in 
 the left hand you will see it, but when in the right it will dis- 
 appear.' I pass the rod back and forth from one hand to the 
 other, and the moment it is grasped by the left hand it 
 becomes visible, but disappears as soon as seized by the 
 right." 
 
 Here the normal state of disaggregation evidently brings 
 with it as a concomitant extreme suggestibility,^ and this is to 
 be noticed also in the case of Mr. Hanna, observed by 
 Messrs. Sidis and Goodhart.^ 
 
 Mr. Hanna fell from his horse and injured his spine. The 
 shock deprived him of his memory. He became as one newly 
 born and was aware of experiences previous to the accident 
 only as information derived from others. His personal identity 
 thus went back no farther than the accident. He could not 
 be hypnotised, so that this method of cure was not available. 
 By degrees, however, his primary personality came back for 
 
 1 The case of Lucie reported by M. Janet, L'AutomaHsme Psychologique, 
 p. 87, illustrates the same curious relationship between the various personalities. 
 
 2 Sidis and Goodhart, Multiple Personality, 1905.
 
 200 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 short spells, these spells became longer, and finally the two 
 personalities were fused together with one continuous memory. 
 His secondary state presents some remarkable features 
 analogous to those which we have already observed in Miss 
 Beauchamp. His emotions changed rapidly and were readily 
 influenced by passing events ; they were unstable and less 
 persistent than in his other state. His sensitiveness in the 
 secondary state was very acute, and he was extremely susceptible 
 to external stimuli. This delicate sensitiveness manifested 
 itself in a form which to his family appeared as clairvoyance. 
 Thus he was able to find objects hidden from him, and was 
 uniformly correct in guessing in which hand a small coin was 
 held, both hands being concealed from view. His knowledge 
 seemed to be a kind of intuition, or, as he said, instinct, which 
 he could not explain or understand. This condition was 
 absent both in the primary state and in the final condition of 
 restored health. This clairvoyance greatly awed Mr. Hanna's 
 family, who attempted to conceal it even from the doctors who 
 attended the case.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Acton, Lord, 82 
 
 Armstrong, H. E., 124, 158 
 
 Arnold, T., 179 
 
 Ash. E., 6 
 
 Auto-suggestion, 47. 55, 78, 153 
 
 Bain, A., 188 
 Benson, A. C, 157 
 Bemheim, 5, 21 
 Binet, A., 34, 196 
 5^o/^, M. E., 149 
 Browning, J^., 88 
 
 Character, 103, 117 
 
 science of, 109 
 Character-forming instruction, i6i 
 Comenius, J. A., 100, 121 
 Contrariance, 75 
 Contrariant ideas, 7, 31, 53 
 Contrast, 59 
 
 Creative power of teacher, 152 
 Curriculum, 156 
 
 Degrees of hj-pnosis, 21 
 Demonstration, 122 
 Dissociation in hj-pnosis, 15 
 
 and suggestibility, 195 
 
 in waking state, 25 
 
 £cholalie, 3 
 Emulation, 90 
 Encyclopasdism, 156 
 E spinas, 93 
 Ethical instruction, 165 
 Examinations, 56, 158 
 Expectation, 64 
 
 Experiments on suggestibility 1 
 waking state, 35 
 
 First impressions, 60 
 
 Formal training, 67 
 Freedom of view, 191 
 
 Genius, 134, 154 
 Gould, F. J., 165 
 Grasset, 3, 17, 18 
 
 Habit, 147 
 
 Hartmann, von, 143 
 
 Herbartian psychology, io8, 140 
 
 Heurism, 123 
 
 Hierarchy of aims, 32 
 
 History, teaching of, 59, 170, 188 
 
 Ideas, value of, in character-forming, 
 
 118 
 Illusions in hypnotic state, 4 
 Imagination, 81 
 Imitation in hypnotic state, 3 
 
 in waking state, 23, 86 
 
 fostered by school life, 92, 99, 
 100 
 Impartiality, 189 
 Impulse, 119, 120 
 Inscrutability, 81 
 Interaction, 141 
 Introspection, 135 
 
 Jordan, F., 112 
 
 La Bruyhe, 117 
 
 Latin and Greek classics, 171 
 
 Leighton, R. L., 104, 151 
 
 Liibault, 21 
 
 Lipps, Th. , 1 1 
 
 Lloyd-Tuckey, C, 14, 18, 22 
 
 McDougall, \V. , 142 
 Massiveness, 55 
 
 201
 
 202 
 
 SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 
 
 Meaning, 67, 147 
 Mediocrities, 127 
 Memory in hypnotic state, 14 
 Mental energy, 152 
 Method, 122, 160 
 Min, J. S., 109 
 Moll, 3, 4, 9, 13, 17 
 Myers, F., 60, 62 
 
 Newman, J. H., 66, 106 
 
 Osgood-Mason, R., 20, 22 
 Owen, J?., 130 
 
 Patilhan, 110, 115 
 Pitres, 3 
 Pleasure-tone, 70 
 Prince, Morton, 196 
 Psycho-physical parallelism, 141 
 
 Reaction, 73 
 
 Relative energy of ideas, 29 
 
 Ribot, 116 
 
 Picket, 5, 7 
 
 Rousseau, 61 
 
 Schiller, F. C, 67 
 Self-control, 81 
 Sidis, B., 47 
 
 State control of teachers' views, 192 
 Stall, O., II, 97 
 Stout, G. F., 12 
 Subconsciousness, 137, 144 
 Suddenness of presentation, 79 
 Suggestion, definition of, <) sqq. 
 
 direct, 76, 179 
 
 distinguished from illusion, 44 
 
 indirect, 77 
 
 and literature, 177 
 
 and method, jj, 125, 170 
 
 post-hypnotic, 16, 27 
 
 preliminaries of, 54 
 
 process of, 72 
 
 sanction of, 192 
 
 therapeutic, 18 
 
 in waking state, 23 
 
 Tarde, G., 90 
 Temperament, no 
 
 Unity of mind, 33 
 
 Voltaire, 106 
 
 Warren, T. H., 132 
 Wundt, W., II, 112, 141 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 JUN 6 1935 
 
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