II ''iii liilll fiii'ii!i!i il|i||iin ! ! i)i|fii{jJ[!lU-Mfi! Cornell IDlntvetstt^ OF THE IRewl^orft State College of Horiculturc .^!^^5.bl. j.^j.M\'.\:& 8101 LB 1051.C5""*" ""'™'^»>' Library ,,jlf, J 'earning process, Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013406347 THE LEARNING PROCESS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON ■ CHICAGO SAN PRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LOKDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd, TORONTO THE LEARNING PROCESS BY STEPHEN SHELDON COLVIN, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS TSeia gorft THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914 /ili rights reserved LBi Q 5/ ,_C5': Aoj.\o5U^ COPYKIGHT, I9II, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 19x1. Reprinted January, July, X913 ; January, 19x3 ; April, 19x3 ; January, X9X4. ; July, X914. 3. 8. Onshing Oo. — Berwick & Smifh Oo. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER PREFACE In the present work the attempt has been made to analyze the fundamental conceptions and facts relative to the learning process, and to show their significance by discussion and illustration as it appears in theory and practice in instruction in the elementary and the secondary schools. A wider application also has been made in so far as these theories and facts have been considered in rela- tion to the learning of the mature student and in the con- duct of the affairs of daily life. The materials for discussion have been drawn principally from the results of experi- mental psychology and pedagogy. Theoretical considera- tions in the fields of psychology and biology have also been made use of from time to time. For aid in the preparation of this manuscript, by means of helpful suggestions, I have to thank particularly my colleagues, Professor W. C. Bagley and Professor B. H. Bode, and for material assistance in the revision of proof, my colleague. Dr. A. H. Sutherland. My thanks are also due to Professor E. B. Titchener, of Cornell University, for a detailed statement of certain aspects of his doctrine of attention, particularly in relation to his distinction between attributive and cognitive clearness. vii CONTENTS PAGE Introduction xxi CHAPTER I Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process . . i The learning process defined. — The possibility of trans- mitting acquired characters. — The influence of the social milieu. Learning cannot be accounted for in mere physiological terms. — Various definitions of consciousness are entirely inadequate. — Consciousness from the standpoint of adjust- ment. — Consciousness not a thing but a process. — Mental elements group themselves in terms of purpose. The two principal criteria for the appearance of conscious- ness, structure, and behavior. — Mere response to stimulation not an evidence of mental life. — Educability and response to a novel situation marks of intelligence. Various coordinations possessed by animals at birth. — Learning through trial and error, through imitation, and through the formation of free ideas. The nature of the learning process in children similar to that of animals. — A completed experience is motor as well as sensory. — The first objects in the child's world those to which he adequately reacts. — The pragmatic character of learning. — Curiosity and play in learning. CHAPTER II Practical Applications of the General Principles of Learning i8 Possibilities of educating the race through social inheri- tance. — The teacher must make the pupil socially effective. — The necessity for special education for the genius as well as the defective. — The entire mass must be educated to its high- est eflSciency. — The schools must discover efficiency. Effort should be made to narrow the field of trial and error X Contents FAGS in all formal instruction. — The teacher must limit the field of the pupil's exploration. — Dangers of bringing university methods into primary and secondary education. The educative method of nature. — The environment to which education seeks to adapt the individual is future and ideal. — Educational ideals of various periods of history. Education must make use of the child's capacities in all stages of his learning. — The child's interests are not exclu- sively selfish and practical. The importance of self-expression in the education of the child. CHAPTER III Reflex-action, Instinct, Habit 33 The relation of consciousness to reflex activity. The nature of impulsive activities. — Instinctive activity as distinguished from simple reflex activity. — A list of the most important human instincts. — Classification of the instincts from the genetic standpoint. — Egoistic and altruistic in- stincts ; personal and impersonal instincts ; the adaptive instincts. Gradual appearance of instincts. — Instincts made perma- nent through expression. — Variability of instinct. — The modification of instincts. Pleasure and pain further or inhibit activity as the case may be. — Pleasure the accompaniment of adequate adjustment. The neural basis of habit. — Comparison of habit with other non-voluntary activities. — Experimental results in regard to the formation of habits. — Improvement in learning rapid at first, then it proceeds more slowly. — Plateaus in learning. — The appearance of helpful variation. -^ Factors that aid or hinder in learning. — The importance of the proper intel- lectual attitude in learning. — Other significant factors in learning. Consciousness appears only when a need exists. — Habits of thought and feeling accompanied by consciousness, but not directed by it. — The method of thought may be quite mechanical. — Incomplete habits require consciousness. — Intellectual processes involve habits of attention. — Thought complexes require conscious direction in their coordination. — When new ideals arise the thought processes are less habitual than when these ideals are long established. Contents xi PAGE It is contended that all habits are specific. — There are various senses in which the term generalized habit may be used. '— A specific stimulus calling forth a definite response may be common to a large variety of situations. — A specific reaction may take place as the result of a dominant mood. — A complex set of activities may function in various situations. Habit facilitates response, but deadens consciousness. — The human being must not reduce his entire life to mecha- nism. — The human environment infinitely complex. — The possibility of forming new habits. CHAPTER IV The Educability of Instincts and Habits . . . • SS Fundamental instincts cannot be eliminated, but they may be modified. — Substitution, not prohibition, must be the rule. — Importance of the play instinct. — Value of other adaptive instincts. — The function of undesirable instincts. — Reward and punishment. — Envy, jealousy, and anger. — The instincts of adolescence. — The development of instincts as related to promotion in the school. — The suppression of instincts and mental arrest. Rules for the modification of habits as laid down by James. — " Focalization " in habit building. — The problem of initiat- ing proper habits. — Desirable habits must be practiced on all occasions. — The avoidance of plateaus in habit formation. — The necessity of interest in directing habit formation. — The fluctuation of interest in extended learning. — Habit formation should not be a means, but an end of learning. CHAPTER V Sensation and Perception 71 We must treat learning from the standpoint of conscious- ness as well as of adjustment. Difficulty of defining sensation. — A sensory experience is sensory-motor. — It is actually a perception. Sensation at the basis of all knowledge. — Sensation and especially perception can to a degree be subjectively deter- mined. The infant's sensory experience less rich than that of the adult, except in certain particulars. xii Contents PAGI Possibility of educating children with marked sensory de- fects. — Slight sensory defects cannot be ignored. —Defects in vision and hearing as met in the schools. — Sensitivity of defectives and delinquents less than that of normal individuals. — Moral obtuseness often accompanies physical insensitivity. — Mere possibility of sensation does not always mean sensory experience. CHAPTER VI Nature of Perception in the Child 83 Studies to determine the range of child's perceptions in Berlin and Plauen. — Hall's experiments and conclusions. — Similar experiments at Annaberg, Zwickau, and Varde. — Further experiments show great differences between country and city children. — Meumann's summary of results. Sensations neither true nor false. — Ordinary distinction between illusion and hallucination not valid. — The true dis- tinction is a practical one. — Two types of illusion. — Neces- sity of right attitudes of expectancy as a safeguard against illusions. Methods of instruction must call forth the pupil's activities. Experiences of the child must be meaningful. — Children should be tested for sensory defects. — Danger of dwelling too long on the concrete. — The child's experience must be extended beyond the home environment. — The suggestibility of children raises the question of the desirability of teaching fable and myth in the grades. CHAPTER Vn General Characteristics of Imagination .... 97 Imagination not capricious fancy. — It deals with an object of sensory experience not immediately present to the senses. — Attempts to define the mental image in physiological terms unsatisfactory. — Introspective analysis of the mental image. — Definition of the mental image as an object not immediately present to the senses distinguishes between imagination and false perception. Difference between mental image and percept in terms of types of reaction. — Eventually both image and percept must be measured in terms of adequate adjustment. — Two reasons that have led to imagination being considered unreal. Contents xiii PAGB The ordinary doctrine inadequate. — Mental images quite generally involve peripheral factors. — Object-types and word- types of imagery. — Symbolic imagery essential to the higher thought processes. Dramatic or mimetic imagery as employed in thinking. — This general kinaesthetic imagery symbolizes actual situations. — The problem of imageless thought. The doctrine of imaginal types. — Young children think largely in concrete visual imagery. — Education determines largely imaginal types. CHAPTER VIII The Pedagogical Significance of Imagination . . .116 The child's imagination extremely vivid. — Children with difiBculty distinguish between the fanciful and the real. — Problem of cultivating the child's imagination of intellectual and moral import and relates itself to the nature of truth. — Value of fancy in the life of the adult. — Children who have outgrown their mythopceic fancies should be given other materials of instruction. — There are certain facts they must know definitely from the beginning. Relative importance of concrete and of verbal imagery. — Importance of kinesthetic imagery. — Necessity of cultivat- ing all types. CHAPTER IX Memory 128 Memory as a biological phenomenon ; as reproductive im- agination ; as the conscious revival of a past experience. — The views of James and Calkins contrasted. — Various degrees of memory. — Recognition and recollection. — Con- scious comparison does not take place on the habitual levels of reaction. Impression and association. — Can recall occur without association ? — Children depend relatively more on impression than on association. Partial recall more valuable than total recall. Four kinds of memory as distinguished by Meumann.— Ability to memorize increases throughout the school years. Fading of memory more rapid when the association is weak. xiv Contents TAGS Method of " Retained Members " in testing memory. — The " Saving Method."— The "Method of Right Associates." — Relative value of various methods in memory tests. CHAPTER X Association I4S Association by contiguity and by similarity. — Both may be explained in terms of purpose. — The teacher must not rely on purely mechanical associations. — The secondary laws of association (primacy, recency, frequency, and vividness) . — Principle of purpose likewise operative in these laws. — Con- gruity of emotional tone. Retroactive inhibition. — Forming of principal associations. — Remote associations. — Initial reproduction. — Influence of age on association (Jost's Law). CHAPTER XI Economy in Memory and Association .... 159 Economy in small matters means significant saving in the aggregate. Nature of the whole and part methods of learning. — Their advantages and disadvantages. — Modifications of these methods. Distributed and concentrated learning. — Short periods of learning more advantageous for children than for adults. Recall of great value. — Value of the recitation. The rate or tempo of learning. — Learning beyond the threshold of reproduction. — Aids in learning. — Visual and auditory presentation. — Oral and written work. — Stages in learning. — Material to be learned to advantage must be meaningful. Verbatim memory should not have the place of chief im- portance. — Mechanical memory belongs to the preadolescent years. — A general rule for economical learning. — The school program should not be " bunched." — Danger of short courses. — Value of examinations. — Visual presentation should be supplemented by oral. — Employment of as many aids as possible in learning. — Necessity of forming principal asso- ciations properly. — Value of instruction in the technique of learning. Contents xv CHAPTER XII PAGE The Applied Psychology of Memory and Association . 179 Applied psychology in medicine, law, and education. Stem's experiments. — Importance of the interrogatory in testimony. — Degrees of certainty in testimony. Errors in the direct report. — Errors in the interrogatory. An errorless report is the exception. — Relation between the extent and accuracy of a report. — Sworn testimony more accurate than unsworn. — Reports of children inferior to those of adults. — Relation between general intelligence and accu- racy. — Accuracy decreases with the lapse of time. — Not all details are reported with equal accuracy. — Suggestive ques- tions decrease accuracy. — Effect of rumor. — Estimating size. — Effect of repetition and practice. — Possibilities of improve- ment in reporting. Statements of children cannot be accepted uncritically. — A statement false in one particular may be correct in other. — Danger of questioning children. — The child should be edu- cated in accurate observation and report. — The treatment of children as witnesses. CHAPTER XIII The Association Method in Applied Psychology . . 193 A typical list of words in Jung's experiments. —Cause and significance of lengthened reaction times. The Association Method in diagnosis of hysteria and in the detection of crime. — The influence of the parents on the in- fantile milieu. — Its importance in education. Statement of Freud's method. — Significance of suppressed wishes. The imperative character of associative complexes. — Im- portance of infantile experience. — Jung and Freud emphasize the significance of environment. — The problem of sex educa- tion. — Parents and teachers should have a more intimate acquaintance with the child's thoughts and desires. — The value of wit, art, and moral and religious education in the child's life. — The great importance of the elementary teacher. CHAPTER XIV The Problem of the Transfer of Training. — Experi- mental Evidence concerning the Problem . .211 Discussion of memory leads to the question of transfer of xvi Contents PAGB training. — The faculty psychology and the doctrine of ex- treme cortical localization. — The faculty psychology assumed definite powers of the mind that could be trained by any ex- ercise equally in all directions. — We cannot assume any such general training. — The extreme doctrine of transfer and its opposite both untenable. Experiments of James and of Thorndike did much to dis- credit the doctrine of formal discipline. — An account of the experiments of James. — The experiments of Thorndike and Woodworth emphasize the transfer of identical elements. — Foster believes that transfer effects may differ for trained and for untrained observers. — Experiments of Coover and Angell. — Fracker's experiments. — Bagley's theory of transfer through ideals. — Results of Ruediger and Ruger seem to substantiate Bagley's contention. — Judd's experiments point in the same direction, as do also experiments at the University of Illinois. — Ebert and Meumann conclude fi-om their experiments that there is an actual "spreading" of transfer effects. — The necessity of providing control experiments. — Experiments by Winch. — Experiments bearing incidentally on the prob- lem of transfer. — Experiment in correlation between various studies. CHAPTER XV Theoretical Aspects of the Problem .... 229 Discussions of Brown and Hinsdale. — Symposium by Angell, Pillsbury, and Judd before the Michigan School- masters' Club. — Discussion before the Brown University Teachers' Association. — Meikeljohn's argument from a logi- cal viewpoint. — Ruediger's discussion. — Heck's monograph emphasizes the dangers of the doctrine of formal discipline. In forming certain specific habits other higher habits may be set up. — Thus we may be justified in speaking of general habits of thinking, willing, etc. CHAPTER XVI Practical Conclusions in Regard to the Transfer of Training 241 The fact of transfer cannot be doubted; the factors in transfer and the extent to which transfer is possible are ques- tions for investigation and discussion. — Rdsumd of the vari- ous possible methods of transfer. Contents xvii PAGE Rules for transfer : Raise the habit to be formed to the plane of ideas. — Train the pupil in the technique of learning. — See that the reaction may be a common element in many situations. — Cultivate proper attitudes and moods. — Empha- size the formal aspects of education in the lower school grades particularly. Certain subjects offer better discipline than do others. — It is necessary to limit the scope of an elective system in terms of educational values. — Reasons for the superior disciplinary value of pure as compared with applied science. — The utili- tarian value of a subject does not absolutely determine its place in the curriculum. CHAPTER XVII Attention and Interest 251 Attention an attribute of all conscious states. — Attention correlated on the objective side with adjustment. — Is clear- ness an adequate measure of attention ? — Attention both in- tellectual and affective in its nature. Active and passive attention not always satisfactorily dis- tinguished. — The distinction may be made in terms of ad- justment. — Active attention emphasizes remote rather than immediate ends. — Secondary passive attention. — Impor- tance of primary attention. — Sensorial and ideational atten- tion. Attention must be based on some immediate or derived interest. — We invariably attend to that in which we are interested. CHAPTER XVIII Attention in Relation to Learning 267 The range of attention limited. — Attention comes in rhyth- mical form. — The motor accompaniments of attention. — Re- lation between attention and distraction. — Indirect methods of measuring attention. Distinction between mental and physical fatigue. — Fatigue held by some to be due to the depositing of poisonous prod- ucts of metabolism. — The theory of Sherrington. Mental and physical tests. — Kraepelin's work curve. — Summary of results of tests for fatigue: Injurious fatigue not common. — Well-adapted attention minimizes fatigae c. xviii Contents PAGB eflfects. — Pleasant work less fatiguing than unpleasant.— Physical work more fetiguing than mental work. — Automatic learning less fatiguing than learning with sustained attention. — Associative bonds weakened in states of fatigue. — Morn- ing hours best for school work. — Nervous fatigue of a serious nature demands special treatment. — Organization of work minimizes effects of fatigue. CHAPTER XIX Pedagogical Applications of the Doctrine of Attention 281 The child cannot attend unless he has the proper physical attitude. — However, superfluous motor expressions are not the accompaniments of attention. Relative value of active and of passive attention. — The pupil must be compelled to give attention when the necessity arises. — Interest need not always be intrinsic. — Rivalry a strong incentive to learning. — Intrinsic interests, however, should be aroused when it is possible to do so. — Subjects not originally interesting may become so when they are mas- tered. — Interest may be negative as well as positive. Soft pedagogy has misinterpreted the significance of work. — Periods of work and rest should be properly alternated. — Grind essential in school work. The pupil must learn to adapt his attention. — The mental attitude of the learner is important. — The school program should be arranged in reference to fatigue. Properly adjusted attention is necessary for the higher thought processes. — Will is fundamentally a matter of attention. CHAPTER XX The Higher Thought Processes. — Logical Thinking . 295 The term thought used in various senses. — In all thinking there is an onflowing of consciousness toward some end. It is a subjectively controlled process. — It involves sym- bols that function as meanings. — All meaning is completed in motor terms. — So-called " imageless thought " accom- panied by vague kinaesthetic images or sensations. Rational thinking involves the conceptual attitude. — Is the concept a general idea? — The conceptual attitude is a gener- Contents XIX PAGE alized attitude. — Perceptual and conceptual attitudes are interwoven. — Concepts are not arrived at by a pure process of abstraction. — They are not necessarily abstracted from a large number of particulars. CHAPTER XXI The Thought Process in Judgment and Reasoning . . 310 The judgment an expanded concept. — The judgment in- terprets the new in terms of the old. — Perception, concep- tion, judgment, and inference are but different stages in the same general tendency of thought. Logical thinking selective in its nature. — Induction and deduction are not entirely separate in their nature. — The selection of significant facts essential in reasoning. — The iso- lation of these facts gives a general point of view. ^ There is a pressing necessity of not forming hasty or prejudiced hypotheses. CHAPTER XXII The Educational Problems of Rational Thinking . -319 Instruction in the form of the problem. — It can be used in all subjects of the curriculum. — The pupU must select the significant elements in his solution of problems. — The in- structor must furnish the pupil with adequate ideas. — The value of the definition. — Principles should be emphasized in as many ways as possible. The teacher should attempt to shake naive dogmatism. — The significance of the Socratic pedagogy. — Lack of confi- dence and over-confidenee both fetal to reasoning. — The elimination of incorrect attitudes of mind. — Consequences, not isolated fects, the ends of thought. A genuine love for truth at the basis of all intellectual ad- vancement. — The teacher must insist on truth as the goal of all learning. Index 331 INTRODUCTION The point of view that is held to throughout the follow- ing discussion in the interpretation of the learning proc- ess, and the states of consciousness attendant on it, is a thoroughgoing functionalism and pragmatism. It is as- sumed that the reactions of an organism, its modes of behavior, furnish not merely the criteria for an objective determination of the learning processes of the organism, but that these reactions constitute the means by which the learning takes place. Without reactions learning would be impossible ; behavior is essential in learning at all stages of development, both in the child and in the race. There is no learning that does not express itself in adjustment; there is no learning that is not acquired through adjustment. Thus the adjustments become the function by which learning is made possible, and the prac- tical significance of learning is measured in terms of the successful character of these adjustments. It should not be assumed for this reason, however, that the conscious correlates of these adjustments, ranging from the simplest sensations to the most complex rational proc- esses, and tinged by feelings and emotions of greater or of less intensity, are to be ignored, or to be passed over slightingly. The fact that adjustment is necessary for learning does not imply that the conscious factor is not also an essential. Consciousness appears as the accom- paniment of all complicated adjustments ; possibly as the accompaniment of all adjustments, even of those of the •nost simple nature. What the relation is that exists be- tween the adjustments and the conscious processes that appear in connection with them, it may be difficult to xxii Introduction decide. Whether consciousness causes these adjustments or is caused by them, or whether, finally, there is no actual causal relation existing between conscious states and the bodily processes connected with them, but rather such a relation that they appear together without any interaction, is a matter not for an empirical science, but for philosophy to determine. Whatever the relation may be, whether of interaction (i.e. direct causal connection) or of concomi- tant variation {i.e. a parallel relation between bodily and mental processes without actual causal connections), it must be assumed from the empirical point of view, that consciousness is practical; that it arises in a clear form when there is a need for it {i.e. when the organism can no longer adequately adjust itself in a reflex or mechanical way). Consciousness, therefore, is always useful, and exists only as long as it can be of service. This is its prag- matic sanction. Its existence is conditioned on its service to the organism, this service being that of adequately ad- justing the organism to its environment. When we turn to a more detailed examination of con- sciousness itself, and inquire into the manner in which the elements that compose it group themselves, we discover that this grouping obeys a fundamental law that differen- tiates conscious phenomena in a striking way from those of the material world. Material phenomena obey the law of efficient causality, the law that asserts that every effect is traceable to a preceding cause, or a series of causes, that absolutely condition it. In the world of matter complete determinism prevails ; the present is accounted for entirely and adequately in terms of the past. Conscious phenomena, on the other hand, group them- selves under the law of purpose or end. A conscious event cannot be given an adequate explanation in terms of efficient causality. It is not what has gone before, but wha^ is in the future, that explains the way in which mental processes develop. In the highest forms of conscious Introduction xxiii groupings we have clearly defined ends, which are held in the mind and in which the conscious processes terminate ; we meet here the phenomena of deliberation, comparison, and choice that are the characteristics of voUtion. Here the purpose is explicit, the aim recognized. Below the level of deliberative choice and conscious adjustment to ends more or less remote, we have still conscious group- ings that are dominated by purpose in a less explicit sense. Desire and impulse, if the adjustment is not purely au- tomatic, point to something beyond, something not yet realized, but to be attained. The desire regulates the groupings in this stage of consciousness, just as truly as does the more definite purpose regulate the thought proc- esses in rational and deliberative modes of behavior. Even in the subconscious realm the groupings are to be explained, if explicable at all, in terms of consciousness rather than in terms of mere nerve physiology. Here, it is assumed, exists an unrecognized end that dominates these states of mind. The explanation of conscious phenomena in terms of pur- pose will be often met in the following pages. This ex- planation will appear in the discussion of perception, of memory and association, of interest and attention, and particularly it will be emphasized in the chapters on the higher thought processes. Indeed, wherever conscious processes are discussed it will be shown that whatever the source of the elements that constitute those processes may be, and whatever the explanation for the emergence of these elements in consciousness, the fundamental law by which they are arranged is always to be conceived as some form of purpose or end, either clearly observable or im- plicitly present. When no such purpose can be discovered, we must then conclude that we are dealing with phenomena whose explanation lies within the physiological or physical realm. In the discussions that are to follow there will likewise xxiv Introduction be found numerous references to the significance of adjust- ment in determining the nature of learning. The earlier chapters, which are primarily biological in their nature, will emphasize the factor of adjustment and the part that it plays in the learning of the individual and of the race. In the later chapters, in which the conscious aspects of learning are more particularly emphasized, the significance of adjust- ment as a mental factor will be discussed, and the motor aspects of consciousness will be given a large share in the structure of mental states. It will be insisted that adjust- ment and meaning go hand-in-hand, and that kinsesthesis is an indispensable factor in all forms of learning, from the lowest to the highest. Thus the attempt will be made to develop around these two basal concepts of adjustment and purpose a system of educational psychology that will include the most impor- tant facts that have been revealed by experimentation, ob- servation, and reflection. It will further be attempted to show in a concrete manner the application of the various facts and theories presented to the practical problems of education in the school and in the home. Much material will be found that may not seem to be necessarily included in the plan outUned above ; that would, for example, be presented in a discussion in which other conceptions as to the meaning of the learning process and the nature of con- sciousness prevailed. The justification for the introduction of such material in a book that attempts to set forth, in part at least, a system of interpretation, is, that this material must be considered as final data; as ultimate elements which are to be organized in terms of the learning process. Mere desultory memory must be taken as a fact largely of physiological significance ; the instinctive interests must be accepted and interpreted as to their origin in biological terms ; the physiological basis of fatigue must be recog- nized. On the other hand, all these and other similar data are to be dealt with in considering the principles of learn- Introduction xxv ing as the materials and circumstances from which, and conditioned by which, mental organization takes place. We cannot explain in physical concepts, origins in dealing with the cosmos. We take the ultimate elements for granted, and attempt to relate them in terms of physical laws. No more can we explain in psychological concepts the appearance of ultimate psychic elements. When they make their appearance we must accept them as given and at- tempt to relate them in terms of mental laws. This does not preclude the treatment of the origins of mental elements in purely physical and physiological terms ; it does, however, mean that we must frankly recognize that in these cases we are not on psychological ground; and it further means that we are justified in our physical or physiological treat- ment only in so far as we show the manner in which a higher psychological treatment can be applied in the group- ing and functioning of these elements in mental complexes. THE LEARNING PROCESS CHAPTER I FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS IN THE LEARNING PROCESS The learning process may briefly be described in its most general terms as the modification of the reactions of an or- ganism through experience. An organism which is incapable of modification in its reactions can- ing process not be taught. In using the term " experience " '^^^«^- we refer to the modification of adjustment in the individual organism as distinguished from those modifications that take place in racial development. It is possible to conceive racial modifications as in a sense a gradual learning through the process of evolution. Racial learning consists either in the elimination of less fit forms through natural selec- tion, or in the acquisition of acquired characteristics by individuals, which latter can be transmitted to their de- scendants through heredity. The transmission of acquired characteristics (that is, of modifications acquired during the life of the parent as a result of environmental con- ditions) to the offspring of that parent is at present generally considered improbable. Thomson, in his excellent discussion of this question in his treatise on " Heredity," concludes that there is slight scientific warrant for at present accepting the doctrine of acquired characters.^ Although we may seriously question the possibility of securing the transmission of acquired modifications from one individual to another through inheritance, it is, neverthe- less, desirable from the standpoint of educational procedure to bring about such modifications, since they can be trans- mitted from individual to individual through the social me- 1 See Chapter VII of Thomson's book for a comprehensive discussion of the entire matter. B I 2 The Learning Process dium. Indeed, a large amount of the best things that have come to the race have been transmitted in this way. To Transmis- "^e the words of Thomson,! » Unlike the beasts sion of ac- that perish, man has a lasting external heritage, act^rfstic^T" capable of endless modification for the better, a through heritage of ideas and ideals, embodied in prose environ- and verse, in statue and painting, in cathedral ™®"*- and university, in tradition and convention, and above all in society itself." Thus from the standpoint of practical pedagogy, the question of the possibility of the transmission of acquired characteristics is one primarily of theoretical importance. It makes little difference to educa- tional procedure whether the modifications secured are transmitted directly from father to son, or are transmitted in a more roundabout way through the social environment, which has become modified through the education of the individuals that constitute the social group. For example, if the possibility of the transmission of acquired modi- fications be admitted, we might assume that the perfecting of an indi- vidual, or a number of individuals, in the technique of playing some musical instrument might be perpetuated in the ge^erations succeeding by the direct physical inheritance of this technique. Therefore, the edu- cation of such individuals would be of more than individual signifi- cance. On the other hand, the possibility of this wider education would still exist if direct inheritance of this musical technique were impossible, since the education of these first individuals would result in the educa- tion of others in their immediate environment, and these could transmit such education to still others, and so the process could be continued indefinitely, the final results being even greater than if the direct trans- mission alone were possible. The transmission of the modifications produced in one generation by environmental conditions to succeeding genera- tions by m.eans of the social milieu is one of the striking differences between brute and human societies, and accounts in a large measure, for the infinitely greater progress of the human race than that of the brute creation. 1 op. cit., p. 249. Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process 3 While it is possible that in lower organisms modifications of experience may occur without a conscious accompani- ment, in all higher learning the psychic factor is an indispensable consideration, and to attempt to i^v^s^ account for learning merely in physical and a conscious physiological terms is totally inadequate. We must assume that wherever there is marked modification of animal behavior in the course of the life history of the organism, there exists a conscious element which must be accounted for in order adequately to explain the learn- ing. No consideration of the learning process which does not take into account the determining factor of mind, and make it a basal element in all learning, would be adequate. At the very outset of our discussion, then, it will be neces- sary to consider something of the nature, scope, and signifi- cance of consciousness. Many recent attempts have been made to give an ade- quate definition or description of consciousness. None of these has entirely succeeded. Indeed, it is Conscious- hardly to be expected that a completely satisfac- ^e&ied by tory definition will ever be framed. Conscious- describing ness is the most fundamental and final fact of ph^'fi^at the universe. It is, therefore, impossible to give constitute it. a definition of consciousness in terms more elementary than consciousness itself. Most definitions have ended either by describing certain elements that go to make up consciousness, or in explaining consciousness in terms of the physical or physiological circumstances that con- dition it. For example, some psychologists, in framing their definition of con- sciousness, do not attempt to do more than merely to enumerate the various aspects of our conscious experiences, such as perceiving, attend- ing, imagining, willing, and feeling. But in doing this they have simply called to mind experiences which have meaning only for those who possess them. While this procedure emphasizes these various aspects of consciousness, it throws no added light upon the nature of consciousness itself. 4 The Learning Process Again, in attempting to explain consciousness in terms of a physical stimulus and the resulting physiological pro- Conscious- '^^SS' ^'^^ nature of the stimulus is described as ness ex- well as the mechanical or chemical changes phySoloS- which are aroused by the stimulus affecting a cal terms, sense organ, and the effects are further traced through the nervous system to the appropriate brain centers. For example, in the sense of vision the physical waves of light are analyzed and described, the chemical changes that occur when these light waves fall on the retina are considered, and the physiological pro- cesses in the visual centers of the brain are discussed. The facts and hypotheses involved in this procedure, while interesting and not unim- portant, do not reveal to us the final nature of the visual experiences of color and light. Obviously, such a description as this is a description in terms that are extramental, and which presuppose a rela- tion between consciousness and the physical world that is hypothetical and in a measure unsatisfactory. Although consciousness cannot be adequately defined, there are certain important aspects of it which should be Conscious- ^^V^ i"^ voioA in a preliminary discussion of the ness as a psychology of learning. In recent years there biological L , . . , -^ . , phenome- has been an mcreasmg tendency to consider con- °°"- sciousness from the biological standpoint, treat- ing it as the means by which the organism secures a proper adjustment to its environment. The more complex and variable this adjustment, the greater the complexity and variability of consciousness. On the lower level of habitual action, consciousness, as a determining factor, may be disregarded, and for all practical purposes treated as non-existent. However, on these lower levels the ques- tion of actual learning does not occur. Wherever there is variability in response, there we may assume is a conscious- ness, which may be legitimately interpreted as being instru- mental in this response. Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process $ As James has so clearly pointed out, consciousness is not a thing, but a process. To understand its nature, it cannot, therefore, be adequately studied as static, but as something flowing on toward a more or less defi- ne°s^nor" nite goal under the dominance of certain laws. * ^^^S' ''"* The following analogy may serve to illustrate the difference between consciousness as a process and con- sciousness as a mere unrelated set of occurrences. On a June evening, we are often attracted by the countless fire- flies as they flash forth in points of light in the darkness and then disappear from view. Between these points of light there seems to be no connection, and the flashes appear in no apparent order. So consciousness might be pictured as sparks of intelligence glowing here and there on the dark background of the unconscious. This may be a true picture of the most primitive forms of intelligence, but with such intelligence the present discussion has noth- ing to do. The light of consciousness that we are to con- sider forms an uninterrupted train of brightness, and the point from which it issues and the goal in which it termi- nates can be traced with relative definiteness. Conscious- ness is an event, or better, a series of related events, harmoniously joined and leading to a final conclusion. Perhaps the most important viewpoint from which we may consider consciousness is that of the fundamental law which underlies all conscious groupings. As The most has been pointed out in the Introduction, this is ftmda- the law of purpose or end of action, and differ- of conscious entiates the psychic world from the universe of processes, material relations. In the material world all events are to be explained as due to a preceding set of efficient causes that absolutely predetermine every physical occurrence. In the interpretation of the phenomena of this world, all purpose, design, and aim must be rigorously excluded. In the world of consciousness, however, the reverse is true. No happening can be adequately explained in terms of efficient 6 The Learning Process causality. The real explanation of a grouping, or constella tion of conscious factors, is to be found in the meaning or end around which they are grouped. In order to satisfac- torily account for the appearance and grouping of mental states, we must be able to show the end, aim., or purpose toward which the mental processes are moving. Where we cannot show an end, either consciously or subconsciously present, we have a materialistic rather than a psychical explanation. The question naturally arises : At what point in the ani- mal series does consciousness first appear? A similar query asks : At what point in the development principal of the individual does consciousness arise ? Nei- SeT*ear- ther question can be easily answered. Logically, ance of con- there is no certain line of division between the sciousness. ^onscious and the unconscious, neither in the animal series nor in man. On the other hand, it is quite evident that consciousness in any significant and valuable form can hardly be assumed to exist in the lower levels of animal life and in the human individual in his prenatal development. Certain specific criteria for the appearance of consciousness have' been suggested by various writers, but they reduce themselves in the main to two, namely: first, the argument from similarity of bodily structure (par- ticularly of the nervous system) to the similarity of con- scious states arising in connection with bodily processes, and second, the argument from similarity of behavior to the similarity of the mental phenomena accompanying this behavior. Among the higher vertebrates, including man, the re- semblance between the central nervous systems of the va- The crite- "°"^ individuals is so great that there is a high rion of probability of a substantial likeness in the men- tal states of these individuals. As we descend the scale of animal life, the resemblances in nervous struc- ture and the end organs connected with the central nervous Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process 7 system (the eye, the ear, etc.) become less marked, and, as the higher centers become relatively less important and finally disappear, the probability of a conscious life similar to that existing in the higher organisms grows less. When we arrive at the final stage in the descent, we find the amoeba, a single-celled, structureless bit of protoplasm, without a nervous system even of the most rudimentary sort. If consciousness exists in such an organism, it cer- tainly cannot be inferred from its structural resemblance to that of those higher animals in which we must assume that a psychic life is present. When we turn to the criterion of behavior, as indicative of consciousness, we find greater evidence of a widely ex- tended psychic life than we do when we consider ^^^ ^^.^^^_ structural resemblances alone. There is, indeed, rfon of be- but slight resemblance in structure between the ^^^°^' amoeba and man, yet the behavior of these lowest forms of animal life is not absolutely unlike that of the highest forms. Indeed, Jennings ^ has asserted that were the amoeba an animal as commonly observed as the house dog, to it would be attributed, because of its behavior, a consciousness not dissimilar to that of the rudimentary processes of the higher animals. While behavior, or movement, is in general an indication of consciousness, not all movement should be taken as showing evidence of mental life. Mere re- jj^^g^g. sponse to stimulation is characteristic of all sponse to protoplasm. In this connection the biological „^^*e^- theory of tropisms may be noted as set forth by dence of ^ , ■, \ T 1 << '-i^-L. L. ■ _ mental life. Loeb and others. Loeb says: "The tropisms are identical for animals and plants." They are mechani- 1 See " Behavior of Lower Organisms." On page 336, the author says, " If Amceba were a large animal, so as to come within the everyday experience of human beings, its behavior would at once call forth the attribution to it of states of pleasure and pain, of hunger, desire, and the like, on precisely the same basis as we attribute these things to the dog." 8 The Learning Process cal in their nature, and depend on the specific irritability of certain elements of the body's surface." In organisms relatively high in the scale of existence, as well as in those of lower orders, a large number of bodily movements must be considered as being initiated entirely within the nervous system, and in no way directly connected with conscious processes. Reflex and automatic activity are of this type. Only those activities that are classed under the head of pur- posive reactions can be taken as necessarily implying con- sciousness. Purposive reactions, so called, are not to be considered as evidences of consciousness, unless it can be shown that the purpose is internal. The reaction, for example, of plants to light and to other stimuli has been interpreted under the concept of purpose ; however, this alleged purpose is not an end of action as we ordinarily understand the term. One of the marks of " internally purposive," or voluntary movements, is that they do not appear with mechanical biut regularity, but are varied to suit the environ- a mark of mental conditions. An organism that varies its mte gence. j-gactions in this way evidently profits by experi- ence, and thus shows educability. It must be assumed that any animal that is capable of modifying its behavior in an essential way through experience is possessed of an intelligence of a fairly high order. To the criterion of educability may be added that of response to a novel situ- ation. The significance of this latter criterion will be pointed out more fully in a subsequent part of this discussion. Here it is sufficient to say that the habitual, the customary, the common, remain in the realm of the subconscious or the unconscious. Only when a thought crisis arises does a gen- uine experience occur. This thought crisis is due to the fact that the customary environment has been in some way changed, so that the habitual reaction is no longer possible, iSeeH. S.Jennings's "Tropisms." Rapport presentee au VJ'™ congres international de psychologie. GenSve, 1909. Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process g and the thought processes necessary for the solution of the presented difficulty emerging in consciousness as a problem, accomplish an adjustment that was no longer possible on the lower level of habitual activity. Animals at birth, from the lowest to the highest forms, are equipped with certain coordinations through which they are adapted, without previous experience, to their various co- environment. These co5rdinationsare reflex and ordinations instinctive, and serve to bring about a more or less by^a^mals adequate adjustment prior to all experience. The »t*>irth. lower down the scale of animal life, at least as far as the verte- brate series is concerned, the greater is the importance of these adjustments in the total reactions of the organism. The higher forms also possess at birth certain diffuse and uncoordinated reactions that seem to serve no immediate purpose, since they are not definite enough to bring about any helpful adjustments. An example of these latter reactions may be found in the ill-directed and seemingly wasteful movements of the infant, who on seeing a bril- liantly colored ball suspended before it, makes a multitude of movements, none of which may accomplish the result of obtaining the ball. The visual stimulus of the colored ball sets up in this particular instance a nervous activity that finds no direct and definite discharge, spreading it- self over the entire nervous system, innervating many muscles, but issuing in no successful series of adjustments. These diffuse movements, however, have an important func- tion, since from them, by a process of selection, are chosen certain movements that later on become of the greatest value in the adjustment of the organism to its environment. Indeed, it is from the reflex, instinctive, and diffuse move- ments that the various complex adjustments of later life are developed. The learning process must make use of these primitive forms of adjustment in constructing the more complicated varieties that arise in the later experience of the organism. It is not so much that absolutely new lo The Learning Process adjustments are created, as that out of a large number of reflex and instinctive and diffuse activities, those that are most suitable for the proper adjustment of the organisms are selected.^ One of the most important means by which the animal learns new adjustments is through trial and error.^ This is the hit-and-miss process by which, through through trial slow Stages of individual and racial experience, an error, better adaptations have been effected. There are countless illustrations in the learning processes of man and brute alike of this method of arriving at more satisfactory adaptations to environmental conditions. In animal experimentation, this means of learning is the one which has been almost universally found to explain the behavior of the organisms studied. None of the lower animals seem capable of learning by any other means. The trial and error method is blind at the outset. A reaction is called for which has not been completely mastered. Re- peated failures correct themselves gradually, and finally a reaction suited to the situation is acquired. The process of trial and error is extremely slow and wasteful, and it has played the chief rdle, not only in the learning of animals, but in the progress of the human race from savagery to civilization as well. Obviously such a method of learning is one which must be superseded in large measure by a 1 This thought is clearly expressed and amplified by Dexter in the Educa- tional Review, Vol. XXIII, pp. 8i-gi, 1902, in an article entitled " Survival of the Fittest in Motor Training." The writer says: "It is futile to attempt to teach a child a movement till the elements of the movement make their ap- pearance naturally, in accordance with the laws of growth. . . . When the new coordination first makes its appearance, it is easier to suppress its unfavor- able variations, and hence, in common parlance, to learn to act with precision. . . . Coordinations which have previously been set up in accordance with the laws of growth, but have not at the opportune time been selected for sur- vival, may at a later period be made prominent, but not with the same ease, nor with the same success, as then." ^ See Hobhouse, "Mind in Evolution," London, 1901, Chapter VIII. Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process ii shorter and more efficient process in the higher forms of education.^ A concrete illustration of this method of learning is found in the so- called puzzle-box experiment, which, under various forms, has often been employed in testing the learning processes of animals of various degrees of intelligence. In one experiment of this type the animal is placed in a box provided with a door, and secured by a lock or bolt or some other similar device, while outside as a stimulus, or incentive to escape, is placed food. The animal may open the door and obtain his freedom by a few simple movements, such as pulling a string or turn- ing a button or sliding a bolt ; but he goes about his task in a random fashion with no definite point of attack. He makes pawings or other characteristic movements. Finally, and by mere chance, he hits upon the right method of opening the door, escapes, and is rewarded by obtaining food. When a second time he is placed in the box, he per- haps succeeds a little better ; and finally, after many trials, he learns to open the door of the box immediately and with accuracy. In this hit- and-miss manner he has finally acquired a habit which adjusts him to the specific situation that confronts him. If, however, the method of opening the door is changed to a considerable degree, the animal will probably find himself helpless again, and must once more learn through trial and error how to adjust himself to the new conditions that con- front him. It is obvious, however, that if the animal could have acquired, in the first series of reactions, a general notion or idea of pro- cedure, he could have applied this idea to the opening of the door under modified conditions. This is the test of intelligent adaptability, namely, Can the individual adjust himself to a new situation with- out going through the slow process of trial and error, and secure an adequate set of reactions by means of his previous experience ? In the last analysis, it is the aim of education to secure this adaptability. The ability to form "free ideas," as they have some- times been called, through which new situations are met and adequately solved, has quite generally been denied to 1 Ruger, " The Psychology of Efficiency," Archives of Psychology, June, 1910, has shown that human beings also employ wasteful methods of learning particularly in situations that are unusually novel. In solving complicated puzzles they exhibit to a considerable degree the same hit-and-miss type of learning as do animals. 12 The Learning Process animals in any large measure. This ability is probably present in the highest vertebrates in a rudimentary form, but is of little practical significance in their m^simn. learning, which is confined, almost entirely, to free ideas? ^^jg^j ^^^ g^^^j. ^nd imitation. Psychologists have often raised the question as to whether animals are capable of imitation, and ofMtetton various experiments have been conducted to in learning; discover their ability in this direction. Before Baldwin's ■' "»: circular the question can definitely be answered, it will activity." ^^ necessary for us to consider three different senses in which the term " imitation " can be used. Baldwin^ uses the term in its most fundamental biological meaning to cover a large number of phenomena that ordinarily are not classed as imitative. This he does by employing the notion of " circular activity." He sets out with the thought that all pleasurable activities heighten the tone of the organism, and, therefore, tend to repeat themselves. " Increased vitality tends to enlarge- ment, range of movement, activity ; while lessened vitality and organic decay tend to the opposite series of effects, i.e. shrinking, contraction of range, torpidity." Excess activity, with its tendency to repeat a movement once initiated, manifests itself "in the whole range of motor accommodations, from the protozoa which swarm to the light to the most difficult feat of the acrobat." The activities that come under the head of excess discharge, however, tend to form a circle of repetition, each succeeding one, in a sense, imitating the act that has gone before. An illustration of circular activity is found in the manner in which infants, during the latter period of their first year, begin to acquire the rudiments of a language. The seemingly purposeless babblings of the little child, his ba-ba-bas, pa-pa-pas, and the like, come under this prin- ciple of circular activity. The sounds, at first spontaneously hit upon, give a physiological pleasure to the infant, and they are thus repeated. 1 See, " Mental Development, Methods and Processes," N. Y., 1906. Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process 13 By such means as these the child unconsciously acquires a set of usefiil adjustments which later on may be employed in a highly purposive manner. A large number of the activities of animals which are perfected by repetition really belong to this class of imita- tion through circular activity. While there is no directed learning here, we find in these cases nature's most primi- tive attempt to teach her children. Another sense in which " imitation " is used may be de- scribed for lack of a better term by the name " instinctive imitation," i.e. the impulse to copy without the consciousness of purpose. This sort of imita- ^stinctive ^ ^ imitation, tion is found in herds of animals, in groups of children, and in mobs of adults. The flock of sheep follow their leader quite without any purpose of imitating his movements. Children manifest this same general tendency in their plays and games. • A determined leader is all that is necessary to excite the mob to acts of greatest irration- ality. It is possible, because of this, to stampede conven- tions, lead bands of men to the cannon's mouth, and even to change the fashions of speech and dress. A few rehgious enthusiasts, returning from the Holy Sepulcher during the Crusades, set all of Europe dancing in an ecstatic frenzy. Few of us realize how much of our conduct, how large a proportion of our speech and manners, are traceable to this one fundamental principle. Imitation in the narrowest sense of the word is the con- scious attempt to reproduce a copy. While it is clearly evident that many animals are imitative in the j^^^^^^^ first two meanings of the term as discussed as the con- above, there is considerable doubt as to the extent j^pt to' of their imitative powers in this latter sense, reproduce Recent attempts, however, seem to indicate that primates possess, to a degree, the ability to copy con- sciously. However, it is man alone that uses, in any large measure, conscious imitation.^ iSpf Hobhouse, op. cit.. Chapter VII., particuhrly pp. I49-I5'- 14 The Learning Process Learning on the highest levels involves abstracting from concrete experience general principles of procedure. „, ^. . This is the learning by formation of free ideas The highest , -' . , ^ , . type of that we have spoken of above. In this stage learning. ^^ learning, past experience modifies the reac- tions of an organism, not in an unconscious way, but because the past experience has been raised to the level of reflective consciousness, and its bearings upon the immediate situa- tion more or less clearly considered. The man who learns how to manipulate one piece of mechanical contrivance is better able to manipulate another that has certain aspects of similarity with the first, because he has been able to abstract from his earlier experience general points of view which are applicable in the new situation. Racial develop- ment is in no small measure due to the ability of human beings to employ this highest principle of learning. It has made social and individual progress possible. The methods by which the infant modifies his reactions to his environment are practically identical with those of the animal, discussed above. The child at birth, tag methods like the animal, possesses numerous reflex and "hid"* instinctive activities, and gives expression to a large number of diffuse and uncoordinated move- ments, which later are to be used in a purposive way in the more complex adjustments of a wider environment. The primitive method of learning in the case of a child is the simple method of trial and error. Imitation in its various forms plays an important r61e, especially, as has already been pointed out, in the acquisition of language. The imitation is at first without purpose, but gradually the conscious aspect becomes more and more important, al- though purposeless imitation always forms a large part of the learning of both child and adult. James has described the consciousness of the infant im- mediately after birth as a state of confusion. The senses of the child are assailed by a large variety of stimuli af- Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process 15 fecting the various end organs, all of which are functional in a more or less perfect way within a short time after birth. The fact that the child has these possi- bilities of experience does not mean, however, pieted ex- that he has any single completed experience, or p*"®"":* »» that he has a world of definite objects of any weu as sort. Not only must the sense organs themselves ^^°^°"'y- be capable of response to stimulation, but the proper con- nections with the higher nerve centers must be perfected. Such connections are in many instances lacking at birth. Further, in order that the child may, through sense stimuli, acquire a perception of the objects in the environment, it is necessary that he react to the specific objects in this environment. It is an important law of all learning that sense stimuli must be carried over into motor expression, manifesting themselves in specific movements directed more or less definitely toward or away from the source of stimulation. In other words, a completed experience is not merely sensory, it must be motor as well, or, to put it in another way, an object is not merely something to be sensed, it is something likewise to be reacted to, and its meaning grows and develops as the reaction becomes more comprehensive, accurate, and satisfactory. An object is, in the last analysis, constituted by a set of definite and consistent reactions. The first things which a child knows in any real sense are those to which he has adequately reacted. Therefore, the first objects in his world to separate them- •" ^ . r t • 1 • The first selves out from the confusion of his dawning objects in consciousness, are those objects in connection ^^^^,'j^^^^g with which he has been provided with definite to which he reflex and instinctive coordinations. These ob- ^^^'^'^ jects are the things that appeal to his funda- mental organic needs, the satisfaction of which must be accorapUshed prior to any extensive experience, if life is to be sustained. The most primitive movements, like suck- i6 The Learning Process ing, reveal to him the mother's breast or the nursing bot- tle as an object of definite experience. Later other objects which center around these organic needs and instincts, and to which he learns to adjust himself, become definite parts of his world, and gradually there evolve, out of the chaos of his beginning life, a few objective points, by which he reacts in an ever more adequate manner to his environment. The learning process, at least during the first months of the child's life, is almost exclusively, if not completely, con- fined to gaining knowledge through the prac- matifdSr- tical necessities that confront him. This is a acter of fundamental law of learning for child and brute earning. ^like, and covers the widest ranges of racial and individual experience. It is for this reason that knowledge is termed practical or pragmatic. It becomes an instrument by which the proper adjustment is accomplished. Thus learning develops as there is a need and in direct response to this need. It is, however, an error to suppose that the only incen- tive to learning is of this directly and immediately practi- „ . ., cal character. The instinct of curiosity, which Cunosit; an -' incentive to leads the Organism to explore its environment learning. beyond the immediately pressing aspects of that environment, has resulted in an extension of experience which has been of the greatest benefit. Thus finally curi- osity, which impels the organism to explore without any purpose beyond the satisfaction of that curiosity, becomes of the highest practical importance in the adaptation of the organism to its future environment. Curiosity is the means by which the individual stores up for future use in- formation which may serve in the time of need. It is this primitive impulse which in its highest development lies at the basis of scientific inquiry. Play, like curiosity, is an important factor in the learning process. It, too, has no ulterior motive, but finds satisfac- Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process 17 tion in its own expression. There are three principal the- ories in regard to play. Formerly the most commonly ex- pressed theory, the one advanced by Herbert Spencer, held that play is to be explained as torfafthe'" the result of the surplus energy of the organ- 'earning ism. Excess vitality leads to movements that ^''°'^''^^" have no utilitarian value. More recently Stanley HalP has set forth the theory that play is atavistic; it is the rehearsal by the organism of certain ancestral activities that no longer possess utility. Doubtless, there is a truth in both of these theories, but the one which is most significant from the standpoint of the psychology of learning main- tains that the real philosophy of play is that it is a prepa- ration for future activities. This is the standpoint of Karl Groos, as set forth in his works on the "Play of Animals," and the "Play of Man." Thus play, like curiosity, although it serves no immediate purpose, prepares the organism for a future environment to which it must adequately adjust itself for survival and progress. It thus appears that through curiosity and play both the child and the animal are capable of going beyond the immediate and practical environment, in this manner extending their control, so that they shall be better able to cope with those conditions that shall ultimately demand attention. 1 " Adolescence," New York, 1908, Vol. I, p. 202. " The view of Groos that is practice for future adult activities is very partial, superficial, and perverse. It ignores the past, where lie the keys to all play activity. True play never practices what is phyletically new. ... It exercises many atavistic and rudimentary functions. ... I regard play as the motor habits and spirit of the past of the race, persisting in the present as rudimentary functions sometimes of, and always akin to, rudimentary organs." CHAPTER II PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE GENERAL PRIN- CIPLES OF LEARNING We have already seen that the education acquired by an individual in all probability cannot be transmitted through Possibilities Physical inheritance to his descendants. The of educa- skill gained in playing the piano ends with the social in- person who has gained it, unless he teach the heritance. technique to others, or by his skill as a player inspire others to emulate him until they master the tech- nique that he has acquired. The skill as such cannot be inherited. The son may be taught by the father, or be- cause he is reared in a musical environment, he may turn his attention to the learning of the technique of the piano or of some other musical instrument. This learning, how- ever, is not inherited, but it may become something vastly important in the scheme of education. If the skill were merely inherited, it could at the best be handed on but to a few by direct transmission. On the other hand, a great genius may profoundly affect many individuals in his gen- eration, and through affecting them cause the widest modi- fications in generations yet to come. Here lies the greatest opportunity and hope of an educa- tional system. The individual must be so educated as to be The teacher ^'^'^^ Socially effective. The educational ideal must aim to must always have in mind the welfare primarily "upa%*-'' °f *^^ social group, rather than of the separate cialiy individuals that compose that group. It should, effective. .i*--ii.-, therefore, be the aim of the teacher to make the pupil socially efficient to a maximal degree, and he should give his best and highest efforts to those pupils who pos- i8 Applications of the General Principles ig sess the greatest talents, particularly if these talents are joined with evident possibilities of social dominance. The mediocre pupil may be raised through the efforts of the teacher to a moderate degree of efficiency, but it is doubt- ful whether the teacher can make such a pupil sufficiently effective to modify to any marked degree the milieu in which that pupil is placed. It may be seriously questioned whether the democratic ideals of a similar opportunity for all in education should not be radically modified. If the aim of educa- xhe neces- tion is to promote social efficiency, then it is sityof perfectly obvious that this aim can be realized speciaTldu- not by giving equal opportunities of education cation, to all, irrespective of their individual abilities, but by select- ing the most capable and by giving these special oppor- tunity. We recognize to-day the necessity of providing special education for mentally backward and defective children. We justify these special schools in part because we argue that these defectives may be educated sufficiently to be made self-supporting. Very largely, however, the reason for the existence of such schools is to be explained as due to the sympathy which society has in the unfortu- nate class as such, apart from any consideration of the social value of these defectives. Every argument that applies to the special treatment of the subnormal classes, applies with far greater force to special opportunities for those possessing superior talent or genius. The education of the talented pupil up to his highest potentiaUties means a tremendous social asset. For this reason the most ad- vanced and most specialized schools should be supported by the state; schools from which no individual is theoreti- cally debarred, but which only the few who have the greatest abilities can actually enter.^ 1 See Stern, " The Supernormal ChUd," The Jour, of Ed. Psychol., II, pp. 181-190. At present there are special classes for gifted children in the public schools of Baltimore, Worcester, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati. 20 The Learning Process It would be a wrong inference, however, to conclude that, because there is a special need for educating the talented child to the fullest extent, the middle mass!hiw- class of children should be ignored. Even if ever, should we should maintain that the great mass of chil- to their dxen have no rights as individuals, but only as highest parts of a great social scheme, we should still be efficiency* obliged to recognize the fact that even the great- est genius cannot accomplish social betterment in an envi- ronment that is hostile to him, and does not comprehend or sympathize with his aims and purposes. Therefore, the great mass of children must be educated to their highest efficiency in order that the social ideal may be realized. It is not that education should do less for them than it does at present; it doubtless should do more. Oh the other hand, the necessity of providing a special and superior education of the few most capable individuals must be clearly recognized if our social progress is to be sat- isfactory. The standards of efficiency in the schools are not to be too narrowly interpreted. Efficiency must be recognized not alone in the traditional school subiects and The school , ^, , , , ,.,-", must seek by the customary school tests, which often are efficienT" entirely inadequate in determining the pupil's greatest ability. Provision must be made for the discovery of efficiency of all sorts by offering oppor- tunities in the school curriculum for the expression of varied ability. The recent emphasis of industrial training is most important in this connection. The advance that is being made in the psychology of individual differences is likewise of promise.^ 1 Applied psychology is recognizing more and more the necessity of study- ing the individual as distinguished from the mass. In Germany, under the leadership of Stem, Lipmann, and others, extensive plans are being perfected for the determination of those factors virhich are important in individual vari- ation. The psychology of individual differences is particularly important in Applications of the General Principles 21 The trial and error method, so important in all stages of learning, even in the highest, must be minimized in all formal and systematic education, although it never can be entirely eliminated. The actual m be try-out of experience is at every level a necessary ™"''* *° means of acquiring knowledge and skill. As &AiZf trial higher and more rational forms of learning are ^"^ ^"°^- developed, the range of trial and error should become less, since the field within which it has scope can be very much narrowed through a conscious direction of the learning process. A person who is acquainted with the general principles of machinery, on attempting to operate a new machine, will be obliged to investigate it in order to dis- cover just how it works. However, in this try-out there are many details which he will not attempt to investigate, because his general knowledge will give him information concerning them. There are some particulars, however, which he must discover by actually trying how the machin- ery works. The person unskilled in the use of machinery may, after a long and elaborate exploration, in which he uses almost entirely the process of trial and error, finally the schoolroom. No system of grading, however perfect, is adequate unless the children so graded are recognized as separate individuals with peculiarities and capacities which demand oftentimes particular treatment. It is no longer possible, in the light of modern investigations, to hold that any one method of instruction, or plan of procedure in school technique, can be applied with like favorable results to all children, not even to all normal children. A method of instruction in reading, for example, which will be effective for the child possessing strong visual imagery, may be of very doubt- ful merit when used in instructing a child of the motor type. It is to be hoped that the time is not far distant when certain standard tests may be devised to determine the sensory and intellectual differences of children, to the end that instruction may be modified and adapted to suit individual rather than general needs. Not only is the psychology of individual differences important in its bearing on the methods of instruction ; it is likewise important in ascertaining the interests and capacities of children and adolescents for various kinds of school work and for various kinds of occupations in the life outside the school. No one course of study can be ideal when considered from this point of view. 22 The Learning Process find out how the machine is to be manipulated. The skilled individual, on the other hand, consciously limiting the scope of his inquiry, and thus the field of trial, will arrive very much more rapidly and directly at the goal of his endeavors. An interesting illustration of the workings of the prin- ciple of trial and error when under conscious direction is found in the new science of aviation. The error in crude beginnings were made by constructing aviation. machines from general mechanical principles already known, but accurate knowledge in regard to atmos- pheric conditions was soon found to be surprisingly slight. The Wrights and other pioneers in this field worked with gliders to ascertain the principles of support, balancing, and soaring. These principles could be determined only by an actual try-out, and could not be deduced from any known laws. When motors were used, it was found that there was a marked difference in the behavior of powerfully driven machines from that of the slowly moving gliders. Under these new conditions it was found necessary to un- learn a large part of what had already been learned. "We have flown and flown till we hunted out the reason for these things, and found how to modify the machine to pre- vent them." ^ Frederick Todd ^ gives an interesting description of the atmospheric conditions with which the aviator must ex- periment in the actual try-out of experience in flying. At the outset he had no generally known laws to guide him. Todd says : " Every man with whom I have talked who has been up in the air upon any kind of a flying- machine says the same thing about the turmoil of the air above the surface of the earth. It is incessantly moving, yet never moving along steadily. It goes by fits and starts and it dearly loves to go into whirls. . . . The surface 1 See World's Work, XVI, p. 10809. 2 Op. cit., pp. 10659-10680, and 10802-10819. Applications of the General Principles 23 winds strike against houses, trees, fences, in their flow, and bound upward. . . . Light aeroplanes feel a difference in the upward push of heated air rising from different fields, as when passing from a potato field to mown stubble. Five hundred to a thousand feet up within the zone of surface winds, breezes may be encountered flowing in different directions." The swirl and buffeting of the air currents result in conden- sations and rarefactions of atmosphere that are a constant menace. It was a " hole in the air " that sent the expert aviator Hoxsey to his death on December 31, 1910, at the Los Angeles meet. Under such novel conditions as these it will probably be a long time before aviation will have passed entirely beyond the stage of trial and error into that of finally established scientific principles. This period of trial and error will cost much in money and in life. It is, however, necessary for ultimate achievement in any new field. In this discussion it must be remembered that trial and error among the lower orders of animal life and in man may mean something so essentially different that a confusion is likely to arise if we do not take account of this difference. Among zoologists ;trial and error signifies merely the attempt of the organism to adjust itself to new external conditions in such a way as to secure a better adaptation to its environ- ment. This in no way implies a conscious try-out on the part of the or- ganism concerned. When, however, we have reached a higher stage of development, particularly in man, we may assume, as we have already pointed out, that trial and error is something more than a mere hit-and miss process through which an adjustment is finally secured. The trial becomes a conscious one, and is self-directed.i 1 " The application of the phrase ' trial and error ' to lower organisms arose as follows : These organisms react to changes in the conditions by movements of a peculiar character, which subject them to various environ- mental changes. Some of these changes cause them to react further, still further changing the conditions. Finally, as a rule, their continued movements bring them into conditions which do not cause them to react by further movements.'' Quoted from Jennings, " Comparative Psychology," .^OTsr. Nai^ October, 1909. 24 The Learning Process When the individual cannot of himself exercise this di- rection, it may be in a way done for him by another who The teacher purposively narrows the scope of trials within a must limit certain definite series of phenomena. It is the the pupil's business of the teacher to thus consciously limit exploration, thg figid of exploration for the child by laying down rules and giving instruction in general principles of procedure ; by acquainting the child through various methods of instruction with a large body of facts, which have been laboriously discovered through the experience of the race, but which the child cannot find out directly, be- cause to do this would preclude all possibilities of advance from one generation to the next. Still, it should be re- membered that there are certain things the child should be allowed and even compelled to find out for himself. The so-called inductive method of instruction has a place here, but probably a very much more limited place than its ad- vocates have supposed. There is a prevailing opinion among certain educators that one of the best methods of teaching a lesson in physics, for example, is to re- quire the class to go through a large number of details in the collection of materials for a physical experiment and in the conduct of the experi- ment itself. Suppose that a seventh grade class is to be given instruc- tion in the making and use of the electric battery. The children may be required to get together with a great deal of difficulty and pains the materials necessary for the construction of the battery, — the glass jar, the copper and the zinc, the wire, the acids, and so on ; then they are told in the class to make the proper connections with the various bat- teries so that the current may ring an electric bell. After a great amount of trouble, and no little expectation, the wiring is completed, but the bell does not ring, and the class ends with the experiment unsuccessful. When we are told that this sort of a result is the one to be desired, and that the child will be taught by his first failure to see his mistakes and to profit by them, we may question the legitimacy of such a conclusion. The very fact that the whole procedure has been unsuccessful, and that the children have no real knowledge of why it has not succeeded, since they have not sufficient acquaintance with the principles of electricity to narrow the field of their attention to the essential difficulties with which they are confronted, causes a confusion and misunderstanding which is Applications of the General Principles 25 not likely to be cleared up by their own investigations. It is probable that eventually the teacher will be obliged to point out to them their mistakes and to suggest the proper remedy. It is by no means certain, however, that the children will carry away from this experiment a sufficiently comprehensive knowledge of the right method and the prin- ciples underlying it^ to compensate for the great loss of time and the possible erroneous conceptions which may grow out of their failures. If in the first place the teacher had provided the pupils with the materials and had directed the children carefully in their manipulation of these materials, the initial result would have been successful, and a great sav- ing in time would have been achieved. It would then have been possi- ble for the class to follow out the method of the teacher with a clear understanding of the aims, means, and results. To compel the pupil to follow out the roundabout method of trial and error in gaining knowledge is to put him on the level with the animal, which cannot learn through instruction and intelUgent imitation, but which can succeed only after repeated failures and many trials in arriving at a simple and habitual series of reactions. The fault of generalization from a large mass of par- ticulars that cannot be readily mastered and unified is again illustrated in some of the methods in the 1 1 i_ Danger of teaching of history that have been recom- university mended and practiced in the higher grades and methods in ^ , 1 • , 1 1 elementary in the first years of the high school course, and second- Among the gravest errors here is the attempt "g^^*"'""" to bring university methods down to the period of later childhood and early adolescence. Such methods are continually advocated. For example, in the report of the Committee on Methods of Teaching and Study of the New England Teachers' Association, among many excel- lent suggestions, we find the following, which for the age in question is distinctly unpedagogical;! " The raw material should be put before the student, he should organize it for himself, take his own point of view, draw his own conclusions, formulate his own statements. The teacher appears only as a guide and critic." The Committee of Seven likewise recom- mends that the pupil get ideas and facts from various books and put 1 See/ourMoi of Pedc^gy, XIV, pp. 130-140 (igoO- 26 The Learning Process these facts into new form as a mental training. Now, while it seems quite possible that such a method of comparison and analysis may have a value for older pupils in the high school, it can have no other effect than to add confusion to the already confused minds of the younger pupils. Akin to this fault is the practice of sending pupils to original sources of history on account of a supposed greater attractiveness and value of these sources, or because of a desire to train the pupil in methods of historical investigation. " Collateral reading," says the re- port of the Committee on Methods of the New England History Teachers' Association, " should be done as largely as possible in the sources of history, for such reading reveals to the student the inner spirit of the age, puts him in sympathy with its people, shows him their ideals and their aspirations as well as their achievements." Equally un- pedagogical are those texts, once somewhat in use, that are composed largely of quotations from original sources connected by a meager sen- tence or paragraph of the author's compiling. The fundamental error lying behind all these methods is found in the assumption that the child, with his limited viewpoint and slight powers of attention, can gain from a large mass of material the results which have been obtained by the deductive and inductive methods of mature mind.^ We have already seen that through curiosity and play, nature has provided a means whereby the organism is en- Theeduca- ^^"^^^ to adjust itself to a future environment, tive method It is the province of education to do consciously and systematically that which the natural in- stincts accomplish on a lower level of learning. Apart from these instinctive factors, the only education that nature afEords is an adjustment to an environment, immediate and present, an environment that "selects" without real choice, and plans without conscious "purpose." 2 This en- vironment works by favoring those variations in an or- ganism which are best fitted to enter into harmony with the immediate external conditions. Other variations may be ideally more worthy or better adapted to a future environ- ment, but that is not the test applied. The future suitable ^ See Bagley's " Educative Process," pp. 276-277. 2 See discussion in Educational Review, XXIX, pp. 510-515 (1905). Applications of the General Principles 27 and desirable must always yield to the present necessary. In a primitive society the individual possessing the latent capacities for a superior intellectual and moral attainment might readily be crowded out of existence by competitors whose only claim to survival was mere brute force. The environment asks no questions concerning the future de- sirable. The organism that survives must be efficient in the present and the present alone. How far a natural environment differs from that to which education should seek to adapt the individual needs scarcely to be set forth. It is the future environ- , , . , , ■ , The envi- ment that education, whether it be practical or ronment to theoretical, material or spiritual, must consider. ^^!^^ ®^"" ^ cation seeks How often does it place the child out of har- to adapt the mony with the present, in order to secure his "* "'^" " adaptation to the future non-existent and ideal. If the test of immediate adaptability were brought to bear, the gamin would be better educated than the schoolboy. The dog is trained by an immediate environment to do a few things well, interpreted in terms of that immediate environment. The child should be educated to do many things well, inter- preted in terms of a future environment. The adjustment demanded in the learning process is not an adjustment to a brute fact, but to a world of meaning, present, yet re- mote, real, but also ideal. It should further be remem- bered that perfect adjustment for the human being is no longer the criterion of adaptation and survival, as it is in all nature below man ; for perfect adjustment would mean stagnation, and finally intellectual and moral death. Since the adjustment demanded in the higher learning processes is so largely a future adjustment, educational values must have as their final justification an ideal. So the philos- ophy of education must first formulate its ideal before it can discuss intelligently the problem of adjustment, either from a normative or a historical standpoint. Would not the Spartans have agreed that education 28 The Learning Process is adjustment to environment, if you had allowed them to define that environment in terms of their ideal, mil- Educational itary prowess? The Athenians, too, would ideals of have consented on similar terms, insisting that periods of the true environment was not only physical, but history. intellectual and aesthetic as well. Plato would have found such a definition in harmony with his philosophy, but would have told us that we should not confuse a real environment with this world of shadows. We should rather prepare the youth for association with the world of changeless and eternal ideas, for Plato the sole reality. The Epicureans, as well, would have found no fault with the conception of adaptation, but would have insisted that the only environment to be considered is the one giving hedonic enjoyment. Likewise the Stoic would have con- sented, but would have told us that the environment to which we are to conform is our highest self, objectified in a world of pure reason. The Neo-Platonist, so badly ad- justed to this world that he sought in the Beatific Vision to escape it, would have been quite content to subscribe to the terminology of adaptation, but he would have under- stood by it adjustment to the InefEable One. And so the Christians of the Middle Ages would have agreed, with a similar thought, that the true environment is to be found in a world beyond. Education in terms of adjustment would have meant to the Renaissance, in its revolt from mediaevalism, adjustment to a present world, not of cold facts, but of aesthetic realities ; and so on through the list, until we come to our own time, with its exaltation of prac- tical utilitarianism. Education is always adaptation, but it is to an ever changing environment, determined by the meaning which the conscious idea gives to this environment. The mistake must not be made of supposing that the child can be prepared for this future ideal environment, ex- cept through the present environment. Therefore, for- mal education, like the unsystematic education that the Applications of the General Principles 29 environment imposes on the individual, must make use of those capacities for adjustment already present in the indi- vidual. It must select from the various reac- Education tions present those that should be preserved or musrmSe modified, and should not expect to create any chfld'!*^* absolutely new adjustment. The future envi- capacities, ronment to which the child is to be adjusted may be entirely incomprehensible to him in his present stage of develop- ment. We have already assumed that the aim of education is social efficiency, and the child is to be educated toward this efficiency. In the last analysis no education can jus- tify itself which does not tend to make the child a more helpful and better member of society. It by no means follows, however, although some educators and theorists seem to have made the assumption, that the child himself can be made to understand the nature of this aim, and to be stimulated by it in his school work. Very often, prob- ably generally, the immediate ends that spur the child on to his highest endeavors in his school environment, are of a different nature. The social efficiency which he compre- hends is of a much narrower and less exalted type than that which education has as an end. The child who is socially efficient from his own standpoint is the one that succeeds in his school activities, and in competition among his fellows in his play and work.^ The spirit of competi- tion may bring about beneficial results when systemati- cally applied to school methods. The old-fashioned spelling match, which, doubtless, at one time was carried to an excess, had much to commend it for this reason. Its judicious use as a school exercise is not without value to-day. The matching of one room against another, like- wise, has a stimulating effect and tends to arouse and maintain interest. The mistake has been made of assuming that the 1 Compare in this connection Chapter IV and Chapter XIX. JO The Learning Process interests which dominate the social organism and which appeal to the child as a part of this organism are exclu- The chad's sively practical, particularly in the narrower eco- interests nomic sense of the term. It has already been shrefy ° "" pointed out that curiosity and play are impor- seifish. tant factors in the education of the child and of the brute as well. Curiosity of the intellectual type often becomes a motive for the child's endeavors, just as truly as it does for the adult's. Further than this, the spirit of play, when introduced with proper precaution into the school exercises, is a stimulus to the child. Play gives incidental instruction in a variety of ways when properly devised. It is a valuable aid to drill, and by means of difTerent plays the form of presentation may be varied, while the essence of that which is taught remains the same. This prevents monotony, which is often the greatest evil of drill, and which may make the effect of repetition, after a short time, negative.^ 1 An example of incidental instruction through play is to be found in " the spelling game" in the first primary grade. The teacher writes on slips of paper a dozen or more words and arranges them, face upwards, along the chalk trough of the blackboard or some other convenient place. One of the children is told that he is to find the word is (spelled out by the teacher) from the list of words that have been previously written and arranged. He is sent out of the room for a moment while the words are arranged, and then comes back to search for the proper word. As he moves about trying to find it, the children clap, softly if he is far away from the word, and louder if he is near it. When he finds the word, they clap with all their might. He picks it up, spells it out, and pronounces it, handing it to the teacher. The game is continued with other children, and in this way a number of words are learned so that they can be recognized when seen, and also can be spelled out. In this connection may be mentioned the classic instance of education through play, as portrayed by Dickens in " Oliver Twist." "There, my dear," said Fagan. "That's a pleasant life, isn't it ? They have gone out for the day." "Have they done work, sir ? " inquired Oliver. " Yes," said the Jew ; " that is, unless they should unexpectedly come across any when they are out ; and they won't neglect it if they do, my dear, depend upon it. Make 'em your models, my dear. Make 'em your models," tapping the fire-shovel on the hearth to add force to his words : " do every- thing they bid you, and take their advice in all matters — especially the Dodger's, my dear. He'll be a great man himself, and will make you one too. Applications of the General Principles 31 Play, as the expression of the dramatic instinct, may be made service- able in the study of literature. The dramatization of "Hiawatha" and similar poems is a case in point. The presentation by the older pupils of some of the plays of Shakespeare, or perhaps better, parts of them, is always sure to secure interest, and aid in the understanding of these plays. Curiosity should be legitimately stimulated whenever possible. The school readers should contain stories that have a genuine interest for the child, and which tempt him to read beyond the extent of the day's lesson. In assigning lessons, it is possible for the teacher to make suggestions that arouse the curiosity of the child, and call his attention to the important aspects of the assignment. We have already seen that mere sensory experience is insufficient to give a world of objective reality. Every completed experience involves an adjustment. The sensory motor arc must be traversed. This portance eeneral principle is of fundamental educational °* s^'^". o r r ^ expression. significance. In the last analysis it means that there must be some form of self-expression on the part of the child if any real learning is to take place. This does not, of course, necessarily mean that the child must be required to execute with his hands, although various forms of industrial training in the grades and secondary if you take pattern by him. Is my handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear? " stopping short. "Yes, sir," said Oliver. " See if you can take it out, without my feeling it, as you saw them do when we were at play this morning." Oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen the Dodger hold it, and drew the handkercTiief hghtly out of it with the other. "Is it gone ? " cried the Jew. " Here it is, sir," said Oliver, showing it in his hand. "You're a clever boy, my dear," said the playful old gentleman, patting Oliver on the head approvingly. " I never saw a sharper lad. Here's a shUling for you. If you go on in this way, you'll be the greatest man of the time. And now come here, and I'll show you how to take the marks out of the handkerchiefs." Oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman's pocket in play had to do with his chances of being a great man. But, thinking that the Jew bemg so much his senior, must know best, he followed him quietly to the table, «.d was soon deeply involved in his new study. 32 The Learning Process schools are chiefly to be emphasized for this reason rather than for their practical significance. The child should be required to do something in connec- tion with all the subjects of the curriculum. For example, in literature he should be required to express the classics which he studies orally, with understanding and sympathy ; in nature study he should collect specimens and care for plants and animals. Map drawing and clay modeling are interesting and instructive activities which are extremely useful in the study of geography. In number work the pupil should be given actual problems to solve, and con- struction work shodftd be made an essential part of the study. There is no aspect of education so abstract that it is entirely removed from the possibilities of self-expression. It should, however, be remembered that this expression should be something which naturally inheres in the subject matter, and not something which for pedagogical purposes is artificially attached to it. Such artificiality should never be encouraged ; in the end it defeats its own purposes. CHAPTER III REFLEX-ACTION, INSTINCT, HABIT The simplest activity of the nervous system is repre- sented as due to a stimulus affecting an end organ, travers- ing a sensory nerve to a specific brain center The relation or centers, and then transferring itself to a mo- of con- tor nerve that innervates a muscle and results in to'reaer* an adjustment. Angell defines a reflex activity activity, as one " in which a muscular movement occurs in imme- diate response to a sensory stimulation without the in- terposition of consciousness." As Angell points out, consciousness may be aroused in connection with this reflex activity, but this consciousness does not initiate the activity, nor in any way control it.^ The consciousness is purely incidental to the activity itself. One of the sim- plest examples of reflex activity is found in the pupillary reflex. The retina is so constructed that varying intensi- ties of light act as a stimulus that increases or decreases the size of the pupil. Here we have an entirely unconscious adjustment, both in the sense that there is no conscious control of the pupil, and also that the individual himself is unaware, except by indirect means, that the adjustment is taking place. When the child puts his hand out and touches the glowing stove, he draws away his hand in a purely re- flex manner. In this second case, however, although con- sciousness does not control the act of drawing away, the child is presumably conscious of the movement that he has made. Simple reflex activities of such a character as above described do not require the intervention of higher nerve centers in their activities. 1 See " Psychology," 4th ed.; revised. New York, 1908, p. 337. D 33 34 The Learning Process Beside the simple reflex activities, which are primarily executed in the lower nerve centers, there are other activi- ties of a n on- voluntary type that function either The nature , , . i i • r r ^i of impulsive at birth or anse later m the hfe of the organism, activities. ^^^ which are not due to experience. From the simple reflexes may be distinguished the so-called impulsive activities, the origin of which is to be found within the body and which are not due to external excitation. Changes in circulation, digestion, and the like, and modifications within the nerve centers themselves may be responsible for the expression of these activities. The squirming, cry- ing, and kicking of the infant are, in a large measure, the expression of activities of this sort. The most complicated sort of non-voluntary activities are the instinctive. A confusion is made by some authori- . . ties between the simple reflex and the instinc- Instinctive . ^ . activity dis- tive expressions. The distinction between them ^m'sta^ie ^® rather a matter of degree than of kind. In- reflex ac- stinctive activities, as has already been said, are ■ complicated in their nature. The simple reflex activity involves relatively few paths of stimulation and dis- charge. The instinctive activities, on the other hand, may in- volve many coordinated and interrelated paths, issuing finally in some purposive reaction. Simple reflex activity is often unaccompanied by consciousness, while on the other hand the instinctive activities may have a large conscious ac- companiment, which is necessary not for the expression of the instinct itself, but for the direction of various details in the complex process. For example, the nest-building ac- tivity of the bird is purely instinctive, and is in no way the result of previous learning ; yet the visual and other expe- riences which arise in the actual building of the nest are necessary in the details of its construction. The general direction of the activity is, nevertheless, entirely independ- ent of these experiences. In the nest-building activity is found also a third distinction that exists between the Reflex-Action, Instinct, Habit 35 simple reflexes and instinct, namely, that in the latter there is a degree of emotion, while in the former the affec- tive, or feeling element, is for the most part absent. An instinctive activity may then be defined as a group of reflexes organized toward some definite goal and accompanied in their expression by a conscioics correlate of more or less clearness, and attetided by an affective tone of greater or less intensity. Where the simple reflexes and impulsive activities leave off and the more complicated instincts begin, it is difficult to say. No two writers would probably agree upon any definite line of demarcation between simple reflex activity and instinct. Indeed, as has already been pointed out, some give the name of instinct to practically all non- voluntary activities furnished to the organism through inheritance. While it has not been possible to determine with more than relative accuracy the instinctive tendencies and in- terests of human beings, certain general facts of significance to education seem reasonably most impor- well established. The most important instincts tant human instincts, from the standpoint of the learnmg process, some of which have been discussed in another connection, are the following : — Fear, anger, sympathy, affection, play, imitation, curios- ity, acquisitiveness, constructiveness, self-assertion (leader- ship), self-abasement, rivalry, envy, jealousy, pugnacity, clannishness, the hunting and predatory instincts, the mi- gratory instinct, love of adventure and the unknown, superstition, the sex instincts, which express themselves in sex-love, vanity, coquetry, modesty, and, closely alhed with these, the love of nature and of solitude, and the aesthetic, the religious, and the moral emotions. The above list does not pretend to present all of the human instincts that have been cited at various times in the literature on the subject. Nevertheless, it is fairly com- prehensive. A more difficult problem than the enumera- 36 The Learning Process tion of important instincts is raised in connection with their classification. The foregoing enumeration has pre- sented the various instincts somewhat in their tiin oftte genetic order, i.e. in the order of their develop- instincts jjjgjjj. jjj the life of the child and adolescent. from the 1 ^ j: • genetic There is a general agreement that fear is among standpoint. ^^^ earliest instincts to appear, both in the child and in the race. Anger, and rage likewise, show themselves at an early period of development, while sympathy and affection appear somewhat later. The play instinct in its most primitive form, together with imitation and curiosity, are fundamental instincts. The more distinctly social instincts follow in time these earlier tendencies. The sex instinct, both in its direct and in- direct forms of manifestation, does not appear in its com- plete expression until the onset of puberty. Another classification of instincts divides them into egoistic, altruistic, and mixed forms. Fear, anger, self- assertion, rivalry, envy, pugnacity, and the like altruistic clearly center themselves in the individual that instincts. gives expression to them; while sympathy, affection, and the higher moral emotions belong to the class of altruistic tendencies that have regard for others. Of the other instincts, several at least have both egoistic and altruistic aspects. This is true, for example, of sex- love, and even of the religious instincts. Still a third classification of instincts groups them as personal and impersonal. The personal instincts center around human beings, and, through a natural andim- extension, animals as their objects, while the personal impersonal instincts express themselves in instincts. . . . relation to inanimate objects. Among these latter may be mentioned the love for nature and solitude and the appreciation of artistic products. A few of the instincts discussed above do not easily fit into any of the foregoing classifications. They have been Reflex-Action, Instinct, Habit 37 termed the adaptive instincts. They include play, imita- tion, curiosity, acquisitiveness, constructiveness, and are the most important of all the instincts from the standpoint of the learning process, since, as we tive Ui-*''" have already seen in the case of play, their ^*'"'=ts. peculiar function is to adapt the organism to its environ- ment in advance of its actual needs. In this connection the thoroughgoing classification of Kirkpatricki may be mentioned. He gives the following : — (i) Individualistic or self-preservative, expressed in securing food, avoiding danger, and in fighting enemies and rivals. (2) Parental or racial instincts, expressed in sexual reproduction and the care of the young. (3) Social instincts, expressed in cooperation among the various members of the group. (4) Instincts in the higher animals and in man that are correlated with these principal groups, including the adaptive instincts (play, imitation, and curiosity) and many specialized instincts such as the constructive and collecting instincts ; the aesthetic instinct ; leadership, teasing and jealousy ; the expressive instinct, a special form of the social instinct that leads animals to make sounds indicating their own bodily or mental states, " and further results in man in the creation of art and literature, and the regulative instinct that manifests itself in its highest forms in moral and religious behavior." Not all reflex and instinctive activities with which the organism is equipped through its inheritance are functional at birth. Some appear at certain periods during g^^^^^ the development of the individual. One of these, appearance at least, the sexual instinct, shows relatively ° ""^ slight evidence of its existence until puberty, and many others are delayed for some time. The infant, for example, during the first weeks of its life generally shows no evidence of fear. Yet without any reason, as far as the environment is concerned, he develops what sometimes amounts to a state of terror in the presence of strangers. There are many other examples of fears that, as HalP believes, are 1 "Genetic Psychology," New York, 1909. 2 " Childish fears are among the very oldest elements of the soul, and the fact that they do not fit present conditions, but do fit a past environment so well, is the basis of some of the strongest arguments for psychogenesis." " Adoles- 38 The Learning Process due to racial experience, and not to any learning on the part of the individual, which appear at various stages in the life history of the child. Curiosity, imitation, and play are instinctive activities which are not present at birth, and a large number of other similar expressions make their appearance from time to time without any definite reason as far as the experience of the individual is concerned. In connection with the principle of the gradual appear- ance of instincts must be mentioned another fact which is of great educational importance, namely, that must be instincts, when they appear, if they are not given maneu^^'^' ^^^ proper environment for their expression, through may pass away without ever becoming established expression. ^^ habits in the life of the organism. As has often been pointed out, the instinct for following a moving object develops in the chick at a certain time after its emer- gence from the shell. If the chick, however, is kept in confinement, and does not have the stimulus of the mother hen, or some other object to call this instinct into play, the tendency to follow will gradually die out, and later on it cannot be taught to the chick. In the third place it should be borne in mind, that reflex and instinctive activities, while they are directed toward Variability Certain ends, are more or less variable in their of instinct, application. For example, the chick, a short time after emerging from the shell, will perform the definite coordination of pecking at a grain placed on a piece of white paper. Here there is an activity due to the light stimulus from the object falling upon the retina of the chick, with the transmission of the stimulus to the higher sensory centers and its subsequent transference to the motor nerves,- which transference results in the proper muscular adjustment. However, the chick soon learns through experi- ence to distinguish between those particles which are pleasant cence," II, p. 371. See also "A Study of Fears," Amer. /our. of Psychol., VIII pp. 147-249 (1897). ' Reflex-Action, Instinct, Habit 39 and suitable for food and those which are disagreeable. Thus the instinct, which formerly was general, has been so mod- ified as to be applied only to certain kinds of objects which the chick sees. In a similar way the human infant, after the first few months of its development has a ten- dency to pick up and put into its mouth any object that comes conveniently at hand. Through its experiences, however, it after a time learns the difference between candy and a quinine tablet, and modifies its instinctive reaction accordingly. In the fourth place, instinctive and reflex activities can be modified, and, perhaps, if not too fundamental, entirely eliminated, by bringing them into competition ... . - .1 ^ T^ Modifica- with other activities of a similar nature. l flour to be made of beans, oats to grow on facts. oaks, bread to be swelled yeast, trees to be stuck in the ground by God and to be rootless, meat to be dug from the ground, and potatoes to be picked from trees. Cheese is squeezed butter, the cow says 'bow-wow,' the pig purrs or burrows, worms are not distinguished from snakes, moss from the 'toad's umbrella,' bricks from stone. ... So that, while no one child has all these misconcep- tions, none are free from them and thus the liabilities are great that in this chaos of half-assimilated impressions, 1 In order to avoid the errors arising through suggestion and emulation of children questioned in large groups, " four trained and experienced kinder- garten teachers were employed by the hour, to question the children in groups of three at a time. About sixty teachers, beside the four examiners, made re- turns from three or more children each. . . . From more than twice that number, two hundred of the Boston children were selected as a basis," for the tables drawn up. Shortly after the publication of these tables Superintendent J. M. Greenwood of Kansas City tested six hundred and seventy-eight children pf the lowest primary class in that city; forty-seven of these were colored. Nature of Perception in the Child 85 half right, half wrong, some lost link may make utter non- sense or mere verbal cram of the most careful instruction, as in the cases of children referred to above, who knew much by rote about a cow, its milk, horns, leather, meat, etc., but yet were sure from the picture book that it was no bigger than a small mouse." Hall summarizes the result of the experiment as follows : "(i) That there is next to nothing of pedagogic value, the knowledge of which is safe to assume at the gun^nary outset of school life. . . . (2) The best prep- ofHaU's aration parents can give their children for good •=°"'='"s'°"*- school training is to make them acquainted with natural objects, especially with the sights and sounds of the coun- try. . . . (3) Every teacher, in starting with a new class or in a new locality, to make sure that his efforts along some lines are not utterly lost, should undertake to explore carefully section by section children's minds. . . . (4) The concepts which are most common in the children of a given locality are the earliest to be acquired, while the rarer ones come later." To this summary should be added the fact that children form many of their ideas from the most absurd verbal analogies, and have behind them practically no concrete notion of the significance of these ideas. Further, that in their ideas of natural phenomena they are strangely anthropomorphic and mythopoeic. God lights the stars so that he can see to go on the sidewalk or into church. When people die they are slung up into the sky, where God catches them. Thunder is perceived as God groaning, or kicking, or rolling barrels, or turning a big handle, or grinding snow, talking aloud, and so forth. Lightning is God striking many matches at once. He keeps rain in heaven in a big sink or a big tub or barrel. God lights the stars with matches, or blows them out.* 1 The account of Hall's investigations were first published in the Princeton Review, Vol. II, pp. 249-272, May, 1883. It was later reprinted as a sep- 86 The Learning Process In 1880-1884 Dr. B. Hartmann* made similar tests in the Annaberg schools. The results obtained do not differ greatly from those reached by Hall. The great Annaberg advantage of the Annaberg investigation over experi- that of previous experiments lies in the fact ments. . that it was contmued for five years. Hartmann found that the per cent of known concepts varied enor- mously in accordance with the field from which the questions are chosen; for example, only 128 children knew what a triangle was, while 564 were familiar with the circle and 1056 with the globe. Meumann,^ commenting on this, says, " we see from this that the triangle is not psychologically the most simple and best known figure, as Herbart falsely assumed ; the logically simple is not necessarily psychologically simple and elementary." Still other experiments have been carried on in later years by Superintendent Seyffert in Zwickau, who con- Children cludes that pictorially represented objects are not interpret the nearly as well known as objects of concrete per- new in terms of the ception, and that it is the tendency of children °i*' to hold their perceptions to the known and to distinguish the new and exceptional in terms of the old. Meumann concludes that this is both a pedagogical advan- tage and disadvantage. The advantage consists in the fact that the teacher can connect the new with the old in developing the child's perceptions. The disadvantage is to be found in the fact that the new is often conceived in terms of the old, and is not comprehended in its essential qualities. Therefore, the pedagogical rule of always bringing the new into connection with the old has its dangers.^ arate monograph, and still later in a volume of essays by Dr. Hall, entitled " Aspects of Child Life and Education," Boston, 1907. ^ " Die Analyse des Kindlichen Gedankenkreises als die naturgemasse Grundlage des ersten Schulunterrichtes." ^ " Vorlesungen," Band I, p. 144. 'This danger is illustrated by a reply made by several pupils in a class in Greek history, when asked what advantage the possession of certain islands was Nature of Perception in the Child 87 In 1898 J. Olsen made a study of 5600 pupils in Varde, Denmark. Hall, who reports this study in the article by him previously cited, says : " Some of the misconceptions of children were remarkable, mentson Some know moving, but not stationary clouds. O'sen's Very much that passed under the children's eyes every day was not noticed. School work must be built upon a very poor foundation of clear ideas. The fact that children see objects a hundred times without acquiring consciousness of them suggests that we need to converse with children about the commonest things." Under the direction of Meumann during the school year 1 903-1 904 Dr. Engelsperger and Dr. Ziegler, teachers in the Volksschule in Munich, carried on an exten- „ * jjg . sive experiment similar to those above described, ences in the The results showed great differences in the per- of ^mmt™^ ceptions of country and city children, and ac- and of city cording to Meumann clearly prove that the city *^ '^°' children as often as possible should be taken into the country and the country children into the city, and further that we should be careful in selecting the materials for our instruc- tion to keep in mind the differences in the stock of ideas that these two different classes of children possess.^ Some of Meumann's most important conclusions from these various investigations are : The happenings in the home life of the child are those things which he Meumann's knows the best. Those things which he learns of summary of in his wanderings about are known much less of various exactly. Those things which the child does not experiments. handle are less familiar to him than things which he does handle. The tools with which his parents or the servants work are less familiar to him than the tools with which he to the Athenians in their naval operations. The statement was made that these islands served as coaling stations. The Spanish-American War was then in progress. ^Meumann, op. cii., pp. 154-155. 88 The Learning Process works. Those things for which the child has interest are much better known than things for which he has no inter- est. Things which arouse feelings of unpleasantness seem to be better known than things which arouse pleasurable feelings. In general there is a great paucity of perception in the child of six years. It is uncertain, unsystematic, and lacks penetrating analysis. It is filled with an imag- inary completion of the gaps of perception, and contains gross verbal inaccuracies. Meumann considers the dictum entirely wrong that Biblical history and fables are the proper materials for the first school years. The child lacks an understanding of the temporal relations which- lie at the basis of all history, while his tendency to form analogies, to draw on his imagination whenever neces- sary and interpret his perceptions subjectively, make the myth and fable unsuitable material for the beginning school years. On the other hand, the emphasis of con- crete instruction by the use of models and natural ob- jects is a sane one. This last statement is doubtless too extreme. The value of myth and fable will be discussed later. Since perception is the interpretation of the present sen- sory stimulus in terms of past experience, the possibility arises that such an interpretation may be wrong, are neither Sensation could be neither true nor false. As mere true nor sensation it would simply exist. On the other ceptions*^' hand, the perception goes beyond the present may be true sensory experience, and is implicitly a construe- or ffllsc • • tion m terms of a mental content that has been acquired. The mere sensation of redness would be a real- ity, whether it were due to an external stimulation or to some activity confined to the retina ; the perception of an externally red object, however, may be valid or not in terms of the objective or subjective nature of the stimulus. It makes no difference to the mere sensory experience what the nature of the stimulus is ; it does make a difference. Nature of Perception in the Child 8g however, in the interpretation of this experience, that is, it makes a difference in conduct. There are two varieties of false perceptions, namely, illusion and hallucination. The difference be- Distinction tween these as ordinarily given is that the iJetween , . 1 , . T . . illusion and former is due to the inadequate interpretation hailucina- of an objectively existing stimulus, while the **°°- latter is due to a false interpretation arising from purely subjective causes, no objective stimulus being present. For example, on a foggy day, objects seen through the mist often assume gigantic proportions, the reason for this being that under ordi- nary conditions an object casting the same sized retinal image and possessing the same indistinctness of outline would be much farther away than it is in reality under the unusual atmospheric conditions. Since it is judged as being farther away, it also is judged as being larger than it actually is. An external stimulus is present, but it is not accurately interpreted. The example of an hallucination is found most clearly in cases of mental disease where the patient, for example, hears voices that do not exist or sees forms not visible to other eyes. The above distinction between illusion and hallucination is not, however, an entirely valid one. In the first place, the hallucination is not generally due to purely subjective conditions, and the difference between nion dis- it and illusion seems to be a matter of degree, tinctionnot rather than of kind. The person who sees a mirage on the horizon and interprets it as a city near at hand, has, indeed, an objective stimulus which sets up the illusion ; but the person who hears imaginary voices plot- ting his destruction finds also a stimulus for his halluci- natory experience in certain sounds objective to the ear. Even the unfortunate victim of alcoholic mania, who con- strues his heightened retinal circulation into horrible objects in the external world, has as a basis for his hallucination, not a stimulus outside his body, but, nevertheless, one that is objective to the centrally aroused nervous processes. The distinction between illusion and hallucination is pragmatic or practical, and in the last analysis is to be go The Learning Process found in the interpretation of these false perceptions in terms of a wider experience. An illusion may be defined Th tru ^^ ^ normal false perception (that is, a false distinction perception which ordinary persons would experi- is practical. ^^^^ under similar conditions), which does not agree with the more extended experience of the individual or individuals experiencing the illusion. An hallucination, on the other hand, may be defined as an abnormal false perception (that is, a perception which the mentally sound individual would not experience under similar conditions), which does not agree with the experiences of healthy minded individuals in general. The individual who ex- periences an illusion discovers the fact by trying out his perception, and finding that it does not work in his wider experience. For example, a system of mirrors may make a bouquet of flowers appear to be resting in a vase, when in reality it is in an entirely different position. To all normal people this illusion would be present. If the per- son who experiences it, however, puts forth his hand to grasp the flowers, he finds nothing that answers.his touch. His visual experience is not consistent with his tactile ex- perience. The two parts do not fit together, and he, there- fore, judges, since the tactile experience is less often deceptive than is the visual, that he is subject to an illu- sion of vision.^ The test for an illusion, then, is within the circle of individual experience ; the test for an hallucination, under ordinary circumstances, is to be found not primarily within the individual's experience, but within the experience of the group. The test for both is in terms of wider experi- ence, but the wider experietwe of the individual is not suffi- cient if the individual does not conform to the social group. ' Macbeth saw the "air-drawn " dagger with the drops of blood, and was clearly the victim of an hallucination. He might have put forth his hand and touched the dagger, for it is quite possible for the abnormal person to expe- rience an hallucination that appeals to several senses at the same time. The test of the reality of Macbeth's experience would be found in the fact that others would not have seen the dagger if they had been in the room with him. Nature of Perception in the Child 91 In the last analysis, then, we find our criterion of a false perception one of adequate adjustment.. The relation of false perceptions to the learning process is an important one. The significance of hallu- xwo types cinations, however, belongs to abnormal psychol- "* illusions, ogy, and, therefore, does not concern us here to any extent. With illusions, it is a different matter. Illusions, generally speaking, may arise from one of two causes, or from both together. An illusion may be due to an unusual set of con- ditions in connection with the object of the illusion, or to a strong sub- jective tendency, which leads to the interpretation of external conditions in terms of the subjective bias. As an illustration of an illusion of the first class may be cited the common laboratory experiment which con- sists in crossing the two middle fingers of the hand and then testing on the surface of these fingers, so crossed, the discrimination of distance between two compass points, one touching the first of the crossed fin- gers, and the other the second. If the subject of this experiment is blindfolded, or is in any way prevented from having a visual experience of the test, and an assistant manipulates the compass points, it will be found, almost invariably, thai the shorter distances between the points are judged greater than the longer distances. This illusion is caused, as can readily be seen, by the fact that the crossing of the fingers has exactly reversed the ordinary conditions on which the discrimination of the compass points is based. An example of an illusion of the second type is to be found when a person is expecting a visit from a friend. Under such conditions persons, perhaps but slightly resembling in voice or appearance the friend expected, are perceived as that friend. It is obvious that in this second class of illusions we more nearly approach the hallucinatory perceptions discussed above. When this subjective tendency of interpretation reaches a sufficient degree of intensity, we may easily pass from the illusion to the hallucination. In the patholog- ical " fixed idea " we have a case in point. It is with this second case of illusion that the learning process is most concerned. It may readily be seen that here we have an example of the aim of the con- Necessity of scious process entering in very largely to deter- cultivating mine the nature of the illusory experience. It attitude of is what we are strongly desiring or fearing that expectancy, we are apt, other things being equal, to experience, and 92 The Learning Process it becomes the business of the person who is directing his own learning processes or those of others to see to it that there exists the proper sort of expectancy ; in other words, that the ideas and aims of the thought processes are such as can be actually realized in a world of concrete real- ity. It is at this point that illusion and imagination have much in common, though, as it will be insisted on in the following chapter, an imaginary experience is to be kept distinct from an illusory one.^ Methods of The most obvious pedagogical applications instruction to be deduced from the facts that have been must call forth activ- discussed in the last two chapters may be sum- ities. marized as follows : — I. Since adjustment to the object of sensation is necessary to assure real experience and genuine learning, it follows that school methods must be more than merely passive in their character. They must call forth some activity on the part of the child. For this reason there is great danger, particularly in college and university work, of overemphasiz- ing the lecture method. To remedy this defect the quiz, the written recitation, free discussion, and laboratory methods should be introduced whenever possible. In the elementary school, where these methods cannot be used to so great an extent as in higher education, the pupil should be called upon to react in definite ways to the materials of instruction. If, for example, the teacher desires to acquaint the child wit'h the distinction between various colors, it is not suffi- cient that he should simply present these and call the pupil's attention to them. The pupil should be asked to match and compare them, to arrange them in the order of his preference, and so on. There are countless ways in which the child may actively express himself in his school work, 1 Illusions are particularly likely to arise with school children, their strength decreasing with the age of the pupil. It is also true that imagination of a certain type, as will be pointed out later, loses its importance in the child's life as he grows older. Nature of Perception in the Child 93 and the skilled teacher will be able to make the proper application of this principle of adjustment in all the sub- jects of the curriculum. 2. The sensory experience which the child should obtain in his elementary school instruction must be integrated and finally fitted into a system of meanings. The The experi- teacher should never rest with furnishing his enceofthe . . . Z, child must pupils With mere concrete instances. From be meaning- the very beginning, the facts that the pupils '"'• acquire should be grouped together in terms of their signifi- cance in relation to the subject matter as a whole. 3. Since all learning is based on sensory experience, it follows that the learner must have the possibility of receiv- ing: this crude material knowledge, if he is to , , , „ , ° . , ., , Children develop properly. Sensory defects in children should be must be systematically discovered, and remedied systemat- -' . -' ically tested as far as possible. to discover sensory While skilled specialists must be employed for aa accu- defects, rate diagnosis of eye and ear defects, rough tests of a preliminary nature can be made by the teacher or the school nurse. Tests for eye defects due to errors of refraction can be made with the ordinary Snellen cards. These cards should be placed in a good light, and the children should be tested singly, standing or sitting at some accurately measured distance (for example, twenty feet or six meters), from the test card. Each eye must be tested separately, as there is often a marked difference in the acuity of the two eyes. If the child can read the line marked twenty at the distance of twenty feet, his acuity is expressed by the fraction f J or i ; if, however, he can read no line above the one marked thirty, his acuity is f§, or two thirds normal. If there is but slight difference in his two eyes, and if they are not mark- edly subnormal, the errors of refraction are probably of slight conse- quence. However, a child who has but one half or one third vision in one or both of his eyes is under considerable strain when he is reading small print or copying from the blackboard at a distance. This strain may eventually work disaster, not merely to his eyes, but to his whole body as well. Allen says: "Thousands of upper grade children and college students are dieting for stomach trouble that will last until the eyes are relieved of the undue and unrecognized strain.'' In testing for astigmatism, Verhoeff 's astigmatic chart or some similar device is to be 94 The Learning Process used. 1 Visual tests may also be made for muscular insufficiency (het- erophoria), color blindness, discrimination of brightness, color dis- crimination, and the like. A simple test to determine auditory acuity may be made with the watch. Each ear is to be tested separately, and the watch is to be removed until the threshold of audibility is reached. The room in which the test is made must, of course, be quiet, and the child must further be tested to determine that he is not imagining that he hears the watch tick. This can be accomplished by covering the watch with the hand in such a way that the sound is deadened. If the child then asserts that he hears the ticking, it is evident that he is supplying the lack of sensation with his imagination. Auditory acuity may also be determined by the whisper test, by tuning forks, or with elaborate instruments such as Seashore's audiometer or Lehmann's acoumeter.^ If marked visual or auditory defects are discovered by any of the tests employed, the child should be examined by an oculist or aurist. Whenever a child is found that is particularly dull or stupid, the simple sensory tests for vision and hearing should at once be re- sorted to, as it is possible that the entire defect lies in these organs of sensation and is not more deeply seated. 4. It must be remembered that while in the elementary school the adjustment that is required of the pupil is erenerally to some immediate and concrete situ- The danger . of dwelling ation, it does not follow that all adjustment too long on needs to be of this character. In the hisrher the concrete. forms of the learning process the adjustment 1 The most elaborate and careful description of these tests for sensory defects as applicable to school conditions is found in Whipple's " Manual of Mental and Physical Tests," pp. 128-187. 2 All of the above tests are outlined by Whipple. Kirkpatrick, in the Psycho- logical C/««iV, III, pp. 96-97 (1909), gives a description of asimple whisper test for auditory acuity that may easily be applied by the teacher under ordinary school conditions. As many as fifteen children may be tested at once, by placing five each in the two outside rows and the middle row of seats. The pupils are supplied with pencil and paper. The teacher, standing on the right opposite the middle pupil, pronounces in a low, distinct tone, and also in a low, distinct whisper, a series of numbers that they are required to write. After four or five numbers have been given in a low tone, and also a similar number in a whisper, the children change seats, and the test is continued. Standing at the left, opposite the middle pupil, the teacher repeats the test for the left ear. The record obtained shows the auditory acuity of each child as compared with that of his mates. Nature of Perception in the Child 95 must take place on the plane of ideas. There are dangers of dwelling too long on concrete material. More and more the individual who is to be educated must acquire the capacity of passing from object to symbol; from the habitual adjustment to the interpretation of the environ- ment in terms of meaning.^ There has been manifest recently, in certain quarters, a tendency to insist that all the instruction in the primary and grammar grades should be based on material of a concrete sensory character. With the younger children this insistence is, doubtless, wise. The child in the first grade may be taught to add and subtract by performing these operations with splints or blocks ; he may be made to comprehend the relative values of weights and measures by actually employing these; for example, he may learn that two pints equal one quart by pouring water into a quart vessel from a pint receptacle. It is, how- ever, nothing more than ridiculous to insist that this kmd of instruction should be continued indefinitely. It is true that primitive man first learned to count by using his fingers, but he never could have arrived at any general notion of number relationships if he had remained in this first stage of concrete learning. When we are told that algebra should not be taught in the higher grammar grades, because the pupil is thereby kept away from the concrete material that arithmetic affords, we must dissent. Whether the introduction of algebra into the grades is wise or not, its retention or elimination is not to be determined on the superficial basis of the opinion that the child is not ready to grasp the abstract and symbolic in the eighth grade. 5. The meager, vague, and inaccurate perceptions pos- sessed by the child suggest the necessity of determining, as far as possible, systematically the range of ^^ ^j.j, experience that each pupil has on entering the should be school. Tests of this sort for older pupils have ^^3"^™*' been used by Whipple and Kirkpatrick. Simi- instruction lar methods adapted to younger children could ^Jhome '° advantageously be employed in testing the chil- environ- dren in the primary grades. The investigations "^°'' recorded in the earlier pages of the present chapter indi- cate that city children should be, in part, educated by 1 Hall (" Adolescence," II, pp. 462-465) emphasizes the value of abstrac- tion and the dangers of dwelling on concrete material. 96 The Learning Process means of those materials that are familiar to country children. The attempt that is now being made to link the elementary nature study with the rudiments of agri- culture has its chief economic value in the country school ; on the other hand, the educational significance of this material is perhaps greater for the city child than for the country child, since through this material the former is given a new perceptive basis. It should further be remem- bered that a knowledge of natural objects and phenomena is not sufficient material for education in the modern complex social environment. The country child in parti- cular should know something about industrial and social facts; have an acquaintance with machinery, and gain some knowledge of those activities with which the city child is familiar, but which are relatively uncommon in the rural life. 6. Since the child is more suggestible than is the adult, The desira- ^^^^^ ^^ interprets the world in a more subjec- biiity of five and personal manner, and is thus open to fable and iHusion and misconception in a marked degree, myth in the the problem of the place of the fable and the grades. myth in the grades becomes an important one. This question naturally belongs to the chapters immediately following, and will be discussed in its appropriate place. CHAPTER VII GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF IMAGINATION The term " imagination " in its popular sense often con- veys a different significance from that which it has when em- ployed in psychology.^ In everyday language it is not uncommonly used to describe an im- not^f "j. °° practical state of mind given over to illusion priciousact and the contemplation of uncertainty. From ° "°'^' this point of view the world of imagination is a realm of shadows divorced from contact with vital living and fruit- ful thinking. Such a conception as this is unfortunate, be- cause it is not true, and has caused no little confusion in the discussion of the desirability of imagination in the mental life of the child and the use of imagination as a means of education. A very little reflection, however, should convince us that imagination (if we mean by it anything more than the wildest phantasies of the abnormal mind) has, even in its form of free productive creation, a very firm grasp on the real universe. What psychology means by imagination is quite simple. To illustrate, before me as I write is this manuscript. My knowledge of its presence is due in part to imagination rays of light existing in the physical world as refers to .. . . , , i 1 i sensory Vibrations m the ether and conveyed to my eye, objects where they are focused on the retina and there- not immedi- . ately pres- upon affect the cortex of my brain through the ent to the excitation of the optic nerve. This nervous dis- senses. charge is correlated with a state of consciousness that may be described as seeing the paper which I have before me. 1 A considerable amount of the material appearing in this chapter has al- ready been published by the writer in various articles in the Psychological Re view, H 97 98 The Learning Process Through other senses, also, there come other reports of the presence of the manuscript. I touch it ; I hear the rustle of its pages ; I recognize that it has weight when I lift it, and so on. The knowledge that comes in this way through the direct presentation of an object to the senses, and the interpretation of that object in terms of past experience, is, as we have already seen, perception. Now, if I lay the manuscript on the table and shut my eyes, it is no longer present to the senses as an object, but it still may exist for me as a memory image. My mental state of perception is then changed to one of imagination. In this change there is no question of reality or unreality, of truth or delusion, but of immediate sensory presence, or the lack of such sensory presence. The object of my imagination has an external reality, and is not merely subjective and individual. When I imagine the manuscript I have not set into opera- tion a capricious, individual fancy. I refer the imagined manuscript to a world external to my passing, momentary thought, just as truly as I refer the perceived manuscript to this same external world. Various attempts have been made to define the mental image, and to distinguish it from sensation and perception. . . The attempt to arrive at such a distinction by andpercep- classing the mental image as unreal and the tion not to percept as real has invariably resulted in failure, be distin- ' , . . ^ . , guishedin and has no justification, as has been shown terms''"^*'*' above, in experience. A number of writers have attempted to distinguish between image and percept in terms of the functioning of the end organs and the nervous system. This is a favorite distinction, employed by many reputable autiiors. Miss Calkins,! for example, says : " The physiological basis of imagina- tion differs from the physiological basis of perception, in the first place, by the lack of excitation of the peripheral end-organs, retina, taste- bulbs, and the rest." Miss Calkins further states that " all elements of 1 "Introduction to Psychology," p. 187. General Characteristics of Imagination 99 the sensory image are centrally stimulated." Stetson ^ likewise defines the memory image as the appearance in consciousness under voluntary control of images without any sensory stimulus. James ^ says in a similar vein, " In common cases of imagination it would seem more natural to suppose that the seat of the process is purely cerebral and that the sense organ is left out." Granted for the moment that these and similar distinc- tions between imagination and perception, based on the activity of the end organs and cerebral centers, xhe impos- are valid, these distinctions are primarily of no sibility of value to the psychologist. Tke presence or thephysio- absence of excitation in the end organs and in the logical process central nervous system ts not something to be involredin directly observed, but rather to be inferred from """Elnatio"- the nature of the conscious process itself. There is no pos- sibility of determining directly just what physiological processes are occurring under such conditions. It is a dis- tinction in hypothetical physiological terms, and not in psychological terms. A more satisfactory attempt to define the mental image is from the standpoint of the experience as such. Fechner,* more than half a century ago, in drawing a dis- tinction between a mental image and a visual to describe** after image, described the former as indefinite, the mental washed out, and lacking corporeality. It pos- Jhrough sesses no sharp boundaries, and is not easily introspective 3,llfl,lvsis held in attention. The distinction in general has been held by many psychologists, who seem to regard the mental image as a weak and indefinite sensation, differing from the actual sensation in degree rather than in quality. This, indeed, is the view of Wundt, who finds no absolute ground of distinction between image and sensation, and classes them both as the same kind of mental phenomena. Baldwin * says : " We are 1 "Types of Imagination," Psychol. Rev., Ill, pp. 398-411 (1896). 2 "Psychology," Vol. II, p. 10. 8 " Elemente der Psychophysik," II, p. 469. * " Handbook, Senses and Intellect," p. 147. loo The Learning Process aware in consciousness of no peculiar mark of revived states by which to distinguish them from percepts, except that they are prevailingly of less intensity. ... If we try to recall the taste of an orange, we seem to have a kind of after taste of the orange." Other writers, however, like Ziehen,^ hold that there is a qualitative difference between image and sensation. "The idea of the sun is therefore by no means merely a faded sun. It is not a difference of intensity between the idea and the sensation, but above all a qualitative difference. The sensual vivacity characteristic of every sensation, does not belong at all to the idea, not even in a diminished intensity." Both of these views possess, doubtless, a certain psy- chological justification; yet both cannot be a correct in- trospective description of the nature of the mental image as distinguished from a sensation. It is true, as Wundt points out, that there are border line phenomena in which the distinction between the image and the sensation is at a vanishing point. Such states occur when the sensation is very weak or the image unusually vivid. On the other hand, it seems evident that ordinarily, in most sense departments, there is an actual qualitative difference be- tween the mental image of an object and a sensation of the same. For example, I cannot persuade myself that my mental image of middle C or of the taste of an orange is merely a weakened sensation of the musical sound or the taste of the fruit. In my ordinary experience, my mental image of these objects has so little likeness to the actual sensation that I can find no qualitative resemblance. On the other hand, my memory of the color violet is quite like my actual sensa- tion of it. It seems probable, then, that we have certain mental images, especially in the field of vision, that quite closely resemble the actual sensation in the same sense department ; it also is apparently true that there are other experiences which pass for mental images that have little qualitative resemblance with their corresponding sensations. It would then seem impossible to define a mental image either as a weak sensa- tion or as something sui generis. I " Introduction to Physiological Psychology" (tr. by Van Liew and Beyer), p. 152, London, 1892. Qeneral Characteristics of Imagination loi The most serviceable description of the mental image is not to be found in defining it as a weak, hazy, and indefi- nitely localized sensation, although often it may imagination take on this character, neither in defining it as defined, an absolutely unique experience, although at times (in- deed, perhaps, generally) it appears qualitatively different from the corresponding sensation. The definition which seems the most valuable, and which offers the least logical objections, while at the same time agreeing most closely with the verifiable facts of introspection, can best be stated in a functional way by defining imagination as that activity of consciousness in which an object of sensation is experienced as not being immediatety present to the senses. In other words, in order to have a genuine state of imag- ination there must be the direct experience of the object not being actually before the senses. If this experience is lacking, there is no true imagination nor true mental image. This definition at once gives a clear distinction between imagination on the one hand, and perception, illusion, and hallucinatidn on the other, a distinction which Thisdefini- psychology has often failed to emphasize, which ^°^ distin- failure has led to confusion and contradiction, between the The subjective test can always be made. If the cental experience comes stamped with that quality the false which functions for the immediate sensory pres- perception, ence of the object, then the experience is a perception, true or false ; if it is false, it must be classed as an illusion or hallucination, and never as an image. Whenever there is an immediate revelation of consciousness that an object is before the senses when it is not there, then there exists a false perception. It does not matter if the individual recognizes the fact that he is de- ceived. He may know, for example, that the lake which he senses as on the horizon is not actually there ; this knowledge does not do away with the illusory experience. Likewise the victim of an insane de- lusion may recognize the fact that his experience is false, but this again I02 The Learning Process does not remove the delusion. The mental image, on the other hand, has in the moment of consciousness that quality by which it is at once recognized that its object is not directly present to the senses. It makes no difference what is the physiological correlate of this mental image ; the origin of the experience is not the vital thing. The signifi- cance of the experience as a conscious phenomenon is that which is important. Its value is determined by its meaning, not by its origin. If we inquire more definitely what is the meaning of the mental image as distinguished from the meaning of the percept, we are obliged to state this distinction ence be- in the difference of the type of reaction aroused tween image by the image from that aroused by the object of and percept ... . X , , interpreted immediate sensory experience. On the whole, in terms of ^-jjg reaction to the object of immediate sensory reaction. ' ■' experience is more direct, definite, and sustained. This is evident when we compare the difficulty of hold- ing in attention the object of imagination and the object of perception. But, on the other hand, while the reac- tion to the object of imagination is indefinite and incom- plete, the meaning which the image has is more complete and satisfactory than the meaning possessed by the per- cept. The image fits into my total purposes better ; it has greater significance in my thinking ; it is more amenable to the law of purpose, since it is farther removed from sensation; it is less fixed and does not come to me so clearly from without, and it finds its place more readily in the total flow of consciousness. Still, since its origin is in a sensory experience, the choice which I exercise in its selection is restricted. It cannot transcend all experience, and must ultimately conform to the sensations which give it birth. No mental image is a mere creation of the in- dividual mind. As has already been said, it is not entirely capricious and arbitrary. It has relations to a world of fixed reaUties, and, although its object can be manipulated with greater ease than the object of perception, yet, in so far as it has significance, it must ultimately accord with General Characteristics of Imagination 103 the facts of an objective world. On the other hand, the object of perception must possess to a certain degree the characteristics of the image ; it, too, must, in general, find a place in the total flow of consciousness and be determined by the purposes of thought. At the two poles of experi- ence we have the object of sense and the image. The mere object of sense, as we have already seen, may be con- sidered as entirely without meaning, arbitrary, insistent, and present, whether we will it or not. It may come in at the most inopportune moment, as, for example, when a loud noise distracts our thought processes. But we never have in normal consciousness a mere sensation ; we have a per- ception, already partly tinged with meaning through previ- ous experience ; neither do we have a pure image completely separated from a world of sensory experience. TAe image is not absolutely spontaneous, but must conform to an envi- ronment of hard facts in which it finds its validity and jus- tification. The image does not need to relate itself so directly and immediately to this objective world as does the percept ; but the ultimate adjustment to such a world is necessary, if the image is to be justified. Flights of imag- ination have value only in so far as they can somehow square with facts. Like perception, their truth or falsity is to be tested out in the way in which they work. The great difference is that in the instance of perception the adjustment is immediate; in imagination relatively remote. However, eventually both image and percept must justify their existence in a realm of actual, concrete living. To the object of perception I must react now -. . ,,,-•!; T i. 4. Both image m a distinct and definite way. I cannot post- and percept pone the action; I cannot make the perceived must m into '^ 1 1 1 ■ r * world of object conform more completely to the aims of concrete my thinking. The object of imagination de- reality, mands no such complete and decisive action. I may sus- pend action ; I may reform the image in more ideal terms to suit a more ideal reaction ; but the postponement of my I04 The Learning Process reaction is merely a postponement. The two worlds, the imagined and the real, are not finally two worlds. Eventu- ally the imagined must be realized and the ideal must be made a part of my concrete achievement.^ If imagination, then, is so fundamental a constituent of reality, how happens it that the widespread notion of its unreal character should have arisen 1 The sons that answer is not far to seek. In the first place, haveied to imagination has been confused with illusion being con- and hallucination. These, as has been said, are sidered false in SO far as they assume an object present to the senses that does not exist. If imagina- tion is made identical with false perception, why, then, it naturally follows that it is unreal. In the second place, simple imaginary elements, in themselves representatives of concrete realities, are capable of combinations that do not correspond to any actual or possible experience. This complex of imaginative elements owes its existence to the so-called productive imagination, while to the recalling of single sensory experiences, not immediately present to the senses is given the name of reproductive imagination. Productive imagination may combine elements of past sensory experience into products utterly fantastic and absurd. Our images of a horse and a man are results of a reproductive imagination essentially real ; but when they combine into the picture of a centaur, they constitute a productive image to which our experience denies reaUty. It does not, however, follow that because these constitu- ents of the productive or creative imagination are unreal, all such images are. It would be a great mistake to assume that productive imagination as such were more unreal than perception. The test of the reality of any object, Tjuhether perceived or imagined, is its agreement with the wider experience of the individual and of society. This is 1 See Colvin, "The Nature of the Mental Image," Psychol. Rev., XV, pp. 158-168 (1908). General Characteristics of Imagination 105 essentially the criterion of adjustment referred to above. Why do I say, for example, that the centaur is unreal? Because I have never experienced such an animal, and because I believe no other being ever has or ever will. Surely the centaur is inherently no more fantastic than certain products of the imagination in whose reality I have the most firm belief. Let us take some of the almost contradictory animal forms of prehistoric times which the scientific imagination has*constructed. Do we believe they really existed .■' We do, because they fit in with the extended experience of those scholars who from a few scattered remains, here and there, by a rare feat of productive imagination have reconstructed these animals. Without productive imagination the greatest literary works of the past, the constructions of inventors, and the hypoth- eses of men of science would never have come to pass. Acceding to the common doctrine, there are as many kinds oi mental imagery as there are various sense depart- ments. Thus there are visual images, auditory images, tactile, temperature, and pain images, „ary doc- images of taste and of smell, as well as images *^^ °* r ■ , r r . r mental of organic movements and of movements of joint, types inade- tendon, and muscle (kinaesthetic imagery). It 9"ate- is, however, doubtful whether there are actual images without sensory accompaniments in any of the sense de- partments except vision and hearing, and even here, in many instances, what are termed visual and auditory images may have with them incipient sensations. When we turn to consider the images belonging to other depart- ments of sensation than vision or hearing, we find that their existence, apart from a direct sensory experience, is very doubtful. The recall of an olfactory or gustatory ex- perience without the aid of a present sensation is by no means established. In taste especially there are often present in the mouth actual gustatory stimuli that set up weak sensations and that may readily be taken for images. io6 The Learning Process Distilled water almost invariably gives the writer a bitter or a soui sensation, and in taste experiments with barely perceptible solutions, he finds it extremely difficult to judge whether these elements (bitter and sour) are actually present in the liquid tasted, or whether the taste is merely " in the mouth." Generally olfactory images are quite want- ing, unless there are some actual odors present that serve as a basis for the recall. Titchener^ has found that it is quite possible for him to recall various olfactory sensations while smoking a cigar, the odor of the tobacco furnishing a sensory basis for the revival. Slaughter ^ found that subjects who recalled certain tastes gave evidence of experiencing accompanying sensations in which movements of the tongue played an important part. With the attempt to recall salt there was a flow of saUva ; with bitter, a puckering movement of the mouth and setting of the muscles, with the movement of the tongue and an organic reaction. Sweet and sour likewise caused tongue movements. In the attempt to recall ammonia, Slaughter's subjects gave evidence of tension and feel- ing of irritation of the nostrils ; while with alcohol, the breathing was a little irregular. In the case of dermal imagery it seems highly prob- able that the suggestion of the experience is sufficient to initiate actual sensations arising from the skin ; Slaughter concludes " that the existence of dermal images in normal persons is extremely doubtful, and that the non-existence of the taste and smell images is practically certain." There is no way of determining whether the so-called organic images (experiences arising from the internal organs) are not organic sensa- tions. Indeed, it seems extremely probable that in most instances the sensory element is the chief part of the experience. It is likewise prob- able that kinaesthetic images are kinaesthetic sensations. There is ground for believing, therefore, that the mental image must be regarded in many sense departments as Mental arising in cannection with peripheral factors, images and that the mental image without these peri- voive"*' pheral accompaniments perhaps exists only in peripheral vision and hearing. However, it makes little difference if we hold strictly to our definition, namely, that a mental image is a state of consciousness in which an object of sensory experience is revived with the immediate knowledge that it is not present to the senses, 1 " Taste Dreams," -Amer. Jour, of Psychol., VI, pp. 505-509 (1895). 2 " A Preliminary Study of the Behavior of Mental Images." Same journal, XIII, pp. 526-549 (1902). General Characteristics of Imagination 107 whether the so-called images are accompanied by totally or partly weak sensations. If an image of bitter is suggested by a taste in the mouth, but is not experienced as a bitter object actually present to the senses, it is accord- ing to the above definition still an image, whatever its origin. If an image of a spoken word arises because of incipient sensations of move- ment in the vocal chords without the word being perceived as actually spoken, we have in terms of the above definition an image ; if an image of the color red is due in part or entirely to the physiological activity of the retina and is not accompanied by the impression that the red object is actually before the senses, there is no perception of the object, but rather an image of red. If we hold to this point of view throughout, then, we can maintain that there are images in connection with all sense departments. If, on the other hand, we define the image as an experience invariably arising without sensory accompaniments, it is probable that our imaginal experiences are extremely limited. A more important classification of images divides them into two main classes, namely, object-types and word-types.' To the object-types belong all concrete images object- of all sense departments, including motor types and images in which the ideational processes are in "^rmlntsT terms of imitative movements. Under the imagery, word-types are to be found verbal-visual, verbal-acoustic, and verbal tactile-kinsesthetic types. Examples of the various object-types are simple. The reinstatement of any concrete experience is in terms of the object-type. If I revive in imagination the appearance of a rose, I have a concrete visual image ; if I recall its odor, I have a concrete olfactory image ; if I recall the sensation of touching its petals, I have a concrete tactile image ; if I recall the prick of its thorns, I have a concrete pain image ; if I recall the movement that I make in drawing my hands away from the thorns, I have a concrete motor or kinaesthetic image. If, however, I do not recall the appearance of the rose, but merely its name, I have a verbal image ; if I recall the name as written or printed on a page, I have a verbal-visual image ; if I recall the name as spoken by some one, I have a verbal-acoustic image ; if I recall the name in terms of the movements of my throat in speaking it, I have a verbal-motor image. Verbal- ISee Meumann, oJ>. cil.. Vol. I, p. 449. io8 The Learning Process motor images may be of two kinds, namely, the verbal-motor images in connection with the organs of speech and the verbal-motor images in connection with the movements of the arms, hands, and fingers in writ- ing. The person who thinks of a word as he would write it has a verbal- motor image of the latter kind. Such images, however, do not normally arise without being accompanied by verbal speech-motor images. A simple test is sufficient to convince most persons of this fact. Attempt to spell a word merely by forming the letters with a pen or pencil, and you will find yourself, probably, either actually pronouncing the letters or reviving images involved in pronouncing them. The word-types of images, as can be readily seen, are symbolic ; they stand for concrete realities, which, however, generally are not revived in connection with the symbol. I may, it is true, when I image the word " rose," also think of the object for which it stands, but in most instances the revival of the concrete image with adults is not likely. Verbal or symbolic imagery is of the greatest importance in the more developed thought processes. It would be Symbolic impossible to carry on the higher thought proc- imagery esses without this Symbolic imagery, and in the to higher education of the child there must be a gradually thought. increasing emphasis on the symbolic aspects of thought. Nevertheless, these symbols, if they have any ultimate validity, must in some way refer to the concrete image for which they stand. When we say that a discus- sion contains mere words, we often mean that the symbols that it uses refer to no concrete objects in a real world of experience. For many, doubtless, the only image con- nected with " infinity " is the mathematical symbol which represents it. Whole treatises have sometimes been written that seem to contain nothing but meaningless symbols. It is evident that while verbal imagery is abso- lutely necessary in the learning process, still its abuse may be accompanied by very grave dangers. Besides speech-motor and hand-motor thinking, there is another type of verbal motor imagery that has been given General Characteristics of Imagination 109 but slight attention in psychological literature, but which, nevertheless, is probably of a great deal of importance in the more abstract forms of thinking. This type „ ° ■' ^ Dramatic of verbal-motor imagery may be called dramatic or mimetic or mimetic. In thinking in this type of imagery ™"sery. the person does not employ "inner-speech" (thought in speech-motor terms), but rather an inner sign language that carries the meaning often of abstract and colorless modes of thought. A few illustrations may make clear what the general nature of this symbolic mimetic imagery is. When the writer attempts to call to mind a series of words, a phrase, or a paragraph, or even a collection of nonsense syllables, his first ex- perience in the recall is not generally the revival of the words as such, but rather the emergence in consciousness of the background or setting of these words in terms of their general " drift," or meaning. There seems to be a certain rhythmical sequence in which these words appear ; an arrangement which is not spatial in its character in the sense that it represents the arrangements of the words on a printed page. It is rather a spatial arrangement in terms of the meaning of the thought processes. These meanings are represented by images of curves or zigzag movements, in which, often, there appears a sort of a plot, with a distinct rise to a climax, and perhaps a falling off at the end. This way of thinking comes out with great clearness for the writer when he is attempting to learn a series of nonsense syllables. If left to his own devices, he finds himself invariably attempting to arrange these, even when he studies them in successive presentation, in a sort of a sequence of movements which seem essential to their subsequent recall. The actual " mind-stuff " of these thought processes he finds in images which represent gestures, such as pointing, raising the index finger, curving the hand, or in more general symbols of bodily movements which may Involve a large variety of muscular adjustments. Such a sentence as this comes to the mind : " Infinity broods over all things." Immedi- ately with the words themselves, arises in consciousness a general motor symbolism. The symbolism for the word for infinity is found in the tendency to prolong the word in imagination, this prolongation be- ing accompanied by the distinct impression of projecting the word from the mouth, and then following this projected word, as it seems to float on out into space, with the body. There is an image of a forcible and continued ejection by the speech-motor apparatus and a bending for- ward of the entire body, setting itself as if for flight. There is no visual no The Learning Process symbol here, as, for example, of extended space or the limitless vault ot the heavens on a starlit night. The whole suggestion of unending space comes as an image of motor adjustment. The word broods brings an entirely different suggestion. Here the ideation centers in a distinct picture (motor, not visual) of outstretched hands, with the body bend- ing forward and downward. All is symbolized by a sensation or image of roundness in the oral cavity, and by an extensive gesture (not actu- ally executed, but merely represented) of an inclusive movement with both hands sweeping around and joining in front of the body. The symbol for things is the mental representation of a direct and sudden gesture, with hand extended and index finger pointing out and down- ward. It may be noticed from this description that much of this mimetic thinking is in the stage of what would correspond in the development of word language to the period of ideographs, in which the word-symbol suggests the concrete situation for which it stands. This is particu- larly true of the imagery in connection with the word broods. On the other hand, infinity and things are represented by imaginal elements in which the concrete has been almost entirely replaced by the symbolic. The fact is to be kept in mind, then, that besides speech- motor and hand-motor symbols, there are a large number General °f more general bodily movements that may be kinaesthetic imaged and which may symbolize concrete ob- imagery . , . . . , , . symboUzes j^cts and Situations, just as truly as the images actual of written and spoken words may represent the situations. ... , . concrete realities which they symbolize. This general kinaesthetic or mimetic imagery stands for actual adjustments to concrete situations. This type of ideation is what we might naturally expect. It must be more prim- itive than that type which employs the images of words spoken or written as symbols. In an earlier part of our discussion, it was maintained that a completed experience arose first through a sensation to which there was some kind of reaction or adjustment ; that a perception was more than a sensation or a group of revived sensations, and that it was fully set up only when completed by a reaction to the stimulus evoking the sensation. It would, therefore, be entirely natural to suppose that these general General Characteristics of Imagination III motor images are the symbols of actual concrete adjustment. They are, indeed, the images of a gesture language, a lan- guage earlier to appear and more simple than the word language. Thus m.imetic images are the deepest and most subtle things in our thinking. This view falls in with the current biological theories in regard to consciousness, particularly with the Pragmatism of James and the In- strumentalism of Dewey. These theories have made us familiar with the thought that the meaning of a situation is after all an attitude, and that an attitude m,ust in the last analysis be a motor affair. Thus it is but a step to the con- clusion that this general dependence of experience for its significance on motor adjustments has left a deposit or "mind stuff" that symbolically represents concrete situations, not actually present, but ideally represented. This mind-stuff may in many instances have lost entirely its original sig- nificance. In other words, the situation is no longer re- instated in terms of an actual concrete adjustment, but rather in the terms of the motor symbol of that adjust- ment.^ The above point of view has an important bearing on the question of imageless thinking that has recently been raised. A number of American and German General investigators have maintained that the higher imasthetic , , 1-1 • . 1 imagery and thought processes proceed without any imagmal imageless content whatsoever. On analyzing their ex- *i">"el»t- periences, when reasoning or judging, they do not find any trace of an imaginal background. If this is true, we have a separation between the higher and lower processes of intelligence ; a chasm which it seems difficult to bridge over. In the chapter on sensation it was maintained that our sensory experiences form the crude stuff from which all higher intellectual processes are constructed, and that sensation plus adjustment gives to the growing conscious- 1 See Colvin, " A Marked Case of Mimetic Ideation," Psychol. Rev., XVII., pp. 260-268 (1910). 112 The Learning Process ness of the child his first knowledge of a world of concrete objects. We have seen further how this primitive knowl- edge has developed into perception and has been revived through images coming from the various sense depart- ments, including those arising from the sensations of movement. It seems probable that the writers who have maintained that our higher thought processes are divorced from all imaginal elements, and thus in the last analysis cut away from their sensory basis, have ignored to a large extent motor imagery, and particularly that type of motor imagery which has been termed in this discussion mimetic symbolism,. If it is true that a considerable part of our thinking is carried on with this motor background, the importance of this type of imagery in the learning proc- ess becomes apparent. Its significance in connection with rational thought will be discussed in a later section.^ Miss Washburn ^ has arrived at a similar conclusion. She says, in discussing the "relational elements" of consciousness : "The signifi- cance of these, it appears to me, is the following. They are the rem- nants of remote ancestral motor attitudes, and they resist analysis now because of their vestigial nature. Take the feeling of ' but,' for exam- ple ; the sense of contradiction between two ideas present when we say, 'I should like to do so, but — here is an objection.' If we trace this back, what can it have been originally but the experience of primitive organisms called upon by simultaneous stimuli to make two incompat- ible reactions at once, and what can that experience have been but a certain suspended, bafSed motor attitude. Similarly with the feeling of 'if,' — '1 would like to do so and so, if a certain condition favors.' The primitive representative of this must have been the experience of an animal called upon to suspend all reaction until a definite added stimu- lus was given." A number of investigations have been made during recent years concerning the development of imagination from childhood to maturity and the various types of im- agination employed by different individuals in their think- 1 See Chapter XX. ^ "The Term Feeling," /««»'• of Philos., Psychol., and Set. Methods, III, pp 62-63 (1906)- General Characteristics of Imagination 113 ing processes. It was held at one time that individuals were of pronounced types in their ways of thinking. Studies of mental diseases seemed to emphasize the fact that certain persons thought in visual tjjng ^f ' images almost exclusively, others in acoustic, imaginai and still others in motor images. The doctrine as strictly of types, however, has more recently been, to a Jieldtoas considerable extent, abandoned. One of the most important discussions concerning the various types of imagery is that of Segal,^ who maintains that the conclu- sions reached by Charcot and others as to the existence of sharply distinguished types of imagery are not altogether correct. Segal observes that not all those who possess intense visual imagery see all the words that they employ in thinking. Indeed, such a type of thinking is exceptional, and a person may, as Meumann has pointed out, for one purpose think in concrete visual imagery, while for another pur- pose he may think equally well in acoustic or motor imagery. Indi- viduals apparently think visually concerning concrete objects, and in acoustic-motor terms when they employ words. For such reasons as these Segal concludes that the whole doctrine of distinct types is un- tenable and that the qualitative conception of types of imagery must be abandoned for a quantitative distinction. Most persons belong to a mixed type, and although they may possess greater vividness of imagery in one sense department than in others, they are not for this reason confined to one type of thinking. Further, it is not to be concluded because a person generally thinks in one kind of imagery that this is due to the fact that his imagery in that sense department is particularly vivid. It is evident that the majority of the perceptions which arouse our attention and are significant for us will be revived in that sense department to which they originally appealed. Segal further urges that a person may be visual for one kind of material and perhaps motor or acoustic for another, and, therefore, the type must be considered as relative to the material employed. Baldwin ^ remarks that for him " German is speech-motor and auditory, having been learned conversa- tionally in Germany, while the French which was acquired in school by reading and exercise writing is visual and hand-motor." Similarly 1 " Ueber den Reproduktionstypus und das Reproduzieren von Vorstel- lungen," Archiv f. d. gesamte Psychologie, XII, 124-235 (1908). 2 " Internal Speech and Song," Philos. Rev., II, p. 385 (1893). I 114 The Learning Process Dodge '■ reported that though he generally thought in words and pro- nounced these to himself, he at times thought in concrete visual imagery, as, for example, when he was planning a piece of apparatus. In this connection it may be said that in a series of experiments recently con- ducted in the psychological laboratory at the University of Illinois, it was discovered that the method of learning a list of words by one of the subjects observing varied according to whether the words were pre- sented in a regular or in a mixed order, in one instance the learner using visual images, in the other motor.^ Considerations like the above lead clearly to the conclusion that in most cases there are no absolutely fixed types of imagery, but merely predominating types for certain classes of sensory or verbal material. Investigations that have been conducted concerning the development of types of imagery seem to have established Young chu- ^^^ ^^^^ ^'^^^ young children think largely in dren think Concrete visual images, and that while auditory cmfo-etr ^"^ motor imagery are present to some degree, visual they play a relatively unimportant r61e in the ^* ^' lower school grades. The child up to ten, at least, is predominantly a visualizer. Concrete visual, and probably all concrete imagery, tends to fall off in the more advanced grades, its place being taken by verbal imagery. There is a great loss in vividness in concrete imagery in the higher grades of the common schools. The importance of motor imagery, both of the hand and of the vocal organs, appears to be less than has generally been supposed, al- though children think in speech-motor terms much earlier than they do in hand-motor terms. The apparent growth in auditory imagery as the child advances in the school grades probably is indicative of the increase of the verbal type of imagery, and its development may show the growing tendency to thinking in terms of inner-speech.* 1 "Die motorischen Wortvorstellungen " (Halle, 1890). "^ Edwina E. Abbott. " On the Analysis of the Factor of Recall in the Learning Process," Monograph Supplement Psychol. Rev., XI, No. i (1909). ' See Colvin and Myers. "Development of Imagination of School Chil- dren," etc.. Monograph Supplement Psychol. Rev., Vol. XI, No. i, pp. 85- 124. Also for an extended discussion of the whole problem, see Meumann op- cit., VoL I, pp. 435-497. General Characteristics of Imagination 115 The education of the child has much to do in determin- ing the particular type of imagery which he generally uses, and it is no evidence that the child is devoid ^he educa- of a certain type of imagery, because he does t'on of the not think in such terms. Nevertheless, constant much to^do disuse of a certain type may completely destroy ''•"• '•'^ the effective use of that type. imagery. Francis Galton,i in his celebrated investigation concerning mental imagery, found that men of science are singularly lacking in all concrete imagery. On. extending his inquiries more generally to persons of both sexes and various ages he found some possessed of extremely vivid vis- ual images, brightly illuminated, clearly outlined, and distinct and rich in coloring. That the men of science investigated by Galton did not possess such imagery was not due, probably, to any general difference in inherited ability, but merely to a difference in environment. However, while the average person is not strongly predisposed by heredity to any one particular type of imagery, there are cases in which heredity has played an important part. Men of genius have often possessed a very rich imagery of the concrete type. Great artists have been reported with re- markable visual powers ; musicians, with unusual ability to recall melo- dies, and so on. 1 " Inquiries into the Human Faculty " (1883). CHAPTER VIII THE PEDAGOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMAGINATION As has already been pointed out, imagination is often confused with illusion and hallucination. Further, it must The imagi- ^^ remembered that in its creative forms, imag- nation of ination often produces combinations that do not extremely accord with actual or possible experience. For vivid. these reasons the question of the value of imag- inative materials in the life of the child has been seriously raised. The child early in his life begins to combine past ex- periences into original mental products, and starts to weave a world of fancy that differs from the world of his ordinary experiences, sometimes in an astonishing degree. The study of the imaginary companions of children has revealed the fact that these companions sometimes make their ap- pearance as early as the third year. They are often the most vivid of realities ; they are distinctly visualized, have definite peculiarities, such as manner of dress and speech, and have well-marked moods and characteristics. They even con- verse with and aid those who have created them. Never- theless, if these companions are not actually confused with objectively existing personalities, they are still, according to the definition laid down in the preceding chapter, imaginary and not hallucinatory experiences. Imagination with the little child, however, may readily pass over into actual illu- sion or hallucination. Hall writes in this connection : — " In childhood credulity amounts almost to hypnotic suggestibility. Not only is everything believed, but the faintest hint starts the exuber- ant imagination to a vividness almost hallucinatory. This power to believe the false and even the absurd in infancy is not a defect, but ex- cess of psychic vitality. The narrow horizon of reality within the juve- nile ken is not enough, and the world of fancy and myth is needed to ii6 The Pedagogical Significance of Imagination iij supplement it. Never is receptivity so near to creative energy ; and this is why genius is defined as the preservation into mature years of the fecund mental spontaneity of childhood." Much of the mental imagery of the child resembles the fancies of our myth-making forbears. The clouds and the stars, the sun and the moon, the raindrops and the snowflakes, and other elemental phe- ^^i^. nomena are often explained by children in a cuity in dis- way that suggests the poetic conceptions of ^^e^he nature common to primitive peoples. For the fanciful and the real child, the forest and stream, the field and foun- tain, are filled with conscious beings. Elves, pixes, goblins, fairies, and gnomes often seem as real to the child as parents, brothers and playmates. They form an essential part of his wider world. Since the knowledge of truth and falsehood, of reality and delusion, depends on experience in which the present is found to agree with the past or to contradict it, it clearly follows that in his early years the child has no definite criterion by which he can test his world of images and distinguish those which refer to the actual or possible from those which represent the fanciful and contradictory. Thus it happens that the child is in- capable of distinguishing between the possible objective reality of the most fantastic experiences and of those which can readily be realized in his daily life. Further, since the child is open to suggestion to a marked degree, his images may result in manifold illusions, such as come to grown-ups only in dreams, hypnosis, or pathological conditions. The hallucinatory character of the child's experience often results in apparently intentional falsification on his part. Children's lies not in- frequently arise from the fact that the child is incapable of separating the world of fancy and of fact. The tendency to fable-making causes him to make statements that are completely at variance with the truth as judged from the adult's standpoint. Some years ago a teacher in the city of Boston asked the pupils under her charge to describe what they saw on their way to and from school. The result was, indeed, remark- able. The streets of Boston, from the reports of the children, resembled ii8 The Learning Process an African jungle or the country explored by Alice in Wonderland. It would be unfair to the children to describe their reports as lies, since these children had never had the issue of truth or falsehood presented in this connection. With young children intentional and deliberate falsehood is comparatively rare. However, at an early age habits of untruth may be formed in a perfectly innocent manner that in later life may rise to a plane of ethical import. The question of the extent to which an exuberant childish fancy may be allowed to go, therefore, be- comes one of moral as well as intellectual significance. The fact, then, that children possess more than adults the creative imaginative faculty; that they distinguish only , ^ „ . slowly and by degrees between the world of Intellectual . ^ , , and ethical imagination and perception, and that they are so ^the*""*^^ easily suggestible that an image may pass over imagination into a false perception, raises the question as to c en. j.j^g value of the imaginary world for the child and the proper attitude of education toward it. Should imagination be cultivated in children } And if so, in what direction should it be cultivated ; or should it be eliminated as soon as possible from the lives of the little ones, in order that they may better be prepared for the serious life which some day must come to them, if they survive the days of childhood and arrive at the development of adults .' There are not a few who would be inclined toward this second alternative. Fact is fact, and there can be no com- promise between it and falsity. So the teacher of history hastens to banish all such delusions as the existence of William Tell, and the instructor in science urges the un- reality of the nature myth and the fairy tale as explana- tions of events in a world of ordered phenomena. Like- wise, too, the professor of ethics may insist that truth is to be secured at all hazards, and that there can be no com- promise with falsehood. Hence Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk and even Santa Claus must go, for the child is to be made a moral being at all costs. Doubtless people of this turn of mind are not in the majority, and their num- bers are yearly growing less ; however, they are still heard The Pedagogical Significance of Imagination 119 protesting against the mass of myth and fairy tales that of late years haye been especially prepared for the instruction and entertainment of the child. Their point of view de- serves consideration and an intelligent answer. What reply can we frame to the objection that myth is intellectually and morally wrong because it is not true.? Our answer to this view of the case will be aided xhe nature if we consider again the position which we have °^ tiu^. previously set forth, namely, that reality and truth depend on the agreement of our present experience with our total experience and the experience of others. That which best fits into experience, which most uniformly satisfies the intelligence, is the truth; and since experience m,ust ever change, there is no truth that is absolute and that will stand the test of the ages. For later antiquity and the middle ages the system of the universe evolved by the Greek-Egyptian astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy, was true because it fitted the then known facts ; yet the wider experience of a later age made this view unsatisfactory, and the Ptolemaic system gave way to the Copernican ; but who will be so rash as to affirm that the latter gives a final point of view? The individualism of the eighteenth century proved a sufficient philosophy for Rousseau and the doctri- naires of the French Revolution ; it satisfied the framers of our own Declaration of Independence, but to-day it is giving way to a theory of social dependence that cannot find truth and satisfaction in what was once accepted as an ultimate statement of the nature of man. So, too, the mechanical atomism of the science of yesterday is no longer able to hold its place in the newer conception of the physics of to-day. We need not multiply examples. On all sides we see a significance in the statement now so often heard that a thing is true as long as it proves satisfactory and no longer, and that the quest for ultimate truth is an unending quest ; the search for a goal that always recedes ; a journey toward the rim of the horizon whose mystic borders we can never attain. So myth which satisfies the intellectual and moral needs of the savage is true for him, but false for us ; just as our science will be false for some future generation ; so the fairy tale of the child, which for him offers the most reasonable explanation of the world, is far more true for him than our adult conception could possibly be. Some day he will be an adult and will have put away childish things, but as long as he remains a child, he must think as a child, if he thinks at all. As his I20 The Learning Process experiences extend, he will slowly cast aside the fancies of an earlier day, now grown inadequate, but not so suddenly that there will be a jar or a break in the continuity of his reality. Think as I may, I can- not tell when Santa Claus became for me a reality of another order than that which my earlier imaginings had made the venerable saint. When I first learned that he had no place in this dull, prosaic world, I cannot remember. I am sure, however, that the change was not in the twink- ling of an eye. New truths come like the dawn, — first the pale auroral tints that brighten and broaden, and before which the stars and moon gradually grow dim and finally pass from view. But the stars and the moon lit the night and made the path clear. The myth-making period of childish imagination is neces- sary because it satisfies the childish conception of the world, and is, therefore, the true conception for him. This is the only measure of its value. If the fancies of the child become so unreal and extravagant as to place him out of harmony with his childish environment, then they are dan- gerous and valueless for him. It must not, however, be supposed that the creative fancy of children has no value beyond the early years of develop- ment. Child study teaches us one fact at least The value . , „ . ■' . , , . , of fancy in With sufficient Certainty, and that is that each tte adult* Stage of development is necessary for that which follows. Just as the gill slits in the human embryo, those worse than useless appendages for the child in his post-natal existence, serve a very necessary purpose in contributing to organs yet to be formed, so the mytho- poeic fancy of childhood enters into the adult experience in many subtle ways and enriches the life of the man. The fairy story of childhood still counts in the healthful fancy of grown-ups. Can we enter into sympathy with the great- est imaginative writers of the ages, if our early training has found no place for Grimm and Andersen, and others of the noble company of myth-makers? The slanguage that Homer and Virgil and Spenser and Shakespeare and Dante and scores of others of the past have spoken is jargon to him who has no understanding of the simpler The Pedagogical Significance of Imagination 121 obscure and forgotten masters, who in the folklore of the people of all times have left a world of rarest story for the children of ages yet unborn. In this humdrum world of ours, how the heart yearns for these oases of fancy in the desert of the real! But to drink from the sparkling waters is a privilege given only to those who have discovered the hidden fountains in the days of childish simplicity. A boy of nine who has outgrown his implicit faith in fairy tales, but who still finds in them a satisfaction for his emotional life, often says, " I wish they were true ; I wish that when you opened your mouth, gold would fall out of it. Wouldn't it be fine if just by thinking you could make castles rise in the air ^ How nice it would be if there were real giants that brave boys could kill and beautiful princesses who could be rescued from wicked witches and watchful dragons ! " I must confess that I sympathize with the youngster, and I am not ashamed that I still have a love for the fairy tale and the super- natural ; but this sympathy and love could not exist if at one time these tales had not been for me a genuine Weltanschauung ; if they had not constituted for me a realm of reality more satisfactory, and as sufficient as my present view of the universe. So when some child on hearing a story of wonder asks, half believing, half doubt- ing, " Is it true.? " I cannot with a clear conscience reply " no " ; for it is true in a sense which the little questioner does not comprehend. Indeed, as a mere intellectual proposition I am not at all convinced but that the myth world of the child and primitive man does not more exactly correspond to ultimate realities, than the mechanical uni- verse of the materialist filled with whirling atoms, but without purpose or design.^ As a corollary to the proposition that the creative fancy of the child is valuable as long as it adequately satisfies 1 See Colvin "The Child's World of Imagination,'' Proceedings of the Illinois Stdte Teacher^ Association, December, 1905. 122 The Learning Process the child's needs comes the equally true statement that when these fancies have become inadequate they should Mythopoeic "^ longer be insisted on. When the child has fancies outgrown his primitive ideas, he must be given always be something that better suits his needs. In the cultivated, work of the common schools there is per- haps little danger of violating this important principle; however, in the religious education of the child the mistake is often made of keeping him. in a world of the mysterious and impossible when his intellect cannot give assent to the m-iraculous and the supernatural. The result is that when the older child is instructed in those materials of religious education which were quite adequate for his simpler comprehension, he rebels against them, and, doubting the validity of these, questions the value of religion as a whole. Many tragedies in the religious life of children have arisen in this manner. It should further be kept in mind, as has already been said, that while a part of the child's early life is properly given over to myth and fancy, a considerable facts that part of it must be within a circle of exactness must know ^"^^ definiteness that cannot be departed from exactly. without Serious danger. Primitive man, like the child, was a myth-maker. He dwelt in a world filled with supernatural beings ; nevertheless, there were certain things that he was compelled to know exactly and accu- rately, if he were to survive in his desperate struggle for existence. He might believe that a mysterious god moved in the frightful tempest, spoke in its thunders, and revealed himself in his wrath in the flashes of lightning. But this same savage must know definitely how to make his spear and hurl it with accuracy against the savage beast or his more savage human enemy, if he were to survive. There could be no fancy, no myth-making here. So it is with the child. A large number of things he must know definitely and certainly, particularly those that relate to The Pedagogical Significance of Imaginaiion 123 the ordinary subjects of instruction in the schools. There can be no supernaturalism about the multiplication table ; myth should not enter into his spelling exercises. Fancy will not help in geography and nature study. For this reason it is to be doubted if those delightful animal books which have appeared in recent years and which give all sorts of charming but absurd attributes to real and mythical animals are not a positive danger in accurate knowledge. It is a fortunate thing, perhaps, that even with the child, the mind is, to a certain extent, built on the compartment plan. So it is possible to instruct the child accurately in one branch of knowledge and still to leave him a con- siderable play of fancy in others. It is the business of the educator to draw the line between those fields of instruc- tion which permit flights of imagination and those that do not. No absolute rule can be laid down, and it must be left largely to the common sense of the individual teacher to make the division. It must always be kept in mind, however, that while it is absolutely necessary for the highest enjoyment of the child and for his future development to have a vivid creative imagination, on the other hand, it is equally as necessary that he should con- form also to a world of solid and definite facts, with which he must count, if he is to succeed either in the mimic world of his school environment or in the broader activities of later life. In discussing the various types of imagination as they appear from childhood to maturity, the fact was pointed out that young children think particularly in ^^^^^■^^^^^ concrete imagery, in most cases largely visual, importance while later on they develop verbal imagery ^j""/"*^ largely of the speech-motor type, in which they verbal do their thinking. In connection with this fact ™*s®^- there arises the important educational problem of the rela- tive value of these two types and the proper emphasis that should be given them at various stages of development. 124 ^^ Learning Process Concrete visual imagery gives a vividness and objectivity to the thought processes of the little child which are en- tirely wanting in the life of the adult. At the same time this concreteness is, to an extent, incompatible with the more developed forms of thinking. It, therefore, is neces- sary to accustom the child to the use of verbal imagery. This the school does to such an extent that there is a gradual devitalization of the imaginal elements in the consciousness of the child. The gain in abstract thinking is of course incalculable, but the loss in vividness is a real one. It is specially important, if the child is to understand and enter into sympathy with various forms of artistic ex- pression, that he should be able to revive his concrete imagery whenever necessary. Some of the finest passages in English literature in narrative and descriptive prose and poetry have lost their real significance for the pupil of high school age, simply because they call up, not the living im- ages of the scenes and events which they describe, but mere symbols that have no genuine significance in the in- terpretation of the piece of literature that is being studied. As has already been said, the type of imagery which a per- son possesses is perhaps not so much a matter of inherit- ance as of training, and there seems to be no good reason why both types of imagery, the concrete and the verbal, should not be cultivated at the same time. There are cer- tain studies in the school curriculum that are particularly well suited to cultivate concrete imagery, and others to stimulate the symbolic types. Among the former may be mentioned literature, when taught in the proper manner, nature study, geography, and, to an extent, history. Mathe- matical studies, grammar, and the like, encourage the de- velopment of the latter type. It is the business of the teacher to insist in the proper place that the various school subjects shall be so studied that they shall stimulate the growth of both of these types. The fact that the concrete vis- ual imagination predominates over both auditory and motor The Pedagogical Significance of Imagination 125 imagination may be in part due to the native superiority of the first-named type, but is very likely to a considerable extent to be explained by the fact that the course of in- struction in the school tends from the very outset to emphasize the printed page. Here again in instruction in literature it should be remembered that the proper interpretation of the greatest classics depends as much upon auditory and Literary ap- motor elements as it does on visual. Children preciation , .- 7 demands are not required to read aloud enough, and if they concrete are requested to read before the class, this is imagery. often done in a slipshod manner. The teacher of literature, too, is often unskilled in interpretation, and so it happens that many of the finest pieces of prose and poetry make appeal to the eye alone. This is all the more unfortunate when we remember that the earliest forms of the communi- cation of literary masterpieces were oral and dramatic. The superintendent, in choosing a teacher of English for the high school, ought to insist, not merely on a knowledge of philology and on critical ability, but also on power to interpret and express the thought. Teachers of literature often emphasize a mere word-cram and mechanical memori- zation. Through this they aim to get definiteness and concreteness in the work of the pupil; they, however, lack definiteness as to their own aims in teaching litera- ture, and in the end they succeed only in creating a dis- gust on the part of the pupils for the literature that they study. Recently in school instruction story-telling has found a prominent place in the earlier grades, and there is an increasing tendency to give value to the dramatization of literary masterpieces. This tendency is certainly in the right direction, if it is not overemphasized. It is, how- ever, necessary to remember that there are certain fundamental ele- ments in the school work that cannot be ignored, and the attempt to enrich the course of study and to develop the various aspects of imagination should never be at the expense of minimizing the value of those elements which make up the rudiments of education. 126 The Learning Process The importance of kinsesthetic or motor imagery in the thought processes suggests that it may be cultivated to advantage. Education has recognized in man- portance of "^1 training, sewing, and studies of a similar kinaesthetic nature the desirability of developing concrete imagery. ,. ... , , ■ ^ 01 kmsesthetic imagery of a certain type, buch studies, however, cultivate kinaesthetic imagery only in one direction. A person may be skillful with his hands to an extraordinary degree, and yet have no power of expression in the use of words and be entirely lacking in general dramatic ability. The symbolic mimetic imagery which we have discussed earlier seems to be much more closely connected with dramatic interpretation than it does with mechanical skill. To cultivate this latter form of imagina- tion we cannot rely upon manual training and studies of a like nature, but we must appeal to the dramatic instinct more directly and seek to interpret pieces of literature and the like through drawing the pupil's attention to the mean- ing of this literature in terms of action. In conclusion it may safely be said that the greater the amount and variety of imagery at the disposal of a person, the richer and more valuable his thought proc- of imagery csses. Nevertheless, a high degree of speciali- ^um'''t''d zation may demand the limiting of the effective imagery used by the individual to one particular type. As previously stated, Galton found men of science to be practically without concrete imagery of any sort. /« the common schools, however, there should be no such thing as specialization, and a broad basis should be laid so that to the pupil shall be opened up that avenue of life along which he may journey with the greatest profit to himself and value to the community. No child should graduate from the common schools with his ability to imagine in concrete forms devitalized. He should have it in his power to revive visual experiences in as intense a manner as when he entered the primary grade. If he possesses a natural The Pedagogical Significance of Imagination 127 disposition, his auditory imagery should still be vivid, and the dramatic instinct which he showed normally in his childish plays should not have vanished. At the same time he should have acquired the power to think symboli- cally, and should have at his command hand-motor, speech- motor, and general kinaesthetic imagery. It is doubtful if specialization should come even during the high school course to any great extent ; but there should be develop- ment in the pupil's ability to use symbolic imagery, and at the same time a growth in the keenness of his powers to bring into existence through imagination the concrete experiences of daily life. CHAPTER IX MEMORY Memory in the widest use of the term is not only an essential feature of conscious life, but of all life as well, Memory as and even to a certain extent of inorganic nature, a funda- Matter is affected by the forces which play upon logical phe- it in such a way that it is permanently modified, nomenon. jj^ ^ certain sense such modification may be looked on as memory. As a fundamental biological phenom- enon, memory signifies the modification of an organism, by contact with its environment. In this way it lies at the very basis of the learning process, which has been described in its most general terms as the modification of the reactions of an organism through experience. This view that memory is a general characteristic of all organic material has been emphasized by various writers from time to time. It has been pointed out that those causes which act upon matter leave behind them dispositions or tendencies because of which a recurrence of the phenomena aroused by these causes is more probable with each succeeding repetition. The latest and most systematic attempt to de- scribe memory as an underlying principle of organic life has been made by Semon.^ Such a general point of view as this is, however, not par- ticularly serviceable in the discussion of memory as an essential element in the learning process. In a narrower sense of the word, memory as a conscious phenomenon signifies the modification of present experiences in term.s of past experiences. An example of this Memory as ,._ ...... . -i., ■. a conscious modincation IS found in perception. The object phenome- which I recognize is something more than the mere sensation of it, because of the experiences that I have already had with it. 1 " Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens," second edition, (Leipzig, 1908). Also "Die mnemischen Empfindungen," Leipzig, 1909. 128 Memory 1 2^ For example, I see before me a round object of a certain size and color. This visual stimulus I interpret, and I recognize a ball. In connection with this experience of the ball there are involved many past experiences, such as lifting it and throwing it and catching it. In a sense, then, my present experience is in part due to memories of past experiences ; yet these memories may not be revived in any distinct sense. I may not even have images of these past experiences clearly in my mind. Still the object which I see before me is an object con- stituted by past experience that has left its traces somewhere, and these function in my interpretation of the visual stimulus before me. We can restrict our definition of memory still more, and identify it with reproductive imagination. This is Miss Calkins's^ point of view in her most recent work. Memory as She says, " Relatively accurate and complete reproductive reproductive imagination is called memory." This ""^sm* °°" definition would seem to imply that if, for example, I see an orange, and there arises in connection with the visual sensation an image of the taste of the fruit, I have a mem- ory of the taste. Reproductive imagination then functions for the modification of the present experience in terms of the past, while productive imagination, as Miss Calkins points out, functions for the extension of experience into the future. She says, " By reproductive imagination or memory I hold the past ; and in creative imagination I reach out also beyond the limits of past and present. As a merely perceiving self I am bound to this desk, this room, this plot of ground ; but as a remembering self I live through once more, the exhilarating adventures and the beautiful scenes of my past experience, and as a creatively imagining self I am hampered neither by ' now ' nor by ' then.' I go beyond my own actual experience. I see visions, I dream dreams, I create new forms.'' Miss Calkins goes as far as to say " that all thoughts are based on memory." She adds, " I could not be conscious of chairs as a class, if I could not re- member different sorts of chairs which I have seen ; and I could not reason ... if I could not remember the values, once learned, of the different terms." It will be seen from the above discussion that Miss Calkins considers all images and ideas that arise through past experience as memories. 1 "A First Book in Psychology" (New York, 1910). 130 The Learning Process Memory may be defined in a still narrower sense. James says that it is " the knowledge of an event or fact, of Memory which meantime we have not been thinking with in the most additional consciousness that we have experienced restricted ' sense of the it before." In this restricted sense of the term term. jjig mere revival of memory images does not necessarily constitute a personal memory. When I see an orange, and at the same time recall its taste, I may, or I may not, recollect definitely that I have experienced that taste before. If I do not have the definite recollection of a previous experience, then, according to James, I have no memory of the taste. If, however, we accept Miss Calkins's of James point of view and make memory identical with and Calkins reproductive imagination, then, even some of contrasted. , ,. . ,.,,,,, the earliest experiences of our childhood that we cannot recall as individual experiences may appear as memory images. Ordinarily, however, we understand by memory what James implies in his definition ; 7tamely, the revival of a past experience with the definite knowledge that this experience belongs to the past. This restricted definition of memory is perhaps too narrow for us to consider ex- clusively in discussing the learning process, since a large number of experiences which function in the present mo- ment are never recalled definitely as past experiences ; nevertheless, they are most important in learning. When we speak of the revival of a past experience as the essential characteristic of memory, we must remember An experi- t^at an experience can never be revived in all ence never its details, and that the memory of it is not the revived in . ■" aU its de- mere reinstatement of the past. There is always t^'ls- something lacking in the memory, and there is always a difference in quaUty as well as in quantity. We must forever dispense with the nafve notion that the mind contains somewhere a storehouse in which the past is deposited and from which the past can be brought up Memory 131 unaltered. Images and ideas cannot be thought of as floating in and out of consciousness and maintaining an existence as conscious elements during the intervals in which they are forgotten. Memory must be rather considered as the functioning of present experience in such a way that it revives the past without actually reinstating that which in one sense has departed forever. It must further be borne in mind that to have an actual memory, time must have elapsed between the original experience and the revival, and that during this various interval the past experience has dropped out of degrees of consciousness. If, further, we accept James's ™*™"y" definition of memory, we must recognize that the accom- panying consciousness of an experience as past may range from a mere sense of familiarity to a detailed recollection in which events are put in their temporal setting and related definitely. It is doubtful if animals or young children ever have this latter sort of memory. Hall describes, in his charming style, his experiences on revisiting the home of his childhood and the various familiar scenes of his early environment. 1 His earliest memories of the objects which he saw about him are of the vague reminiscent type, characteristic of child- hood. In one place he says, " Often, as, e.g. while gazing eastward toward a dense swampy forest, where even yet an occasional bear or deer is killed in winter, or when coming upon cherry trees near a ledge, or visiting rocks beside which were two old maples, a feeling that I thought to be a glint of vague familiarity was experienced. On coming to a knoll upon a vast heap of stones near trees, I found myself articulating ' Why ! yes, of course, there was something like that.' ... ' The sudden smell of catnip, the gloominess of an old wall of black stones, a deep well beneath the kitchen, the abundant and peculiar moss on the ledges, were other things that brought a distinct sense of familiarity, but no trace of anything like memory. A deep wild gorge to the west of the level road, although quite hidden from it ; the stumps of three old maples on the east some distance from the house ; the slight slope of the front yard and that of a neighbor's, with a wellhouse, i"Note on Early Memories," Pedagogical Seminary, VI, pp. 485-512 C1899). 132 The Learning Process vaguely suggest reminiscence, but it is more a feeling of a strong and peculiar interest than any identification with past experience." In the discussion it is clear that Hall means by memory reminiscence in the sense in which James uses the term. In another place he says, " So with the rocky end of a knoll comes an almost imperative associa- tion of cows being milked by a woman." This, however, was not a distinct memory in the sense in which Hall uses the term, but rather an aroused image which might refer or not to some particular past experience. In the sense in which Miss Calkins uses the term, this latter revived experience should be given the name of memory, although no definite recollections are connected with the image. Examples of more definite memories are found in Hall's account in such descriptions as the following : " Yes, there was a tree here, a nutting place, a cow path, blackberries, a curious stone there, this was the old door hook which it is a certain pleasure to rescue from entire forgetfulness, the same old stone wall half torn away remains.'' Dr. Hall also cites memories of vague, shadowy fears that were revived through the sight of the objects which originally excited them. He says, " Several times, first on a dark, stormy, windy night, and last on a bright moonlit one, I undertook to wander through the village graveyard. ... As I approached it, there was a depressing sense of loneliness, which darkened down to a strange kind of fear. I found myself tense, anxious, expectant of something painful before these apprehensions took any form or had any object. Then I thought of ghosts and kindred wild scenery, that made me always, as a boy, run by this place after dark. As I forced myself to climb over the black fence under the pines and to touch a few of the nearest grave- stones, the nervous awfulness of it all increased." Hall concludes that memories before the dawn of adolescence are vague and incoherent. "Coherent and sequent memory does not begin until the child has reached the age of puberty." In discussing the nature of memory we should make a careful distinction between recognition and recollection. To recognize an object merely implies that we Recognition ^ . -^ - , , r\- . andrecol- react to it With a degree of famiharity, but it '^guUhtd' *^°^^ ^^^ ™P^y ^'^^^ '^^ ^^^^^^ definitely where we have previously had experience with this object. Recollection, on the other hand, involves, to a greater or less degree, recalling the experience or event in its original setting. We may, for example, recognize the clang of the trolley bell, but this does not necessarily imply that we Memory 133 recollect any previous occasion on which we have heard it. It further should be borne in mind that recognition does not necessarily involve imagination. On purely a priori grounds it has been held by many writers that recognition involves a memory image in connection with the object rec- ognized. An examination of one's consciousness during recognition does not by any means substantiate such a belief. I may, it is true, recognize the face of a friend, recalling in imagination previous occasions on which I have seen my friend. On the other hand, I may hear the clang of the trolley bell, and identify it accurately, yet I may be incapable of experiencing an auditory image, and may never be able in the slightest degree to recall the sound as an element in my past experience. Most of us have not the slightest diffi- culty in recognizing our acquaintances by their voices ; yet it is probable that a large number, perhaps the majority of individuals, do not possess the ability to revive in imagin- ation the distinctive quality of these voices. Recognition merely implies that we react toward an object of past experi- ence in an habitual manner. Many animals are capable of recognition in this sense of the word ; it is to be doubted, how- ever, if any but the very highest have the ability to recollect. The story is told that Odysseus, on his return from his wanderings after leaving Troy, was recognized at his home-coming by his faithful dog alone. It is not to be supposed, however, that the animal actually identified his master ; the action was merely spontaneous and habitual, and the accompanying mental state could have been nothing more than a vague feeling of familiarity. Memory easily lapses into mere habitual responses to familiar objects or events without any conscious conscious recognition. It is only when some doubt arises ; comparison when the ttabitual attitude is in some way inter- ta°te place fered with, that there occurs the necessity of recog- on habitual . , T , ,. • ^ • levels. nitton on the level of conscious companson. For example, as I am walking along the roadside, I see a wild rose, stoop, pluck it, and smell its odor. This I do with a very slight de- 134 The Learning Process gree of consciousness. The recognition involved in my reaction is on the level of the subconscious, but, nevertheless, whatever mental ac- companiment there is of my action is to be characterized as the recog- nition of the rose. I may, however, in my walk come upon a flower which I do not readily and subconsciously recognize, and to which, therefore, I do not react in the same habitual way as I did in the case of the rose. I may hesitate to pick the flower until I have identified it. In this event there will probably arise in my mind memory images of flowers of a similar nature, and the process may continue until I have identified this particular flower in terms of previous experience and through the aid of a memory image. We will see in a later discussion that such a mental process issues in what is termed a judgment on the subjective side and in a definite reaction on the objective side. The two basal elements in memory are impression and association. Impression can perhaps be treated best on Impression ^^^ physiological side, and is to be thought of as and asso- that capacity in the nervous system for receiv- ciation. . , . . mg and retaining experiences. Association, on the other hand, is best explained in terms of consciousness, and relates to the manner in which the elements in mem- ory are linked together so that they may be subsequently recalled. Manifestly, the first factor in memory is not to any large degree amenable to the learning process ; while the second element is modified and controlled by learning. James in his chapter on " Memory " distinguishes between desultory and systematic memory, making the former de- pend almost entirely upon the ability of the nervous system to receive and retain impressions, and the latter upon the ability of consciousness to join together in helpful ways the materials already deposited through past experience. James considers impressionability a matter predetermined through the inherited nature of the nervous system ; therefore, ac- cording to his point of view, desultory memory cannot be improved. It is only systematic memory that can be edu- cated. Some writers have identified memory on the side of impression with a purely physiological activity, and have termed the product of such memory, a memory Memory 135 after-image. In using this term they have had in mind the analogy of the purely physiological after-image, which appears as a continuance of the stimulation of an -end or- gan after the stimulus has been removed. For example, if we look for some time at a yellow disc of paper, and then turn our gaze away to a neutral gray background, we will see ap- pearing on that background the form of the disc that we have been look- ing at, but colored blue, the complement of the yellow of the stimulus. This effect is to be explained by the fact that after the stimulus of the yellow disc has ceased to affect the eye, still there is a continuation of the chemical processes set up in the retina by the original stimulus. In somewhat the same way, the impression of the object of memory is thought to continue and be revived without any other reason than the purely physiological activity due to a modification of the nervous sub- stance through the experience recalled in memory. There seems to be some doubt, however, as to whether we can have any recall whatsoever, without a certain amount of association. There have been dis- ... . Can recall cussions pro and con concerning this question, take place Those who hold to the possibility of such recall without '^ ■' associatioa ? point to the fact that things and events of past experience often come into the mind with apparently no reason in the flow of consciousness and the associations present in consciousness for their appearance. Certain bits of experience have the tendency to persist or per- severe^ and to come up from time to time in a haphaz- ard sort of a way. Indeed, they sometimes come up in spite of our conscious associations, in a most provoking man- ner. Most of us are, doubtless, familiar with Mark Twain's story of the senseless jingle, " A blue trip slip for a ten cent fare," etc., which persisted in the most provoking way and with the most disastrous consequences in the conscious- 1 " The tendency of past experiences to]reproduce themselves spontaneously, constitutes their tendency to ' perseverance.' The running of a tune in the head, the persistent revival of a painful scene, the reappearance of striking events of the day just before the onset of sleep — each is an instance of perse- verance." Myers. "Text Book of Psychology," p. 144 (London, 1909). 136 The Learning Process ness of those who had once learned it. Those who do not beUeve that it is possible for the bare memory image with- out associative links to intrude itself upon consciousness, maintain that these seemingly irrelevant and disjointed memory fragments do not occur without some reason. This reason is probably to be found in subconscious associations, which have worked themselves out in a perfectly definite way, though unknown to the person in whose mind they have been forming. That such subconscious associations seem probable is indicated in the investigations and theo- ries of many workers in mental diseases and in abnormal states of consciousness. Whatever the facts may be, it is entirely certain that a very large part of our effective mem- ory is based upon association, and education m.ust find its problem informitig the most helpful associations, so that the memories involved may be utilized in the most serviceable manner. It, therefore, is necessary if we wish to insure the recall of some fact or event to see to it that it is linked up with as many associations as possible. It seems probable that young children, and older ones of defective mental development, depend much more on impression than on association for recall. As depend the child grows older, the associative factor be- tamresSon ^omes of greater and greater importance. This, thanasso- of course, means that the memory material is ciation. interpreted more and more in terms of mean- ing, and that the mere " brute fact " as such has less and less significance. Writers on memory, particularly James, have empha- sized the distinction between total and partial recall. Total and Some events are recalled with their entire set- partial ting, while others are recalled only in skeleton ^^ • outlines. Of course, it is absolutely impossible to recall every minute detail of a previous experience, so that total recall, in the strictest sense of the word, does not exist. Nevertheless, for practical purposes we may Memory 137 speak of those experiences which are revived in all their minutias as examples of total recall. Obviously, it is not desirable to recall many experiences in this way. Such recall is asked for generally only from witnesses on the stand, or persons attempting to give an account of happen- ings where the smallest details may be extremely signifi- cant. Generally speaking, it is the mark of a well-ordered mind to omit the unessential details. Often the difference between the effective and the poor story-teller lies in the fact that the former knows what elements to select to bring out the point that he has in mind. The latter, however, lured by the multiplicity of details, wanders about and arrives nowhere. As the individual grows more mature and as his thought processes become more controlled by an intent or purpose of his own, he passes from total recall, or attempted total recall, to systematically planned partial recall. The earliest form of memorization demanded of school children is learning by heart, where every detail is supposed to be reproduced. As the child grows older he is not required to learn in this mechanical way, but is supposed to select those materials for memory which are the most valuable in terms of the ends for which he is memorizing. For effective memory we should not burden ourselves with the unessential. We should learn the art of forgetting judiciously. Meumann ^ distinguishes four different kinds of memory, namely, memory of sense perception, including visual, auditory, taste, smell, touch, temperature, and Fourkmds motor memory — also memory for spatial and of memory temporal relations, likewise memory for totalities guished by of objects and occurrences in the external Meumann. world ; second, memory for symbols, names, numbers, and abstract word meanings; third, memory for the products of our ideational processes ; and fourth, memory of feeling and emotional states. Experiments seem to show that 1 op. cit.. Vol. I, p. 174. 138 The Learning Process there is a good deal of difference in the vividness of these various memories and the ease with which they arise ; and further that there are periods in the development of the individual when certain types of memory are more import- ant than others. In general with children memory for objects of sensation is stronger than are memories of rela- tion, such as time and space and cause and effect. Mem- ories for things in movement are, on the whole, better than for things at rest. Visual memory, as far as form and light and shade are concerned, is good, but memory for colors is weak. Only by special training and careful observation can adults be brought to a point where they can accurately distinguish colors. Memory for abstract relationships and for emotional states does not seem to be at all well devel- oped until the high school age. Further, the various kinds of memory show marked fluctuation from time to time, with periods' of rapid development, and others where there is no progress at all, and even perhaps a retrogres- sion. Experiments conducted by the Department of Psy- chology at the University of Illinois ^ in connection with the written work of the school seem to show that there is a general falling off in the various kinds of memory, with the exception of the verbal-visual, at the onset of puberty. Similar experiments by other investigators^ have led to conclusions in the same direction. Meumann says that the fourteenth and fifteenth years of the child's life seem to be particularly unfavorable for all kinds of memory. A number of studies have been made in regard to the growth of memory among school children, and it has been found, with the exception of those periods indicated in the preceding paragraph, that the memory of children in- iColvin and Meyet. "Imaginative Elements in the Written Work of School Children," Fed. Sem, XIII, pp. 84-93 (1906). 2 Lobsien. " Experimentelle Untersuchungen uber die Gedachtnissentwick- elung bei Schulkindern," Zeitschr. f. Psychol, u. Physiol, d. Sinnesorgane, XXVII, pp. 34-76 (igoi). Al. Netschajeff. Same title and journal, XXIV, pp. 321-352 (igoo)- Memory 139 creases constantly. Meumann says that the adult learns various kinds of material in a much shorter time and with less repetition and with less fatigue than do children. Young children, however, retain what memorize they learn more exactly. If this latter state- J^o^'^jf^ ment is true, it is probably because of the fact the school that their imagery is more vivid, and the greater ^*"^' amount of time which they require in the learning produces a greater impression. TAe point, however, is to be kept in mind that effective memorization seems to increase up to maturity, and that decrease in ability to m.emorize probably does not set in much before there is an actual decline in m.en- tal powers in general. Meumann 1 holds that the assertion often made that the memory of children, particularly for mechanical learning, is far better than that of adults, is not borne out by experimental evidence. The ability of children to learn is much less than that of adults. Adults, even in middle life, have greater ability to learn than school children in the best years of their development. Adults, how^ever, are accustomed to logi- cal learning, and children learning with much more difficulty, largely by mechanical methods, show somewhat more retentivity. It is often asserted that the time to begin the study of a foreign language is in childhood, and that mature students are less capable of memorizing the rudiments of a foreign language. This is probably not true. However, adults approach the mechanical processes involved in learning vocabularies, rules for construction, declensions, conjugations, etc., often with a positive reluctance. For this reason they are less capable of acquiring the elements of a foreign language than are children. If they entered upon the task with determination and zest, their success would be far greater than that of the immature pupil. The rate of forgetting of various materials is a question of no little pedagogical significance. The first experi- ments to determine the rapidity of forgetting were made by Ebbinghaus,2 thirty years ago, and for a long time served as the final authority on the manner in which cer- tain kinds of material fade from the mind. Ebbinghaus 1 Of. cit., Vol. I, pp. 192-193- 2" Ueber das Gedachtnis " (Leipzig, 1885). 140 The Learning Process used himself as the subject of his experiments, and memo- rized meaningless material (nonsense syllables). The re- „^ , ,. suits of the investigation of Ebbinghaus showed The fading ° , of memory that for the materials and methods employed by rapid when ^ara there was a rapid loss in memory, especially five factor during the first few hours after learning, and IS weak. ^^^^ ^j^^ j^^^ after a few days was relatively slight. During the first hour over half of what was learned had been forgotten ; at the end of the first day two thirds, but at the end of a month only about four fifths. Since Ebbinghaus attempted to exclude all associative factors in his learning, he really tested not the loss of memory as such, ^but merely the fading of the memory after-image. Attempts have been made to study the fading of various materials other than those employed by Ebbinghaus, such as color, brightness, linear extent, tones of definite pitches, and even tactile stimuli. More recent experiments have shown indirectly that the rate of forgetting when associ- ation is joined with impression is very much less rapid than the results of Ebbinghaus and of others who have worked in similar fields would lead us to suppose. Indeed, it often happens that reproduction of material learned is best after an interval has elapsed between the learning and the recall. This improvement in memory seems to be due to the fact that the original impressions have had an opportunity to become associated with permanent elements in conscious- ness, and, therefore, are capable of revival more readily after a certain lapse of time. This fact, which is of great educational significance, will be discussed more fully in a later part of this chapter. The question whether a person has forgotten something The Method that he has previously learned is not as simple of Retained as might at first seem. The common method of Members m . . , . , , . testing ascertammg what is remembered is to determine memory. ^ow much of the Original material learned can be reproduced immediately, or after any definite interval. Memory 141 This method of testing is commonly known as the Method of Retained Members, and the accuracy of memory is measured by the total amount of material kept in mind. If, for example, a person has learned a series of words by heart and an hour later can reproduce two thirds of them, this fraction represents the accuracy of his memory for the material at that time. It is, however, perfectly clear, al- though he may be unable to reproduce a single one of the ,words or syllables learned, that his consciousness has been modified and in a sense his entire memory for the series has not been destroyed. Theoretically there is nothing once learned that may not, under certain conditions, be revived in ■memory. There are examples in psychological literature which show that under abnormal mental conditions facts and events which seem to have been completely forgotten most unexpectedly reappear above the threshold of con- sciousness. Obyiously, then, there should be some other way of testing the memory than that by the Method of Retained Members, if we wish to make sure that no traces of a previous experience have been left behind. To do this a second method of testing memory has been devised. It is the one used by Ebbinghaus in the experi- ment previously mentioned. It is technically known as the Saving Method, and consists es- Me^thodT/ sentially in learning the material at a prescribed testing uniform rate of speed, the readings neces- sary for learning being repeated until the first correct re- petition is obtained. The number of repetitions necessary for this original learning is then recorded. After the ma- terial has been learned and a certain interval has elapsed {e.g. twenty-four hours ) the series is relearned and the time saved in the relearning is noted. The following, taken from Myers*, gives a record of such a memory test for periods of relearning, varying from one third of an hour to a month ; — 1 Myers, op. eit., p. 162. 142 The Learning Process Relearning after X Hours x = Percentage of Time Saved Percentage of Time Lost 0-3 S8.2 41.8 I.O 44.2 5S.8 8.8 35-8 64.2 24.0 33-7 66.3 2x24 27.8 72.2 6x24 25.4 74.6 31x24 21. 1 78.9 The above is a record of one hundred and sixty-three experiments, nearly all of which consisted in learning eight thirteen-syllable series and in relearning them at a prescribed rate of reading after a varying in- terval, the economy of time spent in relearning being in ea:ch instance noted. Another important method of testing memory is techni- cally known as the Method of Right Associates. According Th M th d *° ^^^^ method, as employed in the psychologi- of Right cal laboratory, a series of syllables is read a num- Associates. ^^j. ^^ ^{^aes rhythmically. Generally the first syllable is accented and the second syllable is without stress, as, for example, beb'-sev; roz'-lut; cac'-ron; dyi-hif. After an interval, the accuracy of memory is tested by pre- senting the accented syllable of the trochaic pair, and re- cording the number of right associates that are called up with the accented syllables. In this connection the amount of time between the presenting of the accented syllable and the recall of the unaccented syllable is accurately measured, and it has been found that those associations which are the most lasting generally take the shortest time for recall. Some important facts in regard to the way in which associated groups are formed have been discovered by this method of testing memory. These will be dis- cussed in a later section and their significance in the psy- chology of learning pointed out. Memory 143 Some other and less important methods of testing the memory may be summarized as follows: (a) The Prompting Method. In this method the material is imperfectly learned and the accuracy of the memory measured by the amount of prompting required. It is difficult to bring this method under exact experimental determination, but it is one that is, of course, familiar in the schoolroom and has a certain value ; (^) The Recognition Method. In this method the material for memoriza- tion is presented and learned, and later the same material, together with other material of a similar nature, is shown. The test of memory con- sists in picking out from the total mass of material that which was pre- viously presented. It is clear that in certain phases of school work this is the test of memory that is ordinarily employed ; (c) The Recon- struction Method. In this method the memory material is given in some sort of order, and later it is presented in a different order. The mem- ory test consists in restoring it to its original arrangement. The value of the various above described methods of test- ing the memory depends very largely on the purposes for which the material was originally memorized. Undoubtedly the most common method practiced value of in the schools is that of Retained Members. ^{^"^3 ^f The child is asked to reproduce verbatim what testing he has learned, and his school grade is de- '"^"'"y- termined by the fidelity with which he succeeds in doing this. For some varieties of material absolute reproduction is the only kind desirable. For example, the child must know how each word in his spelling lesson is written if he has learned the lesson ; a test of his knowledge of the multiplication table is the number of parts of it that he can exactly reproduce. On the other hand, especially with older children and adults, there are certain kinds of materials that need not be carried always in the mind. It is desirable to reproduce them only as they are needed. It is quite certain that in most instances the graduate of a high school could not pass an examination which he took with ease at the end of his course in the elementary school. This does not, however, imply that what he has previously learned is of no value. If it were necessary, he could, with a relatively slight expenditure of energy. 144 T}w Learning Process relearn all that he has in the meantime forgotten. It is likewise true that there are certain memory materials which need to be reproduced only in connection with others which have been definitely associated with them, as, for exam- ple, certain dates in history in connection with certain events. For many kinds of material the only memory that is necessary or desirable is that of simple recognition on the presentation of this material. This would apply to the pupil's knowledge of various tools and instruments used in his school work. It is not supposed that he will carry the memory image of these tools with him, but that merely on seeing them he shall be able to recognize them and know how to use them. Reconstruction is also an important fac- tor in certain parts of the school work. To be able to put together in the right order various features of an outUne map, such as cities, bodies of water, and mountain ranges, is a more valuable test of geographical knowledge than the ability to reproduce the names of capitals, counties, boundary lines, and so forth. In general the schools have relied too much in their estimation of the acquisitions of children on the memory test of Retained Members. CHAPTER X ASSOCIATION The importance of association in memory has for a long time been recognized. Aristotle, in his treatise on " Memory and Reminiscence," laid down certain fundamen- ^he laws of tal laws of association, distinguishing associa- Association tion by similarity, by contrast, and by contiguity, ti^g^i^lad These principles were worked over to an extent Similarity, during the Middle Ages, and have been ampUfied in modern times, especially by Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Hartley, and more recent Associationists in British philosophy. The two fundamental laws, as finally formulated, are known as the principles of Association by Contiguity in Space and Time, and Association by Similarity and Contrast. Illustrations of these laws are easy to find. For example, if in learning nonsense syllables, the syllables me/ and vot come side by side or one after the other, on the presentation of the first, the second tends to come into mind rather than some subsequent or preceding syllable. Again, if on crossing the railroad track I am accustomed each time to see the flag- man, I associate the track and the flagman in such a way that when I see or think of the former I am likely to recall the latter, and vice versa. Two events happening at the same time are more likely to be recalled than two between which there is an interval. Attempts have been made to explain this general fact of association in terms of purely physi- ological laws. Those brain cells which are stimulated at approximately the same time are supposed to be more likely to form associative bonds than those which are stimulated with a time interval between them ; those which lie more closely together are more apt to be connected than those that are separated by some distance. The principle of Associa- tion by Resemblance finds illustration in the recall of a friend not pres- ent, on seeing some one who resembles him. The full moon may bring to mind a balloon, because of the roundness of each. A red flag may, on the same principle, suggest bloodshed. The principle of contrast L 145 146 The Learning Process is the exact reverse of that of resemblance. Darkness brings to mind light ; beauty suggests ugliness, and the wintry landscape the luxurious foliage of summer. It is to be remembered, however, that there is no funda- mental difference in the association by similarity and by contrast. The difference is in the attitude or the purpose of the person making the comparison. From one point of view the night may suggest solitude, and from another its oppo- site, —the brightness of the morning. Neither resemblance nor difference resides entirely in the object as such, but only in the object as it exists for the person who perceives it. Therefore, the principle of resemblance, if it is to be made serviceable in any genuine way, must be interpreted in terms of the purpose which exists as the end of the thought process. It is also to be noticed that what seems to be the purely physiological law of contiguity is likewise to be interpreted Both the under this same principle of purpose. I recall above laws two events in history that may be separated by terms of many years, as, for example, the battle of Sa- purpose. lamis and the battle of Santiago Bay, because of some relation between them that is constructed by the purpose or point of view which I have in mind. The illustration has already been given of the association be- tween the railway crossing and the flagman on the principle of spatial contiguity. It might happen, however, that this association would be entirely destroyed if the railway cross- ing were connected with some other circumstance more important in the mind of the person making the association. For example, if at the time when the pedestrian was cross- ing the track, he narrowly escaped being run over by an approaching train, on thinking of the track subsequently, he would recall, not the flagman, but the narrow escape from death. It should then be borne in mind that except for associations of the most superficial character, these two laws of similarity and contiguity can be made effective in Association 147 the learning process only by subjecting them to the higher law of purpose or aim. These laws have been experimentally worked out by two principal methods. According to one method, the subject tested is given a word to which he is to react with the one which is immediately suggested. This he writes down, as he does also the word that is suggested by this second word, and so on till the test is finished. According to the second method, the person reacts immediately to a presented word with the first association that comes into his mind, after which a second word is presented to him, to which he also reacts, and :so on. These various kinds of reactions have been classified. Myers ^ gives an example of such a classification as follows : — coordination e.g. baby — infant in meaning superordination subordination e.g. soldier — man e.g. man — soldier Similarity contrast ' in letters or e.g. peace — war Contiguity , in sound in time syllables in rhyme causal verbal e.g. port — porter e.g. fight — kite e.g. lightning — thunder e.g. one — two snow — snowball in space e.g. handle — lock Several interesting facts are to be noted about these various classes of association. In the first place, those that are the most superficial are the associations by similarity in rhyme ; they can hardly be explained in terms of conscious association. It is often the mark of a disintegrat- ing mind to form superficial associations, characterized by similarity of sound. The only explanation that seems to be at all adequate for such kinds of mental relationship is a physiological explanation. The varie- ties of association in order of decreasing superficiality are, first, those of contiguity in space and time, then of verbal and causal contiguity ; while associations through similarity in meaning are dominated to a very large extent by the aim or purpose which the person has either clearly or subconsciously in his mind when he forms such associations. It has been found, that the whole dif&etion of associations of this char- acter is changed when the subject is told to Change his attitude toward the stimulus word with which the reaction word is associated. For ex- 1 Op. at., p. 152. 148 The Learning Process ample, the subject is told by the experimenter that when he sees the stimulus word he is to react with a coordinate, superordinate, subordi- nate, or contrast word, as the case may be, or, perhaps, he is told to react with a word which is causally connected with the first. It may be seen from such examples as these that the attitude of the subject is a very important factor in determining the direction in which the associa- tive links are formed. The significance for education in this connection is ob- vious. The teacher is not to rely on these purely objective and mechanical laws of association, but he is must not ^^ guide his pupils through direct instruction or rely on through Suggestion to form those associations mechanical "which shall have the m,ost practical significance associa- /« terms of the Purposes of the lesson in hand. tions. If these laws are treated in a purely objec- tive manner, they will have extremely little value in the learning process. This does not imply that some of the more mechanical aspects of association should not be given attention. But it does mean that these mechanical ele- ments in themselves have no ultim,ate value in the learning process, unless they are linked up with higher and purposive associations. When other means fail, the teacher may be justified in availing himself of mechanical devices for memorization, even the reliance on senseless jingles, if these associations are to be worked over ultimately in terms of a significant purpose. The old device of learning the succession of the sovereigns of Eng- land or of the presidents of the United States in verse is justifiable, if later these same personages are to be woven into a connected and meaning- ful set of associations in the development of the history of England or of America. The principal criticism that is to be brought against such methods as these is that they too often end in themselves, and lead to no useful result. If this be true, they are worthless and inde- fensible ; but on the other hand, if these mechanical associations are used as the basis of higher and more purposive associations, they may be valuable.! 1 For a further discussion of mnemonic devices, see Chapter XI, p. 172. Association 149 Beside the primary laws of association already discussed, there are certain secondary laws that are of equal import- ance. These are generally termed the Laws The sec- of Primacy, Recency, Frequency and Vividness, ondary laws The Law of Primacy asserts that, other things °^ associa- being equal, the first word in a series, the first new experience, and so forth, are better remembered than those that follow. The Jesuits, in planning their scheme of religious education, have emphasized the beginnings of instruction as the most important, because these make the most definite impression on the mind and are the most last- ing. It is the first day of school, the first pair of long trousers, the first visit to the theater, that are recalled among early memories; the many days succeeding and the many experiences of a similar sort coming in these succeeding days tend to drop out of memory. The Law of Recency asserts that, other things being equal, the last things are those best remembered. So it is that the last word in the series, the last day of the school, my most recent visit to the theater, my newest suit of clothes, are more readily recalled than the events and things that have preceded. The Law of Vividness asserts that the things that make the most definite impression at the time of their presentation, other things being equal, are best retained. So for this reason the child remembers those days in school best in which something novel happened, as, for example, the visit of his mother, an unusually successful or unsuccessful examination, or the coming of a new teacher. Finally, the Law of Frequency asserts that those things that are the most often repeated are the best remem- bered. This law has been the one which has been recog- nized by schoolmasters of all times, and is the one most readily utilizable in the learning process. It Hes at the foundation of all drill, and has been carried to such an ex- treme that it has been severely criticized ; to an extent with no small degree of justice. Yet it is a law which 150 The Learning Process must be appealed to in a great many instances, and is the chief method of memorization in the earlier years of learning. These laws have been worked out experimentally in various direc- tions. One of the principal attempts at demonstrating them was made by Miss Calkins ^ and published in 1896. In general the validity of these four laws was clearly established. Seashore ^ gives the following instructive introspections of a subject's associations, in response to the key-word "fig": — " Fig suggested apple, because apple is the most [common ( freq.) specimen of the kind of a thing a fig is, a fruit. Apple suggested tree, because they had been experienced together most frequently (freq.). Tree suggested blossoms, because I had been looking for blossoms on the cherry tree this morning (rec). Blossoms suggested bee, because bees are firequently seen with blossoms, and their presence has an excit- ing interest (freq. and int.). Bee suggested honey, because bee and honey are thought of as cause and effect (freq.). Honey suggested juice of a flower, because the image of honey has followed the image of flowers (rec.) . Flower-juice suggested sweetness, because sweetness is the principal characteristic of flower-juice or honey (int. and freq.)." The most recent experimentation in the psychology of learning has shown in a rather striking way the greater ease of retention of the begin- ning and the end of a series learned than of the middle portion. The following table given by Myers in his " Experimental Psychology " (p. 159) sums up the results of the learning of a series of words of twelve and of ten members respectively, by thepromptingmethod. It can be readily seen that the position of the diiFerent members in the series is an important element in the recall ; that the first member of the series is remembered best of all ; that there is an increasing inability to remem- ber, which reaches its maximum a little beyond the middle of the series, and falls off pronouncedly at the end. The table is as follows : — Order ofwords in series i. z, 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11, 12. Number fin 1 2-wd. series o. 11. 21. 13J. 35. 36. 36. 29J. 43. 37J. 34. 11. of ] Prompts (. in lo-wd. series o. 3. 6. 9. 23. 24. 31^. 25. 23. 5J. — . — . In another experiment, by the Method of Right Associates with twelve and eighteen-syllable word-series, it was found that in the case of the twelve-syllable series there were sixty per cent of right associates as against seventy-one per cent with many repetitions ; further that there 1 " Association," Psychol. Rev., Monograph Supplement No. 2 (1896). ""Elementary Experiments in Psychology," pp. 124-125 (New York 1908). Association 151 were thirty-three instances of right associates that took less than two seconds with few repetitions, as against forty with many repetitions. For the eighteen-syllable series there were forty-seven per cent of right associates with few repetitions, as against sixty-nine per cent with many repetitions. Furtlier, there were twenty-one right associates that took less than two seconds with few repetitions, as compared with twenty- seven with many repetitions. This experiment shows the value of fre- quency of repetition in learning. It also shows that " the number of associations which after a few repetitions are almost ready to rise above the threshold ( of memory) and become effective is considerably greater in longer than in shorter series." This would indicate the greater value of many repetitions the larger the amount of material to be memorized. In discussing the primary laws of association ( contiguity in space and time and similarity ) it was pointed out that in order for these to be highly effective they ^he princl- should be reinterpreted in terms of purpose or v^e of pur- end. What is true of these primary laws is also determin- true to a considerable degree of these second- '■^sOie ° secondary ary laws. The principle of vividness in par- laws of ticular is to be interpreted very largely in terms association, of meaning. By vividness is not meant, at least in the higher intellectual processes, mere sensory vividness, but a vividness of meaning. Those things attract attention which have significance. The mother tired out with caring for her sick child will fall asleep while the child rests. Her slumbers may not be disturbed by the loudest noises, and yet she will awaken at the first restless movements of the child. In Whittier's poem, " The Pipes at Lucknow," the High- land woman hears above the roar of the Sepoy guns and the cries of the besieged and besiegers, faintly in the distance, the piping of the MacGregor clan coming to the rescue of the British defenders.^ The 1 Hushed the wounded man his groaning ; Hushed the wife her little ones ; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns. But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true ; — As her mother's cradle-crooning The mountain pipes she knew. I £2 The Learning Process sound of the piping which attracted her attention could not be called in any objective sense intense or vivid. It was the vividness due to its meaning or significance that gave it an important place in consciousness. In the lowest stages of the learning process the vivid- ness is more objective. It is the bright light, the loud noise, the rapidly moving object, that attracts the attention. In the training of defectives it is this objective vividness that must be largely relied on ; but for all higher mental processes the chief importance of vividness is found in its significance in the train of thought of the learner. Of the other three principles referred to, — primacy, recency, and frequency, — the two latter depend largely upon physio- logical conditions for their explanation. However, the first experience is apt to be remembered largely because of the inherent interest that is called forth by novelty. On the other hand, the most recent event is better remem- bered, partly because the memory image has had less chance to fade from the mind than have those of preced- ing events. Constant repetition may be thought of as impressing the nervous system more and more, and thus causing the object concerned in the impression to be better retained. However, it must be remembered that recency, as well as primacy, possesses novelty because of its position in a series of events. Even constant repetition will have Uttle effect unless that which is repeated is attended to and enters into the associations formed in a significant way. Repeating a grade, or taking a subject in the high school a second time, often proves of little benefit to the pupil. The lack of positive results in this instance is probably to be explained because through the repetition the interest in the subject matter becomes deadened, and, therefore, no permanent impression is made in con- sciousness. Indeed, to repeat once more the thought that is so important, educationally that perhaps it cannot be overemphasized;/no learning has ultimate value unless it enter into the conscious complex in such a way that it Association 153 fits meaningfully into this comples/^ The mechanical laws of association possess value only in so far as they furnish the materials for associations of the higher type. The four principles of primacy, recency, frequency, and vividness find ample illustrations in school practice. The Law of Vividness is well illustrated in what Bagley has termed the principle of vivid portrayal, which he considers one of the most effective ways of focaliz- ing a habit. The use of stereoscopic slides in the study of geography, history, and the natural sciences is an admirable case in point. It gives a concreteness and reality which cannot be obtained in any other way. Every school should possess ample illustrative material of this sort, and likewise a good projection lantern with plenty of slides. Charts, models, maps, and concrete materials of all sorts should be utilized. It should, however, be remembered that such materials are to be used to illustrate the thought and not as ends in themselves. It is possible here, as in every department of education, to go to extremes, and to obscure the significance of the subject matter by injudicious emphasis on incidentals rather than on essentials. Certain subjects in the curriculum cannot, with ease, be illustrated in the concrete manner above indicated. There are, however, certain devices that readily accomplish the purpose of making more vivid the essence of the subject matter that is being taught. Perry * enumerates in his chapter on " The Use of the Blackboard " some of these. He advocates the liberal use of various colored chalks '■' to bring out important facts and relations. For example, " Emphasis that is made in speech by accent may be made in board writing by colored words or underlining." In the word " separate " the first a may be written in red chalk. A formula may be written in colors, and its application in the white chalk. In studying the structure of a sentence, the various parts of speech may be written in different colors. " Unseen lines in an illustration may best be indicated in color." The principle of primacy, which demands that those things to be remembered be given an initial position, comes into conflict with the educational practice of developing a subject. It is a debatable question whether it is not advisable to place the important things first, rather than to lead up to them through an extended discussion and explana- 1 "Problems of the Elementary School" (New York, igio). 2 Taylor (/our. of Pedagogy, XVI, 1 903) reports an experiment that tends to show that the use of colored chalk to emphasize silent and obscure letters has little value unless the pupil's attention is further called to the fact of the colored letters and the reasons for so coloring them. 154 The Learning Process tion. The principle of plunging in medias res, which has been recog- nized as valid in literature, is not to be ignored in pedagogy. Some of the older textbooks, as, for example, J. E. Worcester's " Epitome of Modern Geography," published in 1820, start with definitions and im- portant principles. In following the principle of recency, emphasis must be placed on the impressions made at the end of a course of study or a school exercise. The last must be, if possible, the best. Here should come summaries and final explanations. It is well to have the climax at the end. To the four secondary laws of association another has been added, which is termed by James "congruity of emotional tone." By this he intends to signify of emotional the fact that the direction and nature of the *'"'*■ associations is to a considerable extent deter- mined by the feeling or emotional state in which the individual is. If a person is depressed and gloomy, he is apt, for example, on seeing a winter's landscape to asso- ciate with it ideas of barrenness and solitude ; while, on the other hand, if he is in a cheerful mood, the sparkle of the ice, the bracing nature of the atmosphere, and the holiday appearance of the landscape are the things that predominate in his mind. This is, again, an illustration of the fact that the interests, aims, and values that a person brings to his facts determine, in a very large manner, the selection of the elements to be associated and the direction of such associations. One of the most important facts from the standpoint of educational procedure that has recently been ence of brought out in laboratory experiments on mem- retroactive ory is that an association or set of associa- inhibition. . . ^ tions just formed tends to weaken associations formed earlier. For example, let A-B represent a series of associations formed dur- ing a certain learning period, and C-D represent another series of asso- ciations formed immediately after A-B, or with only a short interval between. It has been clearly demonstrated that there is a marked tendency for the C-D associations to break up the associated bonds in Association 155 the A-B group. This is technically known as retroactive inhibition, and it has been found to occur, not only when the second associations were similar to the first, but even when they were quite dissimilar. As an illustration of this may be cited the fact that the examining of pictures immediately after learning a series of nonsense syllables has been found to weaken the memory for the nonsense syllables. How- ever, it is probably true that the greater the similarity between the material learned during the second period and that learned during the first period, the greater is also the strength of the retroactive inhibition. The explanation of this phenomenon is probably to be found in a large measure in the fact that it takes a certain amount of time for associations to fix themselves ; and if a period of learning is immediately followed by another, the first associations do not have the chance of becoming as permanently established as if there were an interval of rest between. The importance of this fact in practical pedagogy, especially in arranging a program of studies, needs hardly to be commented on. It has further been discovered that associations are more apt to be formed between immediately consecutive members of a series than between members more widely separated, and that the association tjo,, of is further in a forward direction. In other principal as- sociations, words, it is much more easy to recall the asso- ciation a-b-c-d than the reverse, d—c-b-a. With sense material it is even more difficult to recall associations in the reverse direction than it is with nonsense material. This is, of course, to be explained by the general " drift " of consciousness in terms of meaning. In significant material associations are formed not merely between the various parts of the group, but the associations also connect themselves up with the meaning of the group as a whole. The associations formed between consecutive members are technically known as " principal associations." It is, however, quite obvious that in anything but mechan- ical learning with nonsense material the consecutive mem- bers of a series or group may not be the elements that iS6 The Learning Process stand side by side in the thought process, but the elements which are related more closely in terms of the meaning of that which is to be learned. For this reason, in mean- ingful material, we may assign the name " principal associa- tions" to those which most naturally belong together in terms of the general thought or meaning. Beside the formation of associative bonds between the parts of a given piece of memory material that stand closest together, either in order or in signiiicance, tion of there is a tendency to form in a lesser degree remote as- subsidiary and remote associations. The sociabons. strength of the remote associations grows less, directly according to their distance from each other or according to their remoteness in meaning. Subsidiary and remote associations fade more rapidly from memory than do principal associations. For this reason, care must be taken in the learning process, when dealing with meaning- ful materials, to select and emphasize the principal associa- tions. While the general tendency to form one set of associa- tions is to inhibit the formation of others through retroac- Retroa ti ^^^ inhibition, it is possible that the formation reinforce- of One set of associations which is closely related ■"*"'• to another that has preceded it may strengthen the associative bonds in this first set of associations. Myers states the principle as follows : " When a syllable a, which has been already firmly associated with b, is presented with c, the association a-b is strengthened." This seems to hold good only when the first association has been strongly formed. If it has not, the second association tends to break up and destroy the first. The reason for this may be made dear from the following considera- tion. If a and b are strongly joined together in associative bonds, then the association a-c will tend to call up the association a-b, because of the inherent tendency of a to associate itself with b. Therefore, every time that the association a-cis presented, the association a-b will tend Association 157 to appear. Oa the other hand, if they are not joined in strong associa- tive bonds, the tendency will be to establish the association a-c to the exclusion and complete destruction of a- 6. The significance of this fact in relation to the learning process is clearly that the first associa- tions are to be impressed with sufficient strength, so that the formation of subsequent similar associations will tend to strengthen the first, rather than to destroy them. In the distribution of time, then, in learn- ing, we should take care to see that a due amount is given to the associations first formed. Experiments have shown that when the important word in a series of nonsense syllables, or in a phrase or sentence of meaningful material is given, there is a ten- dency to reproduce the first word ; for example, toward the word "liberty" tends to recall the beginning initial re- , " Jung's , .... , , . , experiment, one, and consists m givmg the subject to be tested a list of perhaps a hundred words relating to the happenings in everyday life. As each word is presented, the subject reacts as quickly as possible by speaking the first word that comes into his mind in connection with the stimulus word. Such a list of words is given by Jung in a series of lectures recently delivered at Clark University.^ This list is as follows : — 1. head 2. green 3. water 4. to sing 5. dead 6. long 7. ship 8. to pay 9. window 10. friendly 1 1 . to cook 12. to ask 13. cold 14. stem 15. to dance 16. village 17. late 18. sick 19. pride 20. to cook 21. ink 22. angry 23. needle 24. to swim 25. voyage 26. blue 27. lamp 28. to sin 29. bread 30. rich 31. tree 32. to prick 33- pity 34. yellow 35. mountain 36. to die 37. salt 38. new 39. custom 40. to pray 41. money 42. foolish 43. pamphlet 44. despise 45. finger 46. expensive 47. bird 48. to fall 49. book 50. unjust 51. frog 52. to part 53. hunger 54. white SS- child 56. to take care 57. lead pencil 58. sad 59. plum 60. to marry 61. house 62. dear 63. glass 64. to quarrel 65. fur 66. big 67. carrot 68. paint i"The Association yie&odi," Am. four, of Psychol., XXI, pp. 219-270 (1910). o 193 194 The Learning Process 69. part 77. cow 85. stalk 93. hay 70. old 78. friend 86. false 94. contented 71. flower 79. luck 87. anxiety 95. ridicule 72. to beat 80. lie 88. kiss 96. to sleep 73. box 81. deportment 89. bride 97. mouth 74. wild 82. narrow 90. pure 98. nice 75. family 83. brother 91. door 99. woman 76. to wash 84. to fear 92. choose 100. abused It can be seen by inspecting the above list of words that they are extremely simple and that they are so chosen Significance ^.s to Suggest a large number of possible situ- of length- ations. Naturally, if such a list of words is read, reaction or presented visually to a subject, one by one, times. 2L.nd. he replies by responding by the first word that comes into his mind, the reaction time (that is, the time elapsing between the presentation of a word in the list and the response) will vary considerably. However, under normal conditions there should be a reasonable amount of consistency in these reaction times. Most of them will probably range between a second and a half and three seconds. If any of these reaction times is un- usually long, as, for example, six, ten, or fifteen seconds, such a lengthened reaction indicates that there is some cause at work which results in this extension of interval between stimulus and response. It might be supposed that the lengthening of these reaction times is due to an intellectual reason, but this is not the explanation that is ordinarily given. The lengthened reaction is not due to the fact that the person lacks the knowledge or intelli- gence to reply immediately. The explanation lies rather in the emotional condition of the individual who is making the reactions. As Jung points out, these excessively long reactions occur often with subjects that are highly intelligent and fluent of speech. It is because the words presented are " really something like condensed actions, situations and things." To use Jung's own language, " When I present a word to the test person which denotes an action, it is the same as if The Association Method in Applied Psychology 195 I should present to him the action itself, and ask him ' how do you behave toward it? ' ' What do you think of it? ' ' What do you do in this situation?' If I were a magician, I should cause the situation corresponding to the stimulus word to appear in reality and place the test person in its midst. I should then study the manner of his reaction. The result of my stimulus word would thus undoubtedly approach infinitely nearer perfection. . . . The stimulus words are, therefore, merely a part of reality acting upon us ; indeed, a person who shows such disturbances to the stimulus words is in a certain sense really, but imperfectly, adapted to reality.'' There are two reasons generally why lengthened reactions occur. The first is because of the various words presented, certains ones have unusual significance, while -^ » ' The cause of others are, so to speak, indifferent. In the list lengthened of words cited above, the word " money " might ■■®*'=*'°"s- ordinarily have no unusual significance ; if, however, the person reacting had committed a theft, such a word would arouse in him a strong emotion, and his reaction, consequently, would be greatly lengthened, or perhaps entirely " blocked." (He would fail to reply to the word altogether.) The second reason for greatly lengthened reaction times is to be found in the general emotional con- dition of the person who is being tested. If the person is under unusual excitement, or is suffering from hysteria, the reactions tend to show great prolongation and irregulari- ties. Under these conditions marked disturbances in ad- justment to individual words are shown. Sometimes the hysterical person, instead of replying with a single word, as requested, responds with a large number, — as, for example, custom — good — barbaric ; foolish — narrow- minded — restricted ; family — big — small — everything possible (cited by Jung). Jung explains this tendency as showing one of the main charac- teristics of hysterical patients, namely " the tendency to allow themselves to be carried away by everything, to attach themselves enthusiastically to everything, and to always promise too much, and hence to do little." Another symptom of incomplete adjustment to the situation suggested by the stimulus word is found in the repetition of the stimulus word. 196 The Learning Process The person repeats this word as if he were tr)ring to grasp its meaning. This is because the subject is confronted with a situation in which he finds great difficulty in acting. Sometimes the person tested responds to the various stimulus words throughout the test with the same word on several occasions, although this word may seem to have no significance in connection with the stimulus word. This is to be explained by the fact that during the test the subject is being dominated by a particular idea, which tends to arise on all occasions and under most varied con- ditions. Jung and others have made two main applications of the association method in practice. Jung himself has employed this method principally in diagnosing mental association diseases which fall under the general type of method. psychoneuroses, or functional disturbances of the mind that appear in various forms of hysteria and neurasthenia. The use of the method in the detection of crime, however, is one that has proved of the most inter- est to the public in general. The method, when employed for this purpose, consists in presenting to the subject to be tested, among a considerable number of words that are neutral or indifferent, a number which refer to the crime itself. When these latter words are presented, the person tested is naturally more or less disturbed by the situations that these words call up, and the result is generally length- ened or emotional reaction times. The guilty person naturally tends, when he hears the word that is connected with his criminal act, to reply with the word that is most closely associated. This, however, he does not dare to do, as he fears the exposure of the crime. In seeking for another and an insignificant word with which to respond to the stimulus word, he sometimes becomes greatly confused and fails to react at all, or if he does react, the time is far longer than the normal. Perhaps the best means of illustrating this method of detecting ac- tual or artificially devised crimes is by describing, somewhat in detail, one of a considerable number of tests with the association method as conducted at the University of Illinois. Two students were instructed The Association Method in Applied Psychology 197 to go to a certain place, where they would find a sealed envelope. One of these students was to open the envelope, read its contents, and carry out its instructions ; the other was to know nothing about the contents of the letter, and was to be in no way informed concerning what his companion did. The experimenter was subsequently to attempt, by applying the association method, to find out which of the two students had opened the envelope, read its contents, and carried out its instruc- tions. The instructions were as follows: (i) Empty and fill a foun- tain pen ; (2) Draw a memory picture of the head of your best friend ; (3) Burn up the paper; (4) Cut with scissors the largest possible square out of an eight and a half by eleven inch sheet of paper ; (5 ) Com- pute its area ; (6) Shine your shoes ; (7) iVIeasUre the width of D Street ; (8) Put a dandelion in your buttonhole, and take it out in half an hour. In the test, a list of seventy-two words was presented to each of the two students. Among these, thirty-two were significant in rela- tion to the acts indicated in the letter. Among the significant words were the following : Ink, match, strike, flower, yellow, dimensions, black, multiply, and flame. In the case of the student who had opened the envelope and followed out its instructions the reaction times to the significant words were considerably greater than were those of the student who did not know the contents of the envelope. For example, to the word " black," the " innocent " subject replied with the word " green " in one and eight tenths seconds, while the " guilty " student replied to the same word with the reaction "flag" in three and eight tenths seconds. The following introspection by the " guilty " person will indicate somewhat the nature of the associations formed with the significant words. He says, "Naturally the acts most difficult to perform, or requir- ing the greatest time or effort, made the greatest impression. For in- stance, such an impossible performance as drawing a memory picture of my best friend, or an act requiring a little effort, such as shining my shoes, made a great impression. The shining of my shoes stood out strongly ; first, because I knew that if the questioner cared to, he need only look at my shoes and he would know who was who ; and second but not the least, because I experienced considerable trouble with the polish . I bought a box of what I thought to be paste polish, and after considerable pounding and scratching, succeeded in prying off the cover with the box on edge on the table. The contents itself, instead of being in the form of paste, was semi-fluid, and before I could turn the box right side up it had spread itself copiously on the table. But it was good shoe polish, and gave my shoes a rich black luster. So I remem- bered the black shoe polish and the ' black ' shoes, and when I heard the word ' black ' they stood out as irrepressible as mountains. In des- 198 The Learning Process peration all I could think of was a far-fetched ' black ' pirate's flag.'' (It is to be recalled that the " innocent " subject reacted to the word " black " in one and eight tenths seconds, while the " guilty " student reacted in three and eight tenths seconds) . " At the same time I was striving to think of some other word than ' shoes ' ; I was trying to convince myself that it was perfectly proper and logical that ' black ' should suggest 'shoes,' and that I was not giving myself away by replying ' shoes.' But something insisted, ' You mustn't say shoes, you mustn't say shoes,' and although I knew full well that I might say shoes with impunity, I could not. In the same way the word 'polish ' recalled things that I could not turn down, suggested words that I might have said as well as not, but I could not. In general, it was easy to distinguish between the significant and the non-significant words. In all cases it was necessary to make this distinction either consciously or unconsciously before any suggestion could even be considered : Thus the chief reason for hesitation on the word ' avenue ' and ' deci- mal' was the difficulty in reaching this decision, and hence the reply was deferred. In some instances I was quite certain from the nature of the act I performed, what the key word would be, and had more or less definitely prepared an answer beforehand. In connection with putting the dandelion in my buttonhole, and taking it out in half an hour, I was quite sure that ' flower ' and ' time ' would be two of the key words. Also, in connection with emptying and filling the fountain pen, I had concluded that ' ink ' would be one of the key words used, and that I must not, by any means, permit it to suggest fountain pen. These prep- arations were, however, but of little significance, for though not en- tirely forgotten they very rapidly gave way to a flood of other thoughts and suggestions." The most important part of Jung's work, as far as its educational aspects are concerned, is to be found in his Children analysis of the psychic life of the child. Signi- strongiyin- ficant among the early educative influences of the^^peo/ ^^^ child's life are the ideas and emotional ten- thinking of dencies that arise in connection with the home theirparents. . , » ., r t •«».,-. environment. A pupil of Jung, Miss Furst, has made a very interesting analysis through the as- sociation method of the likeness and differences in the types of association of various members of the same family group. It was found by her that in their associa- tive types children approached nearer the manner of The Association Method in Applied Psychology 199 thinking of the mother than of the father. However, the son follows more the type of the father than he does of the mother, while the daughter resembles more nearly the mother in type. The similarity of thinking between mother and daughter is often very extraordinary. As an illustration Jung gives the following examples : — Stimulus Word Mother Daughter to pay attention diligent pupil pupil law command of God Moses dear child father and mother great God father potato bulbous root bulbous root family many persons five persons strange traveler traveler brother dear to me dear to kiss mother mother burn great pain painful hay dry dry door wide big month many days 31 days coal sooty black air cool moist fruit sweet sweet merry happy child child Jung remarks, " Thus the daughter lives constantly in the same circle of ideas as her mother, not only in her thought, but in her form of ex- pression ; indeed, she even uses the same words. What seems more flighty, more inconstant, and more lawless than a fancy, a rapidly pass- ing thought ? It is not, however, lawless, and not free, but closely determined within the limits of the milieuP Jung analyzes in a very interesting way the case of a family, " the father of which is a drunkard and a demoralized creature." The mother is forty-five years of age, and there is a daughter of sixteen. The mother and the father have no in- terests in common, and the mother seeks her enjoyment from the outside of the family, and "for that '•eason she is an ardent participant in Chris- tian Science meetings." The daughter, imitating her mother in ways of thinking, also seeks to obtain emotional satisfaction from without the home. " But for a girl of sixteen, such an emotional state is, to say the least, quite dangerous. Like her mother, she reacts to her environ- ment as a sufferer soliciting sympathy. Such an emotional state is no 200 The Learning Process longer dangerous in the mother, but for obvious reasons it is quite dan- gerous in the daughter. Once freed from her father and mother, she will be like her mother ; that is, she will be a suifering woman, craving for inner gratification." ' Jung urges that such considerations as this point to the great importance of the environment in education. What passes from the mother to the child " is not the importJtQce good and pious precepts, nor is it any other incul- of environ- cation of pedagogic truths. . . . The concealed discord between the parents, the secret worry, the repressed hidden wishes, all these produce in the in- dividual a certain affective state . . . which works its way into the child's mind, producing therein the same condi- tions and hence the same reaction to external stimuli. . . . The father and mother impress deeply into the child's mind the seal of their personality ; the more sensitive and mouldable the child, the deeper is the impression. Thus even things that are never spoken about are reflected in the child. . . . Just as the parents adapt themselves to the world, so does the child." Jung believes that these prepu- bescent experiences of the child often determine his destiny in his entire adult life. " Every patient furnishes contri- butions to this subject of the determination of destiny through the influence of family milieus. In every neurotic we see how the constellation of the infantile milieu influ- ences not only the character of the neuroses, but also life's destiny, in its every detail. Numberless unhappy choices of profession and matrimonial failures can be traced to this constellation. There are, however, cases where the profession has been happily chosen, where the husband or wife leaves nothing to be desired, and where still the person does not feel well, but works and lives under constant dif- ficulties. Such cases often appear in the guise of chronic 1 Galton in his " Inquiry Concerning Human Faculty," found striking resemblances between the association complexes of twins, which, however, he attributed to heredity. The Association Method in Applied Psychology 201 neurasthenia. Here the difficulty is due to the fact that the mind is unconsciously split into two parts of divergent tendencies which are impeding each other ; one part lives with the husband or with the profession, while the other lives unconsciously in the past with the father or mother. . . . We can find here one of the most important tasks of pedagogy, namely — the solution of the problem, how to free the growing individual from his unconscious attach- ments to the influences of the infantile milieu, in such a manner that he may retain whatever there is in it that is suitable and reject whatever is unsuitable." In the importance which Jung places on the earlier associations of childhood, he is in agreement with an- other worker in the field of abnormal psychol- ^^^ ^, ogy, namely, Sigmund Freud of the University psycho- of Vienna. The great service Freud has ren- ^ ^^*^' dered to applied psychology is in the so-called field of psycho-analysis. The method of psycho-analysis was first worked out with hysterical patients, and briefly consists in attempting, by a series of questions, to draw out of the subconscious life of the patient an account of those expe- riences that are the fundamental cause of the mental dis- turbance. To use Freud's own statement, " our hysterical patients suffer from reminiscences." The reminiscences are not, however, a clear and definite knowledge of the past experiences ; they are rather symbols of these past experiences. The method of psycho-analysis attempts to discover behind these symbols the concrete experiences for which they stand. In this way the patient is led by expressing himself to free himself from the force of the subconscious associations which have been making havoc in his mental life ; and thus a cure is often brought about. The interesting part of Freud's theory lies in the fact that these hysterical conditions are in a large measure to be traced back to the suppressed wishes of early childhood, many of which make their appearance before the fourth 202 The Learning Process year. Because of the incompatibility of these wishes with the general social environment, they are repressed and for- gotten, and yet they are never entirely lost, of^p-""*^' since they determine to a very large measure pressed ^hg reactions of adult life, and are connected with this life by a long series of associated bonds. The apparent, almost complete, discontinuity be- tween the pre-adolescent experiences and those of later life is due to the fact that the earlier experiences are repressed and blotted out of memory. Freud holds that because we are ignorant of the most important features of the mental life of childhood, and because of our personal forgetfulness of this period in our own life, the signifi- cance of these earlier associations is vastly underesti- mated. Accordingly not only do these repressed and forgotten experiences of childhood work themselves out disastrously in the life of the hysterical patient, but they also determine, to a considerable extent, the associative trends of adult experience. Freud believes that the vast majority of these suppressed wishes of early childhood are directly or indirectly sexual in their nature. He applies his theory to the interpretation of dream states, to art, and to wit. Dream states he considers as symbols of suppressed wishes. By applying the method of psycho-analysis, the individual can often discover what these suppressed wishes actually are. Art, like the dream state, may be thought of, according to Freud's theory, as a symbolic expression of suppressed wishes. Here we find a psychological value for myths, legends, and fairy tales, as expressions of pe- rennial desires and as a means for giving an outlet to such desires in safer channels, than those along which they might naturally go. Wit, according to Freud, has much in it that resembles the mechanism of the dream. It allows the ex- pression of a thought indirectly which could not, because of a certain repressive tendency be expressed in its natural way.^ 1 An admirable summary of Freud's position is given by Jones in the Jour- nal of Nervous and Mental Diseases (May, IQIO"). The Association Method in Applied Psychology 203 From this point of view it appears that civilization has imposed an ever increasing necessity on the child and on the adult to suppress their most funda- makes the mental wishes. Such a repression, however ''^"'i^atioi , . "^ ' of many desirable or necessary, is tremendously dan- wishes im- gerous. Renunciation is not always a virtue, i"'^^™*- Thus we find reality generally thoroughly unsatisfactory, and we " keep up a life of fancy in which we love to compensate for what is lacking in the sphere of reality by the production of wish-fulfillments. In these phantasies is often contained very much of the particular con- stitutional essence of personality and of its tendency, repressed in real life. The energetic and successful man is he who succeeds by dint of labor in transforming his wish fancies into realities. Where this is not successful in consequence of the resistance of the outer world and the weak- ness of the individual, there begins the turning away from reality. The individual takes refuge in his satisfying world of fancy. ... If the individual who is displeased with reality is in the possession of artistic talent, which is still a psychological riddle, he can transform his fancies into artistic creation. So he escapes the fate of a neurosis, and wins back his connection with reality by this roundabout way.'' Unless some such indirect way of expression is found, then the subject is confronted with a neurosis which " takes in our time the place of the cloister, in which were accustomed to take refuge all those whom life had undeceived or who felt themselves too weak for life." 1 One of the most general conclusions that may be deduced from the work of Freud and Jung is that as- sociative bonds between various thought com- ^^^ j^. plexes are much more imperative in their nature perative 1 1. -I 1 1 T.1 character of than we ordinarily suppose them to be. They associative cannot be broken at will. Never mind how much complexes, the individual may wish to dissociate an idea from the complex to which it naturally belongs, he finds himself often incapable of doing this, particularly under strong emotional excitement. Freud maintains that there is a " strict determination of mental life, which holds without ex- ception." So fixed is this determination and so extensive 1 Quoted from Freud. " Lectures and Addresses Delivered before the De- partments of Psychology and Pedagogy" Clark University, 1909, p. 34. 204 The Learning Process its scope that the threads of association lead back to the very beginnings of experience. There is nothing that comes into the mind, but what has some connection with all the rest. If then, it is true that such extensive and permanent associations are formed, it becomes of the greatest moment how they are formed and what direction they take. The educative process becomes under such a point of view even more significant than it is ordinarily supposed to be. The insistence of both Jung and Freud on the great importance of infantile experience changes the emphasis imoortance ^"^o™ adolescence to the pre-adolescent period, of infantile The educational philosophy of Hall and his experience, pypjjg jjj^g made adolescence the great and de- termining period in child life. For this reason it may have seemed to many educators and teachers that, after all, nothing final could be accomplished before this period, and that, therefore, the great intellectual and moral problems in the life of the child were not those that confronted the teacher in the primary and in the grammar grades. If the views of Jung and Freud, however, are correct, then, the crises of life are perhaps to be found in its earliest years, and the great educative problems of the race are to be solved in the nursery and the kindergarten, rather than in the high school, college and university. The fact that the large majority of children never go beyond the grammar grades in their formal education is interesting and significant in this con- nection. If the formative period of life is largely in the pre-adolescent period, then the possibilities of determining character through the school environment are greatly en- hanced. The view of Jung in regard to the tremendous influence of the home environment emphasizes the value of education in improving heredity. The almost overwhelm- oftt^ome. ™S importance of heredity in predetermining the whole life of the individual has been emphasized by a number of statistical investigations in the last few years. The Association Method in Applied Psychology 205 Woods 1 and some others seem to believe that but a rela- tively small amount can be accomplished by environmental influences. Perhaps it is well to err in the opposite direction in overemphasis of the factor of environment, since it is the only factor over which education has any direct control. While in these early influences the home must always have a much greater place than the school, nevertheless, the school may be no insignificant factor in developing the right sort of association complexes. Tke teacher should see to it par- ticularly that all emotional and vexatious disturbances are removed from the atmosphere of the schoolroom ; that the ideas inspired in the minds of the children are of the satis- fying type. This will do vastly more in moral education than the insistence on any number of maxims, or the learn- ing of many facts in regard to desirable or undesirable con- duct. From this point of view the rush and hurry that characterizes much of the school work becomes extremely dangerous. " Busy work " that makes excessive demands on both pupil and teacher, and creates an atmosphere of unrest, must be avoided. The irritable teacher is a positive menace to the mental sanity of the pupils under his charge. If, as Freud believes, a large part of the suppressed wishes of childhood arise in connection with direct or indirect sexual tendencies, the problem of deal- „. ... The problem ing with matters of sex is one of the greatest ofsexedu- importance. For a long time thoughtful edu- «*'•'"'• cators have felt that we cannot do away with this problem by foolishly ignoring its existence and by attempting, in every way, to deceive the child in regard to the nature of sex and the origin of life. It is, however, a tremendously difficult problem to decide just what can be done in the way of properly educating the child in these matters. Jung 1 See " Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty " (New York, 1906). The author comes to the conclusion that " heredity is almost the entire cause of the mental achievements of these men and women, and that environment or free will must consequently play very minor r61es." 2o6 The Learning Process discusses in one of his lectures at Clark University the case of a little girl of four years of age, of intellectual vivacity and of a healthy, lively, and emotional tempera- ment, who developed a remarkably strong interest in regard to the problem of sexual reproduction, and whose curiosity was finally legitimately satisfied by a frank explanation of the whole matter.^ Jung ia summing up this discussion says, "I wish to impress firmly upon parents and educators this instructive example of child psychology. In the learned psychological discussions on the child's psyche, we hear nothing about those parts which are so important for the health and naturalness of our children, nor do we hear more about the child's emotions and their conflicts ; and yet they play a most important r61e. " It very often happens that children are erroneously treated as im- prudent and irrational beings. . . . The idea should be dismissed once for all that children are held in bondage by, or that they are toys of, their parents. They are characteristic and new beings. In the matter of enlightenment on things sexual it can be affirmed that they suffer from the preconceived opinion that truth is harmful. Many neurologists are of the opinion that even in grownups enlightenment on their own psychosexual processes is harmful and even immoral. . . . One should not, however, go from this extreme of prudishness to the opposite one, — namely of enlightenment O^. cii., pp. 71-89. The Association Method in Applied Psychology 207 adults to realize, but it would also serve as a means of expressing, in an indirect way, some of those childish wishes, which through suppression may result in highly undesirable consequences. The pedagogical value of con- fession has not been fully realized in the Protestant world. In an earlier part of our discussion we have considered the desirability of the teacher knowing the contents of chil- dren's minds in regard to their percepts, concepts, and general intellectual apperceptions. The content of chil- dren's minds in this more intimate sense is something which has hardly been realized as a problem until recently. The psycho-analyses of Freud and others will probably give us a more exact psychology in these respects than we have at present. As yet we have barely raised the prob- lem ; its ultimate solution is still remote, but in the mean- time, /a^^^^j and teachers should strive to put themselves into such relations with children, that their most intimate thoughts should not be entirely unknown. Here lies one of the greatest problems of moral education. Psycho-analysis has shown the possibility of sublimating wishes impossible of direct realization by giving them sym- bolic forms of expression. This roundabout ^^^^^ „t^ way of expression seems to be extremely impor- «°