Ilmi.liti j}.'i, Hutt QfoUegc of Agticulturc At aiatneU. Hninecaitg 3ti(ata, ^. f . Sjtbratg 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/cu31924085725178 AMERICAN EDUCATION SERIES GEORGE DRAYTON STRAYER. GENERAL EDITOR I. Guidance ar.d Imilation 3. Success and Exultation Stages in the Learning Process AMERICAN EDUCATION SERIES GEORGE DRAYTON STRAYER, GENERAL EDITOR PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS BY DANIEL WOLFORD LA RUE, Ph.D. AUTHOR OF "THE SCIENCE AND THE ART OF TEACHING" AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO BOSTON ATLANTA Copyright, 1920, by AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY LA RUE— PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS PREFACE We appear to have applied psychology to the teaching of every subject except psychology itself. In this direc- tion, there is large room for development. One of the chief purposes of this book is to present psychology psycho- logically. Usually, all the student's work before beginning this subject has been objective. To plunge him headlong into subjective phenomena is too much like the method of teach- ing swimming by throwing the learner overboard. "From the known to the unknown" : the old rule holds. The method here adopted consists in (i) passing from the familiar picture of man in his common environment to a study, with genetic sidelights, of "Body, Brain, and Mind," (2) showing the relation of adjustment between "The Mental and the Environmental," and (3) explaining, in the study of "Mind, Nervous System, and Behavior," how the neuro-mental governing and steering system ac- complishes its complex task of adjustment. In this way we complete the sensori-motor circle, inward from body to mind, outward from inind to behavior. The frequently found plan of isolating the discussion of the nervous system in a separate chapter has not been followed. Such knowledge is better assimilated and apphed if presented in direct connection with the most closely related mental facts. S O PREFACE In Part One, which gives an airplane view of the entire science, causing its larger features to stand out, there are developed a few simple laws which, applied throughout the book, effectively organize and simplify the whole com- plex subject. Part Two shows a nearer and more detailed view of the facts, such facts as teachers most need to know. The final chapters synthesize what might otherwise remain frag- mentary knowledge, into a unified study of personality, mental hygiene, and mental efficiency. My debts are too many to mention — save one, that to my wife, my kindest and most merciless critic. D. W. L. EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION The laws of teaching are based upon the science of psy- chology. Curricula for the professional training of teachers have long included courses in this science. During the past fifteen or twenty years very great advance has been made by means of investigations in this field. The results that have accrued have, in part, been unavailable for teach- ers because of the general nature of the treatises on psy- chology. The need has been for a book which would bring to bear upon the problems of teaching the principles of psychology and their special applications as they have been derived by recent investigations. This book fulfills this need in a remarkable degree. The author has presented for teachers in the first part of the volume a broad outline of the subject in a way that will give the teacher a feeling of confidence in dealing with the more detailed study which follows. In presenting the applications of psychology to the problems of teaching, Dr. La Rue has proved himself a skillful teacher. It will be observed that the study of any particular principle begins with the statement of a problem to be solved, and that the subject under consideration is developed with a wealth of illustration and with a degree of concreteness in presentation that is most unusual. At the end of each chapter are topics for further study, and exercises to be solved as a means of testing the reader's knowledge and his ability to apply the principles which have been discussed. 7 8 editor's introduction Ever3rwhere the author emphasizes the application of the psychological principle to teaching. Students in normal schools or colleges, or teachers at work in classrooms will find in the pages of this text, not only an interpretation of the fundamentals of teaching practices, but also many help- ful suggestions for the solution of the actual dif&culties encountered in their profession. George D. Strayer. CONTENTS PART ONE A SIMPLE, GENERAL VIEW OF MIND AND BEHAVIOR CHAPTER I. The Nature of Psychology . II. Body, Brain, and Mind . III. The Mental and the Environmental . IV. Mind, Nervous System, and Behavioe . V. Nervous Channels and Mental Currents PART TWO A MORE DETAILED STUDY OF MIND AND BEHAVIOR VI. What the Mind is Made or . VII. Gathering Experience : Hearing and Seeing VIII. Gathering Experience : Impression and Percep tion IX. Recording and Reproducing Experience X. Analyzing and Associating .... XI. Imagery aistd Imagining .... XII. Thinking . . ... XIII. Affective Experience : The Feelings . XIV. Affective Experience : Types or Behavior . XV. Individuality and Individual Differences XVI. Striking Variations of Personality XVII. Mental Hygiene and Mental Efficiency 9 13 25 54 72 91 104 120 136 160 179 198 220 242 256 271 290 PART ONE A SIMPLE, GENERAL VIEW OF MIND AND BEHAVIOR PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS CHAPTER I THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY Exercises. — i. Before reading this chapter, write what you can on the topic, " What Psychology Means to Me." Include a state- ment of what you think psychology should do for you as a teacher. 2. Write a few paragraphs on the subject, " What I Thought and How I Felt When . . " Let the " When " introduce some event that affected you considerably. Perhaps " When I First Spoke in Public " would serve well. , " What is psychology hke? " " What is it good for? " These are the questions in your mind as you open this book or enter the psychology classroom. " In your mind " — that takes us into psychology at once : for everybody has heard the rumor that psychology is the study of mind. The place of psychology among other branches. — We can group all branches of study in a simple plan, as shown in the figure. Psychology falls in with science. But there are two kinds of science, physical and mental. Physical science deals with the world as it would be without mind in it. For example, when you study Physical Geography, you study a mindless world of rock and wave, storm and sun, volcanoes and vegetation. Psychology has no place there. 13 14 PSYCHOLOGY FOE TEACHERS Fig. But put man — and hence mind — into this world, and with him enters psychology, the study of mind, of love and hate, of remembering and forgetting, of pride and fear and courage, of thoughts and feehngs in general. Psychology is an extremely personal science. In fact, we may almost call it the science of personality. Biology and physiol- ogy are the physical sci- ences which lie nearest to psychology and influ- ence it most. Biology is the science of life. Now, there can be life without mind ; at least, such minds as ours. Plants, insects, and our own sleeping, mindless but hving bodies, are examples of it. But there can be no mind without life. So far as we can see, life is necessary as a supporter of mind. The sciences may well be pictured as resting on each other in layers, strata, stories, with physics forming the founda- tion. But if psychology is the top story of the sciences, it is not a mere garret, a dark stow-hole for ghosts, hypnotism, and spiritualism. It is as orderly and well kept as any other scientific suite ; its elevation gives it a wide view ; and it opens to the free sky, to the larger truths of life. X. — Showing the relation of psy- chology to other branches. PSYCHOLOGY PHYSIOLOGY BIOLOff §Y CHEMISTRY PHYSICS THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY 1$ Physiology and psychology have some ground in common ; in fact, it is not always easy to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. There is even a dispute as to whether psychology is not properly a part of physiology. We shall probably be unable to settle this dispute until we have more knowledge. If we should stop breathing for ten minutes in order to observe what would happen, we, our minds, would no longer be there to observe. So, too much or too little food, or work, or play, or sleep, changes our minds so much that, if we could photograph them as we do our faces, we should not recognize ourselves. How to find the nature of a science. — Whenever we find any work going on — for example, men building some- thing — we can learn the nature 6i it from the answers to a few very simple but very important questions : i . What is the one big purpose of the whole business? What is it for? 2. With what kind of material are the workers busy? 3. What is their method of work? 4. Finally, what comes out of it ? What good is it ? So, whenever we find a body of scientists busy at build- ing a science, we can learn its nature by finding out these four characteristics : 1. Purpose. 2. Subject matter. 3. Method of investigating. 4. Results. We shall learn the nature of psychology by studying these four features of it. But before we take up the purpose of this particular science, let us glance at the " why " of science in general. l6 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS The purpose of science in general. — Why do we, the human race, study science? Because we want to live successfully, and the highway of science is the road to success. Nature is at once our best friend and our worst enemy. She supports us ; but she also destroys us. She indiffer- ently furnishes our food, wrecks us with disease, provides us with fuel, terrorizes us with flood and earthquake and other disasters. But she is orderly, regular, systematic, works " accord- ing to law," as we say. And science is just our effort to find out that law. In this way, we gradually get control of food supply, fuel, clothing, building materials, disease germs, and other determiners of our happiness and misery. And though our puny strength is insufl&cient to control the greater forces, such as those that cause cUmate, storm, flood, and earthquake, yet through science we are becom- ing wise enough to predict what is going to happen, and to shape our course accordingly. The purpose of science in general, then, is prediction and control of events, as a means to human happiness. Of course, there are those who follow science for the sake of science, just as others follow " art for art's sake." So- ciety, however, expects from science, not merely the pleasure of the scientist, but a contribution toward better hving. Purpose of psychology. — Psychology aims to predict and to control mental events. When a child is born, we wish to predict, from our knowledge of its ancestors, what kind of mind it will develop. As the child grows older, both parents and teachers want to control its mental opera- THE NATTJEE OF PSYCHOLOGY 17 tions. Many a teacher fails to keep order; and yet discipline is a matter of psychological control. The physician needs to understand the mind of his patient; the minister, the sin-sick soul ; the lawyer, his chent and his witness; the salesman, his customer; the wife, her husband ; the husband, his wife ; the orator, his audience ; the statesman, his people ; and Everyman, how to control himself : for " better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Subject matter of psychology. — The subject matter of psychology consists of thoughts and feelings — using these THE WORLD Fig. 2. The individual. The world. - Showing how mind stands between stimulus and reaction. terms rather loosely. These thoughts and feelings stand between what is done to us and what we do in return. Let us picture the world and the individual as in the figure (Fig. 2). " What the world does to you " that arouses your thoughts and feelings, is called a stimulus. " What you do in return " is your reaction. Thoughts and feel- ings form a very important hnk between stimulus and reaction. l8 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS For example, an old friend passes you on the street, with averted gaze. If you feel this as a slight, you may take social vengeance, cut him off your party list ; but if you think his eye chanced to miss you, you hail him at next meeting as cordially as ever. Psychology is made more interesting by the varied reactions of different individuals. Punish one pupil, and he thinks it over and reforms. Another feels that you have personally insulted him, vents his spite on you, and behaves worse than ever. A third seems too callous and stupid to think or feel anything. Branches of psychology. — Mind of some sort is found in creatures of many kinds, and under a variety of condi- tions, sane, insane, aged, infantile, hximan, animal, and so on. The study of all these types gives rise to a number of kinds of psychology, which Yerkes ^ has arranged in an ingenious diagram, as below. ^^N o r m a 1 - — -; Adult ^^ — rHuman— ^Individual Psychology of ^^ \/ \/ ^■Abnormal ^Young — ^P 1 a n t Group or or Old Animal Each term in the upper Hne is contrasted with the one directly below it. To name the various branches of psychology, start at the left and pass toward the right along any horizontal or obUqtie hues until you have included four terms. Thus, the psychology of the normal, adult, human individual is ordinary, " general " psychology, just what we are now beginning. The psychology of the '■ Robert M. Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, p. 17. THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY tg normal, young, human group, is the psychology of children as they work or play together. In addition to all these divisions, there are other branches of psychology which answer special purposes. So, physio- logical psychology traces the relations between physiology and psychology; comparative psychology compares the minds of various animals including humans, perhaps ; genetic psychology shows the genesis, or development from the beginning, of mind in an individual, or a .species, or even the whole worldful of Uving creatures. Very im- portant for the teacher is educational psychology, which traces the laws of the growing mind and helps us to adapt the lesson to the learner. Method in psychology. — The general method of find- ing out truth is the same in all sciences. The process con- sists of three very large and important steps ; 1. Get the facts. 2. Form a theory. 3. Test the theory. Take an example. The water in your pitcher is sometimes warm, sometimes cool, to your hands, when you can find no cause for its changing temperature. 1. You collect facts, take the temperature of the water with a thermometer, note whether your hands were warm or cool just before being immersed, etc. 2. After careful thought, you conclude that water of unchanging temperature seems warm or cool according to the temperature of the hand that enters it. 3. As a test, you hold your right hand in cold water, the left in hot water, for a few minutes, then plunge both into 20 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS water that is lukewarm. It seems warm to the right hand, cold to the left. This is a simple illustration of the general method of investigation followed in all sciences — first facts, then thinking, theorizing, and back to the facts again. Of course, the facts are always acquired by observation. And just here is what makes psychology seem " queer " on first acquaintance : probably all the other sciences you have studied — geography, botany, and so on — have directed your observation to things outside of you, to flowers, rivers, rocks, to what-is-not-you. Even physiology gets no farther than your body. But now, you shall ob- serve what goes on in your mind — your thoughts and feelings, your mental self. It is somewhat as if a camera, having hitherto centered all its efforts on photographing everything around it, should begin to take pictures of what goes on within. The mind's observation of itself is called introspection. There is no great mystery or difi&culty about it.^ Ask a small boy if he is hungry, and he must introspect before he can tell you truly. Every time you answer the question, How do you feel, or describe your symptoms for your physician, you do it by introspection. If you performed the experiment with the three bowls of water, as described above, you found your verdict as to the temperature of the water by introspection. There is no one who does not observe his mind, in some fashion, carelessly or carefully, every day. Psychology simply requires that you observe ' "The most frequent impediment to men's turning their minds inward upon themselves, is that they are afraid of what they shall find there." S. T. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 124. THE NATUKE OF PSYCHOLOGY 21 mind carefully, just as botany demands that you observe plants carefully. Results of psychological investigation. — Perhaps the chief result of studying psychology has been to convince us that there can be results. Mind is no longer regarded as a sealed mystery, an irresponsible, self-sufficient thing, defiant of law. We should be greatly surprised if fire burned us to-day and froze us to-morrow : the natural world " works by law." Mind, too, works by law. " I chanced to think," you say. "No," interrupts the psychologist; " not if you mean that it really happened by chance ; for nothing ever happens by chance in the mind any more than it does outside the mind." And he proceeds to explain to you the laws of your thinking. True, his range and ac- curacy of prediction and control are not yet so great as in certain other sciences. This is partly because psychology is young as yet, partly because its facts are often complex and difficult to get at. One of the chief results, then, is that science, entering the last corner of the universe to be explored, the mental corner, finds everything orderly, regular, systematic here, as elsewhere. If we look for the more practical, everyday benefits of psychologic study, the chief difficulty is, not to find them, but to find any human situation where they are not, or at least, cannot be. In home life, in court, in asylum, church, schoolroom — in all personal culture and in all social usefulness, this science of mental personahty is help- ing us to deal with persons. 22 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS CLASS EXPERIMENTS The purpose of these exercises is to get practice in introspection. 1. The instructor will announce some simple task, such as, " Write the alphabet backward." Each will observe and report on the way his mind works during the process. 2. Let the instructor display together several full-page advertise- ments (perhaps mounted on cardboard). Each wiU select the best- liked and the least-liked. Report of reasons for likes and dislikes. What practical help is there here for the advertiser ? ' 3. Outside of class, let each make some small purchase, noting the effect on him of the store, its lighting, cleanliness, arrangement ; the clerk's courtesy or lack of it ; the appearance of the package and the quality of the goods. Class report and discussion. " ShaU you buy there again? " Why or why not ? FOR FURTHER STUDY V I . Write ten questions which you think psychology should answer. 2. Arrange two columns, headed " Physical " and " Mental," respectively. Make a number of entries in each. Compare the two sets of entries and try to make statements about them. 3. If the study of animals is included in physical geography, is there then anything mental about it ? Try to prove your answer. ^ 4. Try to find some difference between life and mind. If one loses his mind, is that the same as losing his life? 5. State the purpose, subject matter, method of investigating, and the chief results, of some science you have studied. 6. Philosophy is an attempt to gain a comprehensive, unified view of the universe. Do you think psychology has any more to do with it than has any other branch ? ' After trial of these advertisements on a few classes (totaling, say, 100 students) the teacher will be able to state in advance which will stand first, which last, in the choice of succeeding classes — a simple case of psycho- logical prediction. THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY 23 7. Predict what answer you will get from a friend if you ask him a certain question — perhaps whether his candidate will win the next election. Try it out, telling him nothing of your purpose. Compare the result with your prediction. 8. One author, on reading the first part only of another's book, has been known to predict correctly how the characters would turn out. How is this possible? 9. Novelists assert that sT character, once he is introduced, in- sists on behaving as he will — the author cannot control him. How is this ? 10. Describe, that is, name, according to Yerkes' scheme, the psychology of an old man ; of a lamb ; of a group of insane men and women ; of a mob ; of your psychology class. 11. Look up the derivation of the word introspection. Do the meanings of its roots seem to you to fit the case ? 12.- What advantage is there, when one is Ul, in being a skilled introspector ? 13. " Just put yourself in my place and tell me what you would do." Is this possible? If so, what does it require? 14. Describe some experience of your early school days. Of what use is it to a teacher to be able to bring back his own school experience vividly by introspection ? 15. Observe the influence of work, play, sleep, eating, deep breath- ing, etc., on your mental condition, and report what you find. 16. Picture the world as it would be if suddenly deprived of all scientific knowledge. 17. Are there any difficulties in observing thoughts and feelings, that are not found when we observe the outside world ? 18. Is psychology any more closely connected with teaching than it is with preaching, or practicing law? 19. State differences you have observed in people with regard to spending money, attending church, studying, pleasure-seeking, pay- ing attention to the other sex, etc. What do you think psychology can do in the way of prediction and control here ? 20. Working either alone or in class, make a summary, for your notebook, of the facts in this chapter which you think it worth while to memorize. Try to write short, crisp, meaningful sentences. 24 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS REFERENCES Baldwin, James Mark, The Story of the Mind, Ch. I. Ebbinghaus, Hermann, Psychology, Introduction. (A sketch of the history of psychology.) Galton, Francis, Inquiries into Human Faculty. (A treasury of interesting material.) McDougall, William, Psychology, Ch. I. Titchener, E. B., A Primer of Psychology, Ch. I, II. CHAPTER II BODY, BRAIN, AND MIND " The centipede was happy, quite, UntU the toad, for fun. Said, ' Pray, which leg comes after which ? ' This worked her mind to such a pitch She lay distracted in the ditch. Considering how to run." Exercise. — Do you believe the centipede ever spends any time considering how to nm ? What do you think as to its moving each leg with deliberation? What keeps the legs moving with such regularity and speed ? Where or what is the controlling apparatus ? What could you do to the centipede so as to interfere with its leg movements without injuring the legs themselves? If you know of any lower animals or human beings that have suffered loss of move- ment in any part without direct injury to that part, tell of such cases. Do you think the centipede ever tries to explain your movements as you do its running? Why? Would it have more or less to ex- plain? What is the chief difference between you and a centipede so far as behavior is concerned ? The body is like a city. — One who carelessly observes a city may regard it as a confused collection of corners, big buildings, streets full of people and vehicles, cars, noises, and bumps. But as he studies the chaos, he finds it com- posed of systems, working, for the most part, harmoniously. First of all, a city must be fed. Consequently, it has some sort of feeding system ; food enters from somewhere and is laid before the buyer in store or market. Further, since people must get about and goods must be transported, 25 26 PSYCHOLOGY FOU TEACHERS a transportation system is necessary, streets, car^ lines, taxicabs, delivery wagons. To dispose of the waste, there is a sewage system. Over all, there is a system of govern- ment. If this governing system is efl&cient, it receives quick news from everywhere and enforces its ordinances from center to suburb in the interest of all. So, a human body, at careless glance, may seem a plan- less collection of parts ; but physiology shows us that it is a well-organized group of systems, a system of systems. Man as a group of systems. — Man, like every other living creature, is first of all a feeder, an eater ; hence his digestive system. To carry the digested food about the body requires a circulatory system. To keep the blood stream of the circulatory system pure, there is a respiratory, or breathing system. To remove waste matter, we are provided with an excretory system — lungs, skin, and kidneys. And since nature has not made the body im- mortal, it must reproduce its kind ; hence the reproductive, or sexual system. These five systems, digestive, circulatory, respiratory, excretory, and reproductive, are often called the vegetative systems, because they are all found, in some form, in plants. Plants feed, circulate their sap, breathe, excrete waste matter, and reproduce their kind. Perhaps it is more en- lightening to call these five systems the supporting, or maintenance systems, because they merely support, or maintain, the bodily machine. They simply enable the plant or animal to keep alive so long as conditions are favorable. But as they do the inside work only, of the body, they do not put it in touch with the great world out- side. In fact, a creature that has maintenance systems BODY, BRAIN, AND MIND 27 only, such as a geranium, does not even know that there is an outside world, an environment on which its life ab- solutely depends. Now, most animals have two more systems, most im- portant of all to us as psychologists. These are the mus- cular and the nervous system. If the conservatory be- comes cool, the cat goes elsewhere to find warmth; but the geranium sits still and quietly freezes to death. Why ? Because it has no muscular system and so can not move itself about. But further, it lacks the animal nervous system, and so does not know that it is cold, or have any wish to move about. These two systems, the muscular and the nervous, are sometimes called the animal systems because (speaking generally and roughly) animals have them and plants do not. It is better, perhaps, to call them the adaptive sys- tems, because they enable the animal to adapt itself to its surroundings. So the cat leaves the cold conservatory and hunts a warmer environment. But we, having better nerves and muscles than the cat, can surpass her in power of adaptation, can succeed better — for that is what adapta- tion amounts to : we do not go to the heat, but bring it to ourselves by turning the damper of our furnace. As teachers, we are especially interested in the adaptive systems, for we may almost say the pupil is his nerves and muscles. The nervous system feels, experiences, what the world does to him ; his muscular system carries out, vigor- ously or weakly, skillfully or clumsily, his reaction. Given good nerve and muscle and we have a good pupil. And if we ever succeed in educating him, it will be by training his adaptive systems, in other words, his success systems, 28 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS his nervo-muscular or (as it is more commonly called) neuro-muscular apparatus. For instance, when we teach a child to write, we first print on his brain a picture of the letters and the movements he is to make, and then train his muscles to make them. This process goes on as long as we learn — and that should be as long as we live : the world beats its lessons into our brains, and we in turn try- to show by what we do, by the use we make of our muscular systems, that we amount to something in the world, and can perhaps even influence its tough constitution. The nervous system is the governing system of the body. — As in a city all departments are subject to the city government, so in the body all other systems are subject to the nervous system. Stomach, heart, lungs, muscles — every part of the body reports to it ; and from it are sent out nearly all orders for the transaction of the body's business. Even to sense a fly on one's cheek and to swat him for his impudent invasion, brings actively into play some part of this supreme system of the body. And not only does the nervous system suffer with the others, as when a decayed tooth or an inflamed lung causes pain ; and rejoice with the others, as when we " feel fine all over " ; but it teaches all the other systems, gives them training and discipline so far as they are capable of re- ceiving it. For example, if we wish to form the habit of deep breathing, it is the brain that drills the lungs into their proper habit. But, speaking generally, the behavior of the maintenance systems can not be changed very much : heart, lungs, and stomach, behave about the same at death as they did at birth. Not so with the adaptive systems : it is chiefly in muscle and brain that the adult differs from BODY, BRAIN, AND MIND 29 Fig. 3. — Showing how the nervous system, the governing system of the body, is distributed throughout its bulk. 3° PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS the child. Yet all nicety of muscular action merely pictures for us the fine performance of the brain cells, boxed out of sight in the skull. To teach a child is to change his nervous system so as to make it work better. The aim of education is the production of the best possible nervous system. What if there were no nervous system? — To find out what a thing is good for, take it away and see what happens. Let us consider an animal to which nature has given no nerv- ous tissue. The sponge (see the figure) is such an animal. In the numerous pores that lead from the outside of its body to the large cavity within, are many ciUa, or hairUke muscles, which lash the water and cause it to flow inward. Ordi- narily, it then passes out through the opening at the top. Around Fig. 4.— Diagram of a sponge, this opening is a muscle which, when stimulated, contracts and prevents the water from escaping. Yet, in such a case, the cilia go on thrashing the water and vainly trying to force it inward. This is as foolish as if a man should try to build a brick wall by laying up bricks with one hand and pulling them down with the other. If man had no nervous system, he would probably try, sometimes, to walk in opposite directions with his two legs, or start a fight between his two fists. The primitive nervous system. — Any animal that re- mains fixed to one spot, as the sponge does, has less need BODY, BRAIN, AND MIND 31 of an adaptive system than does one that undertakes to guide itself freely about its environment and find its food. Such a creature, without sense organs, would bump into its surroundings and flounder into danger on every hand, to say nothing of missing many a good meal. Nature's way of meeting this emergency is to develop around the bumping spots and the food-finding end of the animal, cells sensitive enough to re- ceive impressions from the environment, in other words, nerve cells. These nerve cells enable it to get advance news of whatever is about, flee the bad and seek the good. The jellyfish is one of the humblest creatures that at- tempt to explore the environ- ment in this way. It lacks „ t-t. • n c 1, i/ ■' . Fig. s- — The jellyfish. V, um- eyes and ears, but has sensi- trelk; B, circular band, containing tive cells around the rim of N, a ring of nervous tissue; i?, a its body and in its tentacles, sense-organ for touch; T, tentacle; •^ , . . ., M, mouth stalk. From these sensitive cells, nerve fibers branch off, forming a nerve-net that runs all through its muscular system. Whenever one of these sensi- tive cells is stimulated, a nerve thrill, or impulse, runs from it through the nerve fibers to the surrounding muscles. The stronger the stimulation, the farther the impulse travels, until all the muscles of the body are set into motion. The result is that, whether swimming or feeding, all its muscles work well together, are well coordinated — quite a con- trast to the sponge. 32 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS It is evident that the nervous system controls, whether in jellyfish or man, by connecting and unifying the various parts of the body. But the jellyfish is a stupid creature, after all. It has no brain. How we came to have brains. — We are all descended from a simple, wormlike creature. The segments of our backbone are memorials of the segments of its body. At first, these segments were largely independent, each having its own sensori-motor arcs, that is, " arches " of nerve running from sense organ to muscle, and each its own ganglion.^ (See the figure.) But such an animal has to move ; and it is not round, like a jellyfish, and so it cannot strike off indififerently in any direction : it has ends, and one of these ends must go first. Since the creature is moving largely to find food, it is natural that the mouth end should go ahead. Now, this roaming mouth needs the best C h guidance possible. What better place Fig. 6. — Diagram ^P^ the senses of taste, smell, hearing, of the nervous system and sight, than the region around the of the earthworm. CG, rnou th ? the cerebral ganglion, _ or "brain," the master ^^^ every One of these sense organs ganglion of the nervous must be connected with every muscle ^y®'^™- of the body. If, for example, the eye 1 A ganglion is a group of nerve cell bodies, with their branchlets — a kind of connecting center for the nerve fibers. The plural is ganglia. BODY, BRAIN, AND MIND 33 reports food in front of the animal, a nerve thrill must pass from that eye to every body-moving muscle to insure full speed ahead. And there must be an equally widespread distribution of nerve impulses to secure united action of all muscles in beating a retreat. Now, all this means mul- tiplication of connections, of nerve fibers, and as we should expect, most of them appear in the most convenient place, near the sense organs, in the head. So begins the brain. Thus there come to be grouped, in and about the bony- armored head, the mouth, the special sense organs, and the brain. To sum up : the mouth end of the animal not only goes ahead, but grows a head, with a brain in it, and set round with the most delicate and precious sense organs.^ What does the brain do ? — The brain is the master ganglion of the body, the chief member of the most im- portant bodily system, the governing system, the steering system. We can sum up its business pretty well under two heads : 1. It stores experience.^ 2. It gives every part of the body the direct benefit of this stored experience. I . This stored experience takes the form of memory — using the term in a wide sense. The brainless jellyfish probably has no idea of what he did yesterday. He reacts to each knock of his environment without knowing whether the same visitor ever knocked before. Not so man : the records of his experience he there in his brain cells, as the life records of the city are found in the archives of its 1 See W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, pp. 18, 19. 2 Of course, this is a figure of speech. It is much like saying that a phonograph record "stores" the music which it can reproduce. 34 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS council chambers. This is precisely why he can be edu- cated so easily and induced to shift his course to fit the future. But any teacher would have hard labor trying to discipUne and instruct a school of jellyfish ! 2. In the jellyfish, there is not only no central office of intelligence, but there is no switchboard method of con- necting organ with organ directly. If a nerve impulse starts at any point, it has no private wire on which to travel, but must spread, like rumor on a country telephone, where- ever the wires are open. The human brain is a switch- board wherein hundreds of millions of " wires," that is, nerve paths, shift their messages. Now, learning anything is just a matter of making new paths, or perfecting old ones, in the nervous system, es- pecially the brain. A man who had been brought up in the East, took a trip to that part of the West where cactus is abundant. One day, losing himself in the pursuit of some creature he was trying to capture, he pushed vigor- ously into the midst of an equally vigorous cactus bush. Said he, " That sharp experience taught me to let the cacti alone. I never assaulted a cactus bush after that." This means that the sight of a cactus ever after discharged his brain currents over a new path and made his muscles carry him away from the bush instead of into it. A child sees a candle for the first time and touches it. (See the figure.) This means that a nervous impulse runs from the eye to C, the candle cell, and out to the muscles of arm and hand. The resulting burn sends in another nervous current which thrills both C and B, the burn cell, at once, and so sets up a path between them. Next time the child sees a candle, the impulse which arouses C passes BODY, BRAIN, AND MIND 35 to B also, causing him to remember the burn and restrain the natural tendency to touch.^ Here is stored experience, made available by improved switchboard connections, for the protection of the body. Had these individuals had the nervous system of a jellyfish, they would have gone on blun- dering into danger many times more. The nervous system exercises two kinds of control. — When our friend ran into the cactus, he knew per- fectly well that he wanted to get out: there was (i) conscious control. But he probably knew nothing of his heart's beating or his breathing ; he may even have said something with- out knowing it. Yet his nervous system controlled all these matters, too. Here was (2) unconscious, automatic control. Some of the lower animals exhibit automatic control to a Fig. 7. — "A burnt child fears the fire." Dotted lines indicate impulses running into the brain ; the dash line an impulse passing out to move the muscles. ' This account is simplified as compared with what actually happens. For a complete statement and cut, see James's Principles of Psychology, vol. I, pp. 24-27. 36 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS nicety. Competent observers assure me that chickens are sometimes known to run when their heads have been removed. Certainly, a creature so low as the centipede does so readily. Cut off a centipede's head while the animal is running, and its hundred legs, bearing the headless body, run on without confusion. Cut its length into several fractions, and each fraction does the same. If the head- less body meets a low obstacle, it mounts over the ob- struction; if a high one, it is stalled dead against it, but still the legs keep up their motion. Cut the ventral cord, a cable of nerves corresponding to our spinal cord, thus Fig. 8. — A centipede, showing nervous cord, with ganglia, and master centers in the head. severing all nervous connection between head and hind legs, and the front legs will have one motion while the hinder ones show another. The reason, of course, is that the tiny brain still controls the front legs, while the rear ones are directed by their own ganglia only. If the cut is so placed that this rear portion of the body is the larger and stronger, it may even carry the head where that head does not at all want to go.^ Now, the psychologist is interested in behavior of all sorts, but more especially in consciously controlled be- havior, and most especially in the consciousness, the 1 See William B. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, pp. 53, 54. BODY, BRAIN, AND MIND 37 thoughts and feeUngs, the mind which does the con- trolling. Where is the mind found ? Mind dwells in the brain. — The mind, sometimes called the soul, has been variously located by different observers, in the breath, in the heart, and elsewhere, sometimes in the body as a whole. " Joseph's bowels yearned for his brethren " ; " bowels of compassion " ; " Cupid's dart has pierced my heart " ; " hot-blooded " ; " white- livered " ; " spleeny " ; these and many other phrases suggest that the mind is located in, or strongly influenced by, certain bodily organs. When we touch an object, we may even feel that we are in the hand, doing the touching. But if we cut the nerves between hand and brain, we no longer " feel " it when the hand makes contact with objects; and though we can determine to move the hand, we are unable to do so. Yet the brain can still think of the hand ; and if we stimulate the cut end of the nerve leading to the brain, we get sensa- tions that seem to be in the hand. And this is true even when the whole hand has been cut off. The hand-ex- perience, then, is really in the brain. This explains the many stories of a phantom limb, wherein the owner of the limb seems to be conscious of it, or even tries to use it, after it has been amputated : the brain continues to behave as it got into the habit of be- having while the limb was attached. There are at least two great lines of evidence that make us believe the mind is in the brain. These are (i) brain devel- opment and (2) brain pathology (injury, disease, or decay). (i) In general, mind and brain develop together. Man, the first of all animals in mental development, excels also 38 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS in complexity of brain, and (with a few exceptions) in brain weight as compared with body weight.^ (2) A surgeon can open one's skull and, by moderate pressure on the brain, cause consciousness to vanish. If he removes a certain center in the back part of the brain, the owner of it cannot see, though his eyes are unharmed, and he is still " in his senses," — the remainder of them. An inflamed brain may cause insanity; a bloodless one, fainting. When the brain shrinks and decays because of old age, the mind also is affected. These, and a host of other similar facts, convince us that the mind dwells in the brain. CLASS (OR INDIVIDUAL) EXPERIMENT Fig. 9. — Plan of the Hampton Court Maze. Figure 9 shows the plan of the Hampton Court Maze, which has served widely in experiments on lower animals and human beings. ' See Ladd and Woodworth's Elements of Physiological Psychology, p. 34. BODY, BRAIN, AND MIND 39 The problem is to find the way from the entrance to the food box without back-tracking. Do not try it, nor study the maze, until told by your instructor to do so. Your problem is not so much to find the way to the food box as to observe how your mind behaves when you undertake such a task. How do you decide which way to start ? How do you feel when caught in a blind alley? Notice how the experience is stored to help you past that point next time. Trace your path with something that leaves no mark, such as a toothpick. How many trials are required before you can go directly to the food box ? Write a brief introspective account of the learning process. FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Describe the behavior of a human being as you think it would result if he had no nervous system. 2. Would a sensitive nervous system and sense organs like yours be a blessing or a curse to a plant, if it had no muscular system? Why? 3. Give numerous instances of adaptation, the successful fitting of conduct to circumstances, involving the nervous and muscular systems. 4. Give instances of friction and failure owing to lack of adapta- tion. What do you think was the matter in each case ? 5. " To teach a child is to change his nervous system so as to make it work better." Try whether this is true in reading, arithmetic, spelling, manual training, etc. 6. Have you noticed in yourself any lack of muscular coordina- tion in your work or play when fatigued ? Can you hit a croquet or tennis ball just as well ? If not, suggest a reason for the poor control. 7. Compare, with regard to sense organs, the heads of various common animals, such as the earthworm, the centipede (the house centipede is blind), the snail, the grasshopper, the snake, the sparrow, 40 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS the cat. Do you suppose human heads, 10,000 years from now, will show any change in size ? 8. Make a rough drawing to suggest the possible course of the nervous currents in the case of the man who learned not to run into cactus bushes. 9. Tickle, prick, or pinch the hand or foot of a sleeping animal, human or lower. Explain what happens. Do you think the nervous current in this case reaches the brain? Why? 10. List aU the phrases you can find which indicate that the mind is located in, or influenced by, certain parts of the body. 11. (a) " Cupid's dart has pierced my heart." (6) " A dart from Cupid's quiver has pierced me through the liver." (c) " Oh! the sweetness of the pain, since Cupid shot me through the brain." Which of these is most truthfvil? Which would you place on a valentine ? Why ? 12. As a child's stomach increases in size, his mind develops. How do you know the mind is not in the stomach ? 13. Discuss the extent to which one can exert conscious control over the various systems of the body. Do you think one's ideas may aid or hinder digestion ? Why? 14. A feather, used to tickle the back part of the mouth in order to produce vomiting, is sometimes seized by the muscles of the throat and pulled out of the fingers of the physician or other person who holds it. Explain this. REFERENCES Colvin and Bagley, Human Behavior, Ch. VII. Harvey, Nathan A., Elementary Psychology, Ch. I. ELirkpatrick, Edwin A., Genetic Psychology, Ch. I-III. Ladd and Woodworth, Elements of Physiological Psychology, Ch. I. McDougall, W., Physiological Psychology, Ch. I. CHAPTER III THE MENTAL AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL Exercises. — i . Which of the following words refer to the physical world? Which to mental processes? Which may refer to either? Stone, memory, fluid, anger, fire, sound, moon, darkness, voice, color, thought, taste, smell, horse power, touch, heat. 2. Would there be any " sound " when a tree fell in the wilderness if no Kving creature was there to hear it? (Be sure that you know what you mean by sound.) 3. Imagine a peculiar pencil — perhaps one with two points, or one that leaves a thread of gold wherever it writes. Can you put into the imagined pencU anything that you have not experienced at some time with your sense organs? (For example, you have seen golden threads.) Nature and human nature. — All the world, so far as we know it, may be divided into two parts, nature and human nature (including the minds of animals). We are apt to feel that there is quite a contrast between winds, rivers, and stars on the one hand, and on the other, the mind that ob- serves all these things and thinks about them. A few of the points in such a contrast may be summed up as below : Nature Human Nature 1. Environmental, phys- Mental. ical. 2. Objects experienced. Experience itself. 3. Seems not to know Is conscious: knows, for what it is about. the most part, what it is doing. 41 42 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Nature Hxunan Nature 4. Each object can be ob- Each mind can be ob- served by many. served by itself only. 5. Made up of things and Composed of processes processes (as air, a thing ; only (as memory and imagi- and wind, a process) . nation) . The mental pictures the environmental. — We have seen that it is the business of the brain to store experience and hold it ready to use when needed for guidance. Were it not so, no one of us would know the way home. Now, experience consists largely of pictures of the environment. Let me ask you the way to your home, or your room, or the next town, and you -probably find pictures of the turning points flashing through your mind. As a psychologist, you must learn to make a sharp dis- tinction between natural objects and your experience of those objects. Either may perish while the other survives. You carved your name on a tree years ago. The tree may be gone but the experience is still stored in your brain. Or perhaps you have entirely forgotten the toy which your mother keeps, and with which, as she tells you, you played in childhood. The object survives the old experience. You are sitting at your study table. Close your eyes and you can still " see " the table there before you, as the child in school looks away from his spelling book and spells off a word from his mental photograph of it. So you can picture your home, or the ocean, or the " spacious firmament on high." Now, your experience is in your brain, but all these other things are not, any more than they are in the camera that photographs them. THE MENTAL AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL 43 Objective and subjective. — The psychological terms used to indicate the contrast between nature and human nature are objective and subjective. Objective refers to the object world, the world of nature ; it means " pertaining to the object experienced." Subjective refers to human nature, and means " pertaining to the experience itself." So, your thought of home is subjective ; the home (house) itself, objective. Your teeth are objective, your tooth- ache, subjective. We can always decide between the subjective and the objective by this simple test : Could the thing in question, under any circumstances, be observed by others, as even one's heart or stomach might be ? or is it, like my thought or my heartache, observable by me only ? Whatever could be thrown open to the inspection of all is objective ; that which can be observed by introspection only, is sub- jective. When in doubt. as to whether a hght or a sound is " real " or imaginary, we turn naturally to our companions and ask whether they see or hear it. Students often inquire whether Banquo's ghost was " really there." If several saw it, it was probably a real apparition — but not cer- tainly so ; for sometimes a whole crowd sees something which has no objective existence. Psychology is the science of the subjective. — The subjective is the introspectable, and the introspectable is the mental. While there are other sciences, such as logic, that -deal with mental facts in some measure, psy- chology is the only science whose purpose it is to describe and explain such facts in order to predict and control them. 44 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Introspection. — Now (as stated in Chapter I) intro- spection is psychological observation, the mind's examina- tion of itself. Without this, there could be no science of psychology, as we know it. Whoever can not introspect, can scarcely enter the outer court of the science. His progress in it will be in direct proportion to his introspective abihty. When a person undertakes to introspect, he should be, as Titchener says, (i) impartial, (2) attentive, (3) com- fortable, and (4) fresh} In fact, this should be true of all observation, outward or inward. But whereas there is no humiliation in telling the tinvarnished truth about a stone or a flower, it sometimes hurts a little to report just what an impartial recording angel must see in our minds. We must brace up and tell the straight truth about our- selves, whether it exalts or abases. The introspective habit, if it does not become morbid, is of great help in all practical affairs. A school director, explaining why a certain teacher failed, said, " She never seemed to be able to put herself in the pupil's place." Many teachers fail for this reason. Introspection enables teachers, as well as others, to put themselves " in another's place." Among the Golden Sayings of Epictetus, we find this : " The husbandman deals with land ; physicians and trainers with the body; the wise man with his own mind." You can introspect an experience from the past, in so far as memory can repeat it for you ; or from the present, while it is on the wmg. Try the first : close your book, summon some experience from the past, such as your ' See his Primer of Psychology, p. 34. THE MENTAL AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL 45 triumph in a game, your fall from a bicycle, or some child- ish love, center your whole mind on it and go through it in detail. This takes time, but it is worth the effort to a psychologist.^ Now try a fresh experiment. Fix your eyes on the upper point of the ghost's nose (Fig. lo) for about fifteen seconds, and then look off at a point on a light-colored wall or a sheet of white paper for a few seconds. Don't let your gaze wander from either point. Make notes of your experience. What is mind ? — Mind is hard to define, but if any one wants a concrete example, we can teU him, " It is just what you are when you ask about it." However, introspection shows that mind is a stream of hap- penings — something coming and something going constantly. Ask a friend to tell you when two minutes are up, and during that time, let the mental stream flow on, and try to count the different things you think of. Mind, then, is not a thing, but a process. Things, speak- ing generally, remain unchanged, at least for a time, while a process is change. Water is a thing ; the flow of water is a process. Air is a thing ; wind, the movement of air, is a process. A wire is a thing; light, coming from a 1 Samples from the work of other students are of great value at this point. Fig. 10. — A Hallowe'en ghost. 46 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS heated wire, is a process. The brain is a thing; mind, intimately associated with brain, is a process of some kind.^ Just where the wind is when it is not blowing, where the light is when it is not shining, where the smiles are when we are not smiHng, there, so far as we know, is where the mind is when it is not active, when we are not conscious. The mind of the dreamless sleeper has, for us, no existence, save as its " record " lies in the brain somewhat as the record of your phonograph music lies in the cabinet, ready for the next reproduction. Mind is a stream of experience that flows from stimulus to reaction. It may move in deeps or shallows, now with meandering drift, now with the direct rush of a torrent; but its general course, from babyhood to the end, is ever the same. The physical, the physiological, and the psychological. — Mind dwells in the brain, and so in the body ; and the body dwells in the big world called the environment. We can picture this by circles (see Fig. ii). Mind, the psy- chological, has a physiological environment, namely, the body. The body has an environment composed of what- ever you can point at around you, but which is, for the most part, physical.^ ' Frequently, I shall use language which may seem to indicate that mind is nothing more than brain currents. I do not wish to imply anything about the relation between mind and brain. No one knows what that relation- ship is. But we are pretty sure that whenever the mind is active, there is corresponding brain activity. For brevity, then, and for the sake of pre- senting a concrete picture of the situation, I shall sometimes speak of brain thrills as if they were mental processes. 2 Sometimes the word "physical" is used in a broad sense, and includes the physiological, as when we classify all things under two heads, physical and mental. THE MENTAL AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL 47 This physical world is full of energy, which beats the body constantly, as waves beat a ship. Things bump against us, heat waves roll at us without ceasing, sound waves pulse into the ear, and Hght waves vibrate through the eye. The nervous system has end organs, receptors (that is, receivers), commonly called sense organs, which, being sensitive to these waves of energy, receive them and convert them into nervous energy, nerve currents, somewhat as a telephone receiver catches the waves of your voice and converts them into an electric current. But the telephone cannot catch light or heat waves in this way, because it is not "tuned " to them. So, each kind of bodily receiver, or sense organ, has been likened to a lock which can be unlocked by one key only, that is, by the kind of energy stimulus it is made to receive. The ear takes in sounds, but not colors ; and the eye, light but not sound. Quite likely much in this world escapes us : quite hkely there are many kinds of energy waves, other colors, sounds, and so on, for which we have no sense organs. Fig. II. — Picturing the relations of mind, body, and environment. 48 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Physical, physiological, and psychological sound.— Tap on your table and consider what happens. The vibrating table starts vibrations in the air. Such vibra- tions constitute physical sound. Most of us believe that physical sound would remain in the world even if we were all dead, or asleep, or had no ears. Winds and waterfalls would still start vibrations. Physical sound, when it reaches the ear, strikes a minute physiological harp and sets it to vibrating. This, in turn, sends through the nerve of hearing a thrill that reaches the brain. Such vibrations and thrills in ear and nerve consti- tute physiological sound. It cannot exist without an ear (or something like it) ; but most, if not all of it, can go on when one is asleep. But you, wide awake, tapping the table, enjoy a kind of sound which your sleeping roommate does not get: this is mental sound, conscious sound, sound as conscious- ness, psychological sound. Such sound would not exist if mind were swept out of the world. No one knows just how physiological sound is related to the psychological, just where the boundary is between the two, just how a nerve thrill can start anything in consciousness. Mind refers to the stream of experience from birth to death. Consciousness is mind at any moment, any cross- section of the stream of experience. A study conscious- ness differs from a theater consciousness, though both may be a part of the same mind at different times. But the two words are often used, roughly, as synonyms. The mind is often made to seem more mysterious than it really is. Those who wish to prove its spirituality some- times attempt to do so by saying that it has no weight, THE MENTAL AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL 49 occupies no space, etc. Neither does physical sound have weight or occupy space. Air and brains are things: they take room and have weight. Sound, of whatever kind, is a process. Beware of wandering words! — In psychology, it is especially necessary to know just what our words mean; for as a rule, we cannot point to what we are talking about, as we can in many other sciences. In particular, we must keep these three circles of meaning (see Fig. 11) distinct. " Sound," as indicated, may have any of three meanings. So may color, taste, smell, and the like. The brain is like a moving-picture factory. — The mental pictures the environmental, and the pictures are always moving. There is a striking similarity between the work of a moving-picture factory and that of the brain. The moving-picture maker must gather his pictures through lenses. If he did not expose his films, he would have no pictures. The brain must gather its experience — much of it — through the sense organs. If it were never " exposed " (stimulated) by their action, the mind would remain a blank — there would be no mind. The factory must store its films and bring them forth as needed. The brain stores experience and reproduces it on call. Both moving pictures and mental pictures may fade in time. The factory cuts up films into sections and from these old pieces makes " new " pictures. The brain analyzes our experience into bits and makes new combinations of the old bits. So you can (mentally) behead a horse and cut a man in two, attach the upper portion of the man to the body of the horse and make a centaur. When Praxit- The brain 50 PSYCHOLOGY TOR TEACHERS eles was asked to make a statue of Venus, he selected the most beautiful parts of the most beautiful female figures he could obtain as models, and then combined these parts into one harmonious whole. Finally, the moving pictures, good or bad, go out into the world. We express our mental pictures in our conduct. To summarize : (i) gathers experience. (2) records and reproduces experience. (3) analyzes experience, divides it up. (4) synthesizes experience, makes new com- binations. (5) expresses experience in conduct. The chief mental processes. — When the brain acts in a certain way, experience results. The brain is the in- strument, or organ, of experience. Mind, consciousness, is experience itself. The brain is the candle : mind is the flame. There are many names for various phases, aspects, parts, of experience, and it will be well to note two or three of them now. The general process of gathering experience through the sense organs is called perception. A perception is a mental picture of an object present to the senses. You perceive the book you hold, for you are getting experience from it through your hands, which touch it, and your eyes, which see it. Stored experience takes the form of ideas. An idea is a mental picture of an object not present to the senses. Close your eyes, put down your book, and form a mental picture of it. This picture is an idea. So also is your mental picture of a fairy, which you have never perceived. THE MENTAL AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL 5 1 When stored experience is reproduced, the brain re- members. A memory is an experience recognized as re- produced. What were you doing yesterday at this time? Studying psychology, perhaps. But you recognize that experience as old : there is no danger of confusing it with to-day's study. The feelings. — So far, we have spoken of the mind as if its whole work consisted in picturing the environment and guiding us safely about. And no doubt its chief and original business was to hold the mirror up to nature in this way. But mind includes some very important pro- cesses which we have purposely neglected so far, namely, our feelings, emotions, moods, and sentiments. Happi- ness, joy, grief, anger, " the blues," envy, love, patriotism — this sort of experience is the mainspring of life : it makes us act. And it does not come to us directly from the en- viromnent, but is pecuharly our own. However, we shall find that perceptions and ideas lead; feeling follows. Later, we shall study feeling carefully. CLASS EXPERIMENTS The purpose of these experiments is to find how our minds work on certain problems. 1. Let the instructor give a phrase or sentence, such as, " 'Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming alone." Each may write a description of the pictures which this calls into his mind. Com- parison and discussion. 2. The instructor may give a word, such as ball, note, fire. Each will write this word and follow it with any ten other words that come to mind. Try to explain why each suggests the following. Compare the various lines of suggestion that stream from the common first word. Do they tell anything of the past lives of those who take part ? 52 PSYCHOLOGY FOE TEACHERS FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Can an artist paint a mind ? 2. When one has delirium tremens, does he see subjective or objective snakes ? How do you know ? 3. State some differences between brain and mind. 4. In the ghost exercise (Fig. 10), is there any object experienced when you see the face on the wall ? 5. Since everything we ever mention has been experienced in some way, is there anything that cannot be studied in psychology? From what point of view ? 6. Natural science deals with the world as it would be without human nature in it. Can we say that mental science deals with the world (or with mind) as it would be if " nature " did not exist? Why? 7. What is the difference between (a) seeing a train, from the out- side, shooting through the landscape, and (b) being on that train? What is the difference between seeing some person in trouble, and being that person? 8. When you see a train, from the outside, how can you have any idea as to what is going on inside it? When you see some one in trouble, how can you have any idea as to what is going on in his mind? 9. (o) Why do you think your pencil has no mind? (6) How can you know a weU-made wax figure from a human being? (c) How do you know your friends have minds ? 10. Why do some joke and tease others, although they themselves get angry at once if such treatment is turned on them? Would you prescribe introspection for such cases? Explain. 11. Show that introspection is needed in order to interpret the golden rule. 12. There is an everlasting debate as to whether beauty is in the object or in the observer. Have you an opinion ? " If she be not fair to me, What care I how fair she be? " THE MENTAL AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL 53 %3- (fl^) Mind is a stream of experience that flows from stimulus to reaction. Give several illustrations, describing the stimulus, the experience, and the reaction. (6) Does not every act of ours become a new stimulus ? 14. Is a mental picture like a photograph? (Remember that there are touch pictures, taste pictures, auditory pictures, and so on, as well as visual pictures.) 15. Has a rose any smeU if inclosed in a glass jar? Has sugar in the bowl any taste ? 16. Has a rose any color in the dark ? (Do not answer unless you have studied physics.) 17. (a) You look at a lemon and say, "The lemon is yellow." (6) You eat a lemon and say, " I am sick." Why not say in (a) " I am yellow "? or in (b), " The lemon is sick "? (" Beware of wandering words.") 18. Suppose a child were brought up in two or three rooms and a few city blocks. What effect would this have on his development? (" The mental pictures the environmental.") ig. " That's all in your mind," we say, as we make light of some statement. Show the force of the argument. 20. Do again the exercises at the opening of this chapter. REFERENCES McDougall, WiUiam, Psychology : The Study of Behavior, Ch. H. Muensterberg, Hugo, Psychology, General and Applied. Pillsbury, W. B., Essentials of Psychology. Read, Melbourne Stuart, An Introductory Psychology, Ch. II. Royce, Josiah, Outlines of Psychology, Ch. I. CHAPTER IV MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR Exercise. — Set down a number (perhaps fifty) " Samples of My Behavior." Include all sorts, heart beat and unconscious wink, habitual tooth-brushing, etc., up to deliberately determined, thought- ful behavior. Try to classify them into three groups according to the amount of consciousness that lies back of each : some behavior can go on without consciousness, other samples may be accompanied by a kind of half-consciousness, while stUl others are directed by fuU, concentrated attention. Do you find any that may be in two or more classes, according to circumstances ? A review of important facts. — We have seen that the muscular and nervous systems are partners in the great work of adapting us to our surroundings. They are con- stantly saving our lives or sacrificing them ; for life itself is just a matter of give-and-take between body and en- vironment. We have observed how the nervous system does its duty by : 1. Transmitting " messages." 2. Coordinating and unifying all parts of the body. 3. Storing experience and keeping it on record for daily use. It is the nervous system which enables us so to act that each to-morrow " finds us farther than to-day." There is no such daily progress in the life of a sponge. Further, we found that experience, mind, consists largely of " pictures " of the environment. By preserving these subjective pictures and putting them in place of the ob- jective things they stand for, we are enabled to act on things absent as though they were present, and on things- S4 MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR $$ to-come as though they were aheady here. So the better- brained man " foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself ; but the simple pass on, and are punished." The next object. — What you want to find now is, how the adaptive systems do the adapting, how mind and muscle work together to keep you afloat on the energy waves by which you are surrounded. These waves, you recall, are constantly beating in on you in the form of bumps and vibrations, stimuli. To some of these stimuli, the neuro- muscular mechanism reacts without your knowing it, as when a bright light makes the pupil of the eye grow smaller. In other cases, your thoughts and feehngs, that is, you, are the conscious link that connects stimulus and reaction. This gives the two kinds of control, automatic and conscious, previously noticed. Now, why should some of your be- havior be like protruding peaks, constantly lighted up by the glow of consciousness, while so much of it is left sub- merged? What behavior must or should be conscious, what automatic? And what difference do these facts make to the teacher? You can best answer these ques- tions by looking again at the mechanism of adaptation — especially the nervous machine. It is interesting to note that man can build machines that show wonderful power of adaptation, being self- oiHng, etc. One scientist has even constructed aa" electric dog " that follows a Ught to right or left, according to the varying position of the light. As a certain physiologist remarks : " If we could build an automobile which, know- ing when it needed gasoline, would steer itself round to the garage and take in a supply, we should have something like human adaptation." ^6 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Improvements over the jeUyfish. — Nature has in- vented many improvements since she made the jellyfish. The awkwardness of getting along without a brain, we have already noted. And we have seen that if an animal is to fit its ways to its environment, it must have sense organs, receivers, receptors,^ dehcate enough to catch all-important news from that enviromnent. But further, we must have every sensitive spot, such as the eye or the ear, connected with ejiery muscle. Suppose that, as you start across the street, you hear something like the toot of an automobile. The thrill of that toot goes to your centers of hearing, located not far inside the brain from the ear. But if this center were not connected with the muscles of the neck or body, you could not aim your eyes in the direction of the sound to see whether you were in danger. Further, even if you did so use your eyes and - saw danger close at hand, it would avail you nothing un- less your sight centers were connected with your running muscles. If you are yourself driving a car, you must be able to call into commission also your arms and hands. The touches of the brake lever and other levers on feet and hands must in turn start nerve impulses that reach many widely-scattered muscles. A little reflection of this kind is sufficient to convince you that every sensory point of the body must be connected with every motor point. Now, the jellyfish has its sensory and motor points con- nected in a rough, rambling way; but there is no close, 1 The term receptor is coming into common use. It is a little broader than sense organ, for various reasons, one being that the sense organ is sup- posed to report to consciousness, while the receptor may receive stimuli without our knowing it. MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR 57 direct, immediate comiection. This switchboard con- nection nature secures for us by means of (i) neurones, (2) synapses, and (3) nervous levels. We must study these new features. Nevirones. — A neurone (from the Greek neuron, nerve) is a nerve cell, including its branches. A glance at the figure (Fig. 12) shows that its essential parts are the cell Fig. 12. — I, a typical neurone. 2, a section through the brain cortex, greatly magnified. body (c), branchlets called dendrites {i) (from the Greek dendron, a tree), and an axone (a) (from the Greek axon, axis). The axone is a bundle of fine nerve fibers. When jS PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS it is inclosed in its usual white covering, the medulla, it forms what is known as a " nerve," commonly much the longest part of the neurone, and much branched. Neurones vary much in size and shape to fit different purposes. Some are less than a twentieth of an inch in length, others several feet. Our nervous system is made of neurones. The spinal cord is a rope of them, about the size of an ordinary lead pencil; the brain is a clump of them. The spinal cord looks white because the white, meduUated nerves are out- side; the gray cell bodies are within. But in the brain, the gray cell bodies^ are outside, the white nerves within.' In the whole nervous system, there are probably thou- sands of milHons of neurones — ^no one knows just how many. Thorndike says that " even if we knew the exact arrangement of each neurone in a man's brain it would take a model as large as St. Paul's Cathedral to make them visible to the naked eye, a model with whose details only years of study would famiharize us." ^ Ebbinghaus sug- gests that " a man's life devoted to nothing but counting them would be too short to accomplish this task." ^ Nerve currents. — A current, or impulse, passes from end to end of a neurone, much as an electric current passes over a wire, but very slowly as compared with nature's more rapid messengers. If it were one hundred feet from hand to brain, then a pin prick in the hand would be ex- 1 Gray matter is not the seat of intellectual ability, as was formerly sup- posed. The cell bodies do not contain ideas, but appear to serve chiefly, if not wholly, as the stomach of the neurone, that is, they nourish it. 2 Edward L. Thorndike, Elements of Psychology (ad ed.), p. 151. 5 Psychology (Meyer's translation), p. 30. MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR 59 perienced about one second after it had objectively oc- curred ; and within the brain, where our thinking goes on, impulses travel not more than one tenth as fast as they do in the nerves outside. In the same length of time (one second), sound travels iioo feet, and light or electricity would course seven or eight times round the world. Mosso humorously suggests that if the Statue of Liberty were miraculously brought to life, she would make a very slow American, too slow to serve as guardian of the port of New York. She is 138 feet in height. If, then, any one touched her foot, he would have to wait about four seconds before she would give any sign of sensation and begin to move.^ To secure ideal nicety of connection, these nerve im- pulses must be carried over three courses: (i) from re- ceptor to central oflB.ce, that is, to the " central nervous system," composed of brain and spinal cord; (2) from point to point within the central nervous system, making cormections as the telephone operator does at " central " ; (3) from central out to the muscle or muscles that are to act. There are neurones for each purpose: (i) sensory, or afferent {ad, to -|- fero, carry) neurones, (2) connecting neurones (sometimes called association neurones), and (3) efferent (ex + fero) neurones. When you "see a pin and pick it up," an impulse (i) follows the afferent neurone from the eye to the back lobe of the brain, (2) from the back lobe to the front lobe of the brain, and (3) from the front lobe to the picking-up muscles. Currents are running, somewhere in the neurones, whenever you think, or feel, or perform any act. 1 A. Mosso, Fatigue (English ed. of 1904), p. 75. 6o PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS If these currents are interfered with, you are undone. If the afferent currents from eyes to brain are broken, you cease to see. If certain connecting currents are stopped, you may see old, famihar words on the page, but be totally unable to find any meaning in them. The South American Indian tips his arrows with curare, a poison which cuts off the efferent currents and so prevents the wounded animal from moving. This poison kills, as does that of infantile paralysis, by interfering with the breathing center. Motor currents no longer reach the breathing muscles, and death results from suffocation. So far as the neurones are concerned, the nervous im- pulse might run at random all over the system. In fact, it would ; for as water flows from a high-pressure to a low- pressure pipe, as heat spreads to cool places, as electricity flows from high to low " potential," so a nerve current runs where resistance is least. In the jellyfish, the nerve current does spread in this wandering way. It is the synapses that save us from being hke the jellyfish in this respect. The S3mapses. — Synapsis means " a fitting together." A synapsis is a point where neurones come close enough together to permit a current to pass. So far as we can find, the fibers do not touch, but are separated so slightly that a current can jump across from one neurone to the next, provided it is going in the right direction, the sensory- to-motor direction. (See Fig. 13.) No current ever flows backward, from efferent to afferent : the synapsis forbids it. If the current could be so reversed, then it is quite possible that if we, bhndfold, picked up a pin, our visual centers would be so stimulated that we should have the experience of seeing a pin; going through the motions of MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR 6l making music would cause us to hear music, etc. The subjective and objective worlds would be hopelessly mixed. But further, some synapses are harder to pass than others. Much of this goes back to birth and before : it is hard by inheritance to do some things, irresistibly easy to do others. But throughout life, repetition reduces resistance, and more or less as more or less energy passes through the synapses. What you do most often and most vigorously, you will do again most easily. So, partly by nature, partly by nurture, we come to possess a nervous system that is a perfect labyrinth of graded resistances and preferred paths. We can get some idea of what our con- dition would be if these graded resist- ances were broken down, by breaking them down with strychnine in the frog. Even to mild stimuli, it reacts with a convulsion that seems to involve every muscle of its body. There are no longer any preferred paths : aU are wide open. The nervous system of an hysterical pa- tient is in much the same condition. But it is not enough to have one well- worn path from any sense organ to the muscle to be stimulated. There must be different paths to be used on different occasions, by which to arouse dif- ferent movements to meet different situations. A certain stimulus, perhaps the prick of a pin, requires the action, now of a single muscle, now of a whole group of them. Fig. 13. — A sen- sori-motor arc, showing a S3aaapsis in the spinal cord. 62 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS S,> " New occasions teach new duties." This is provided for by different levels of authority and responsibility, so to speak, among the neurones. Possible paths of a nerve current. — Figure 14 shows, in an extremely simplified way, the possible paths of a nervous impulse through the central nervous system, as it is guided by the graded resist- ances of the sjTiapses. The upper half of the circle rep- resents the high-level; the lower half, the middle-level'; the extension below, the spinal, or low level. Si and 52 are stimuli, entering at the levels indicated. Mi ••• Mi are possible movements. 51 may be a mosquito drill- ing into your hand as you sit in church. If you are intent on the sermon, you may unconsciously with- draw the hand (Mi), or even rub it with the other {M2). But there may be such a thrill started that it runs up to mid-level; and perhaps you see the insect (52). This may directly (instinctively, >-M3 ^Mi Fig. 14." — To show possible paths of a nervous impulse through the central nervous system. Suggested by diagrams presented by Ebbing- haus (Psychology, Meyer's transla- tion, pp. 36, 37), by Miller (Psychology of Thinking, p. 2 s ) , and by Thorndike (Elements of Psychology, 2d ed., p. ISO)- as we say) set off the slapping movements (M3, M4, Mb) ; or high-level may be called into play : you may reflect MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR 63 that church is no place for such executions ; or you may- determine to take public vengeance at all costs, and de- liberately set ofE Ms ••• Ms,} Levels of the nervous system. — Throughout the ages that he between primitive jellyfish and present man, the nervous system has been evolving by stories. The strug- gling animal soul has ever built itself more stately mansions of neurones, leaving its low-vaulted past and advancing to vaster domes, arches, and loops of nerve fiber. Three levels have been distinguished. The low, or spinal level, developed before animals had eyes or ears, or anything more than a httle knob of nerve cells to serve as a brain. The earthworm offers a familiar example of such a system. The second level, the mid-level, is marked by the ap- pearance of special sense organs in the head, and a real brain. The dog has such a two-story system. Compare his experience and coordination of movement with those of the earthworm. The higher we go in the nervous sys- tem, the greater the responsibility and authority, each higher center stimulating and controlling a number of lower centers, and through them, their many muscles. But while such a two-level system may gather and store experience, it does little either in the way of analyzing it, or building up new and original ideas. Man (and, to some extent, the ape) has a three-level nervous system, characterized by great increase in the size of the cerebrum, the front and upper part of the brain. Of course, nervous systems are not separated into levels 1 A discliarge from a higher center ordinarily involves many lower ones, as indicated, but need not always do so. 64 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS by sharp dividing lines, as houses are divided into stories. There is no way of knowing, as yet, exactly where mid- level leaves off and high-level begins, as systems become gradually more complex. Some would call the nervous system of the dog a three-level system. But for our practical purpose, the abUity to think seems to be a good test of the presence of the highest level. Man's brain has more and longer connecting neurones than any other, great loops and arches of them built above the second level. Here lies the secret of his imagination, his seeking out of witty inventions, and his minutely adapted behavior. A single idea, lodged in these high- level neurones, may control aU lower centers, and so all behavior, for years, or for life. The ideal of youth is realized in maturity. Where is consciousness ? — We have already found that mind dwells in the brain. Just why it should not have its home in the synapses of the spinal cord also, or exactly what happens in the neurones when consciousness takes place, we do not know. But, as James says, conscious- ness deserts all processes where it is no longer of use. To look at the same truth from the other side, consciousness goes where it is of most use ; and that is where new adapta- tions are being worked out. The mind behaves like a good general, who leaves the lesser routine affairs to be discharged by subordinates in forms fixed by long practice, while he devotes himself to the perilous new which must be met by an ever var3ang plan of campaign. In view of this, we should not expect the spinal cord to be conscious, for its duty consists in running off old acts of behavior mechanically, not in devising new acts variably. MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR 65 It is the business of consciousness to make new adjust- ments, but the lower nerve centers have no such adjust- ments to make. It is even thinkable that, if all seasons were alike and all environment changeless, mind as we now know it would die out. It is the old man, whose failing nervous system has dimmed and subdued his mental powers somewhat, who becomes the extreme conservative, who is satisfied to " let well enough alone," and who wishes nothing better than to see things preserved "just as they used to be." Monotony kills consciousness. We do not sense the pressure of the air, fourteen pounds per square inch of our skins, because we are " used to it." The Esquimau, LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. ACTION GUIDED BY THOUGHT. DELIBERATE. LEVELS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEmI BEHAVIOR SUGGESTED BY A PERCEPTION OR AN IDEA. NOT GUIDED BY THOUGHT, BUT OFTEN MARKED BY STRONG FEELING. LEVELS OF BEHAVIOR "FREE-" BEHAVIOR. WHOLLY "ACQUIRED:" PARTIALLY FIXED BEHAVIOR. MAY BE INHERITED OR AC- QUIRED. NO CONSCIOUSNESS NECESSARY FIXED, AUTOMATIC BEHAVIOR. MAY BE INHERITED OR ACQUIR- ED. Fig. 1$. — Showing relations of mind, nervous system, and behavior. 66 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS living in constant cold, the African in constant heat, have accompUshed less than those from whom nature has de- manded more variety of adaptation. Consider the longing of the growing child mind for perceptual variety. As adults, many must still depend on this dance of perceptions to keep them " aHve " ; others, a more hmited number, find their variety by working out new thought-com- binations. Levels of behavior. — Figure 15 will help to systematize much of what has gone before. The circle represents the brain ; and the portion below the circle, the spinal cord (including the medulla oblongata). Obviously, there are no such sharp dividing lines in the nervous system. Following are examples of the various kinds of behavior mentioned : High level : Thoughtfully investing money. Mid-level : Acquired (Habit) : Habitual gum chewing or candy eating. Inherited (Instinct) : Fighting because angry. Low-level : Acquired : Running bicycle pedals after long practice. Inherited : Beating of heart. How nerve impulses influence each other. — Nerve im- pulses, like interflowing streams of water, may help or hinder each other. The helping is called facilitation; and the hindering, inhibition. Facilitation may take place as you sit reading, if some one behind you tickles your cheek. The first tickle may bring no response ; but the nervous impulse aroused seems to make the neurone more sensitive to succeeding stimuli. MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR 67 As the tickling continues, there is a " summation," reen- forcement, combining of stimuU. The result may be action, perhaps conscious action, though any of the tickles, taken alone, would not have produced it. Stimuli may facihtate each other under a variety of conditions. In case of the mosquito in church, the two stimuli, the drilling into your hand, and the sight of the httle insect robber, are likely to facilitate each other, hasten your reaction, and make it more energetic. Or a young man, about to carry the ball forward in a football rush, may find his nerve currents facihtated by a glimpse of a friend, followed by the cheers of the crowd. Inhibition is illustrated by the case of a swimmer whose cramps inhibit his swimming. Here, consciousness does not control ; but our lives are full of experiences where it does. Both faciUtation and inhibition may be studied by intro- spection. Many times a day one idea is knocked out, in- hibited, prevented from expressing itself, by an opposing idea. You think of doing something bold, bad, rash, but your incipient wickedness is quickly strangled by the succeeding thought of what " they " would say, or of your mother, or of God.^ What meaning has all this for education? — Much every way. To educate a child is to make such paths and set up such currents in his nervous system that he will react more successfully and adapt himself better to the world 1 Some like to have an inhibitory reminder, such as a ring, a photograph, or a crucifix always about. To many, God is the Great Inhibitor. Milton lived as ever in his Great Taskmaster's eye. The Ten Commandments are a table of nots, inhibitions. 68 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS he lives in. Now, we find some nervous paths fixed at birth, beyond our changing; and many others are fixed all but the finishing touches. There is no highway de- partment that can plan and put through thoroughfares at pleasure in the brain of a child. But often there are rival paths with equal reenforcement. Here the teacher holds the balance of power between good and bad. And further, luckily for us, the supreme level of the nervous system is the most plastic part. Each upper nerve center controls many lower ones. The teacher's responsibility for enthroning ideals in these higher neurones should make him purify himself for his pupil's sake. For every item of experience does its bit in building this maze of graded resistances and preferred paths. Whatever goes in as consciousness comes out, some time, as behavior. No one, pupil or teacher, can eat an olive or utter a prayer and be quite the same afterward as before. In one sense, your pupil will be the sum of the experience you give him and the behavior you put him through. His nervous sys- tem, as you form and build it, will be a minute map of his character. An omnipotent physiologist could probably examine his neurones and from them read off the record of his past and predict much of his future. " See the world? " says Henry van Dyke. "Yes, see the world; but remember that you become most like what you look at longest." MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR 69 CLASS EXPERIMENTS The purpose of this exercise is to study how, in the repeated performance of a simple act, we pass from full consciousness of it to partial consciousness, and so toward automatic performance. I . When the instructor directs (but not before) , study Fig. 16. Then try to see if, with eyes closed, you can form a mental picture of its Fig. 16. — A study in learning. general plan. Nejct, copy it, starting at the arrow. Do not erase or correct : if you go wrong, number the unsuccessful drawing and start another. How many trials are necessary before you can make it without seeing the pattern? How many before you can repeat, while drawing it, " Mary had a little lamb " ? Introspection of interesting points may be given. The instructor may use other figures. 2. A study of inhibition. Play a variation of the game, " My aunt has arrived from India," in which each must pretend to use, and keep using, whatever his aimt has brought him. The instructor may announce the gifts, as : "A pair of slippers " (feet are kept patting the floor). " A fan " (left hand kept waving). "A music box" (right hand turns crank). " A pair of glasses " (eyes wink regularly). Etc. Introspection and study of how movements tend to interfere with, that is, inhibit, each other. 7° PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Give some samples of stored experience that you have made use of to-day. 2. Give instances in which " you " are " the conscious link that connects stimulus and reaction." 3. What is accomplished by having "some of our behavior " lighted up by the glow of consciousness, while so much of it is left sub- merged " ? 4. Show why it is necessary to have every sense .organ connected with every muscle. What would happen if this were not so? * 5. Trace some resemblances between a telephone system and a system of neurones. 6. When the blood supply of a limb is interfered with in a certain way, the limb " goes to sleep " because the nerve is poorly nourished. Describe the experience, and the behavior of the limb. What does this show ? 7. Give instances to show that repetition reduces resistance in the performance of an act.. 8. Why can we not educate dogs as easily as we can children? (Compare their brain levels.) 9. I attempt to swat a fly: as soon as the swatter begins to descend, I see the fly make off, yet cannot stop my stroke. Explain this in terms of nervous impulses. 10. Is it better to cheer an athlete when he is about to make a difficult play, or to have perfect silence ? Why ? Compare a foot- ball rush with the throwing of a foul in basket ball. 11. Would it be weU to have a group of admirers stand by and cheer for a surgeon when he is about to make a critical stroke with the knife? Why? (Compare amount of nerve energy with delicate control.) 12. One rule of croquet provides that a player shall not be spoken to while making a stroke. Why should this be ? 13. Select a few cases in which you feel that your consciousness has been very high. Can you find any general characteristics of such times? In particular, was this full consciousness called out by new situations, or old ? MIND, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BEHAVIOR 71 14. " Monotony kills consciousness." Illustrate. Do you find any exceptions to the statement ? 15. Give further examples of the kinds of behavior mentioned under " Levels of behavior." 16. Describe cases of inhibition. 17. A robber or a grafter may react "successfully" on his en- vironment. Is he then well educated? Explain. Compare the length of various kinds of success. REFERENCES James, William, Principles of Psychology, Ch. II. Laddjand Woodworth, Elements of Physiological Psychology, Chs. IV, VI, VII. McDougaU, W., Physiological Psychology, Ch. III. Thorndike, Edward L., Elements of Psychology (2d ed.), Chs. IX, X. Titchener, Edward Bradford, A Text-Book of Psychology, pp. 447- 466. CHAPTER V NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CTJEEENTS Exercises. — i. Predict what each of the following words will make some friend of yours think of first ; then try them on him, ask- ing him to react by pronouncing the first word that enters his mind after you give the signal word. Bread. Boy. Day. Good. High. Humpty. Fast. True. Easy. Rich. Explain the results. Do the same with these : Money. Note. Red. New York. Vote. Potato. Fox. Fish. Picture. Memory. Did you succeed as well with the latter Ust ? Explain further. 2. Turn to the discussion of attention in some other textbook and substitute the word consciousness for attention wherever the latter appears. Do the statements still make sense? How do you ex- plain the result ? Problem of this chapter. — Let us recall that the nervous system is the chief adaptive system, the great controller of what we do. Its lowest level has no consciousness, and controls fixed behavior only; in its upper levels run the currents of our thoughts and feelings, and also the nervous impulses which set off all our behavior that is not me- chanical. Although there are those who deny that a thought can cause an act, we naturally believe that the consciousness sets off the conduct — is the conductor, so to speak. " To-morrow," I think, " I will buy my new hat." The day comes. I buy the hat. And I should certainly not have bought it had not the thought preceded. Now, if it is true that consciousness controls conduct, it is a very important truth for us teachers ; for that which stands first in consciousness, which " gets our attention " 72 NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CURRENTS 73 by its attractiveness or " gets on our nerves " by its odious- ness, is likely to stand foremost in conduct. The fisher- man finds that he can induce a fish to bite, even when it is not hungry, if he can dangle his bait before its eyes for a time. Let anything hold your attention for a protracted period, and it is almost impossible for you to do otherwise than act on it. As our thoughts and feelings follow each other and form connections, so our various acts are likely to get connected. Further, it is reasonable to suppose that corresponding connections are made among the synapses. To know how to educate a child is to know how to put him through such experiences as will wear proper paths in his nervous system. Our problem, then, is to learn what controls the wearing of paths and the forming of con- nections. How can we make a hatchet suggest truth- teUing, even more strongly than it does the cutting down of cherry trees? We can discuss this problem more understandingly if we first glance at the structure of the brain and its way of working. The brain. — The medulla oblongata (literally, oblong marrow), commonly called the medulla, or bulb, is the enlarged upper portion of the spinal cord, seen in the figure (Fig. 17) just back of the ear. It is not a seat of consciousness, but contains important automatic centers, such as those for breathing, heart-beat, swallowing, and regulating the movements of the stomach. The cerebellum (hterally, little brain) likewise is not a center of conscious- ness, but an automatic center. It is thought to be a regulator of muscular movement. 74 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS The part of the brain in which we are most interested is the cerebrum, an organ so large that it fills nearly the whole of the upper part of the skull. The figure (Fig. 17) shows the left half. The right half, which is similar (as the right hand is to the left), is partially separated from its riSSUKE OF nOLMDO Precentral CONVOU, PosT-eeirntAL convolution Fig. 17. — Showing the position of the brain, its main divisions, and some of its special centers. mate by a deep fissure which runs from forehead to back- head. But a band composed of a multitude of fibers con- nects the two halves, and as each center (except one) on the left side has a corresponding center on the right, the two hemispheres, as they are called, work, for the most part, as a single organ. However, each half is connected NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CURRENTS 75 with the opposite half of the body. Should convulsive twitchings in the right arm indicate brain lesion, the surgeon would remove a button of bone so as to uncover the center marked " arm," in the left frontal lobe. For convenience in referring to the brain, it is divided, in a rough way, into lobes. The upper front quarter of each hemisphere is the frontal lobe; the upper back quarter, the parietal lobe; the lower front quarter is the temporal lobe ; the lower back quarter, the occipital lobe. With the exception of the fissure of Sylvius and the fissure of Rolando, there are no definite boundary lines in common use. The work of the brain. — As we have learned, the brain is a great central office for the business of the nervous system ; and it does its work in a businesslike way, having " a place for everything and everything in its place," a special department for each separate function. As we should expect, it has (i) receiving stations (sensory, afferent), (2) connecting fibers (often called association fibers), and (3) sending stations (motor, efferent). The receiving stations are connected with the sense organs. The receiving station for the eye is in the occipital lobe ; that for the ear, in the temporal lobe ; and those for the skin and muscles, in the post-central convolution (see Fig. 17). The chief stations for sending messages to the muscles are in the pre-central convolution. The con- necting fibers between stations are especially abundant in man's brain. As compared with the brain of a lower animal, these are what give it such great bulk, and con- stitute its chief point of difference. If a center is injured, its work is interfered with. If 76 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS the center for sight is destroyed, we not only can not see, but can not even remember or imagine how things look. It seems safe to say, then, that whenever we are seeing, or picturing things seen, a nervous impulse is exciting the visual center. Laura Bridgman became bhnd and deaf when less than two years old. When her brain was ex- amined after death, it was found that the centers for sight and hearing were underdeveloped, and contained a large number of undeveloped nerve cells. As the mind passes from point to point, from moonlight to music, and thence to the cool swish of the water against the hand that overhangs the boat, or to the movements of the dance, the neurones in center after center are start- ing their mysterious processes all about the brain. If we could watch these conscious currents as they play hither and thither about the cerebrum, it would probably remind us of a restless fire whose flames flash and die and burn again from point to point incessantly. And the stronger and livelier the consciousness, the stronger and livelier the brain currents. The problem of preferred paths. — Perhaps it would be more appropriate to speak of " wires " than of " paths " ; for the nervous impulse runs along fibers which, for the most part, are insulated somewhat as electric wires are. We have found that the brain is a perfect web of neurones. If we could map the preferred paths through this maze of fibers, it would make a map much more complex than any we have ever seen of a railroad or a telephone system. What causes these paths to form, and keeps them open? Why does money in pocket lead us to-day to give to charity NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CURRENTS 77 and to-morrow, to buy some luxury? On the answer hang all teaching and learning. Hereby do we explain all skill of hand, all cleverness of mind. If there is any one most important thing for teachers to know, it is just what follows now. The chief factors that determine our nervous and mental connections are : Brain set. Mental set. Intensity of current. Frequency of passage of current. Recency of passage of current. We shall study these in order. Brain set. — Brains all have, in general, about the same parts ; but as flowers so often seem to specialize in pro- ducing a fine calyx, pistil, or corolla, their other parts being small or ill-formed, so the average brain fairly blooms out in certain centers, but is weak, perhaps blasted, in others. Every student can pick out born " fiends " for mathematics, science, language — and also born failures. One can sing, or play the piano well at five years of age ; another can never mount the scale. If we could see all our brains thrown up in relief according to the inborn efficiency of their different centers, we should find them as varied as landscapes or faces are. And further, this hereditary brain set is likely to be reenforced by years of experience. Your mathematics fiend is likely to practice mathematics by teaching or otherwise. In time, his brain becomes so sensitive to the subject that it has permanent right of way there: new yS PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS problems open new brain paths and are solved with marvel- ous ease. By brain set, then, we mean an arrangement of neurones favorable to the forming of nervous and mental con- nections of a certain kind, an arrangement which is inborn, but modified (helped or hindered) by practice, by ex- perience. Mental set. — Brain set is long-lived and not conscious necessarily: it is a matter of arrangement of nervous machinery, and so is present in a sleeping brain, or even in a dead one. Mental set is shorter-lived, and requires consciousness. It is a temporary throwing . open of the channels to a certain kind of thought or behavior, much as one may turn a number of railroad switches. You come from a French recitation into the psychology class and are at once asked a question. You know the answer but can not summon it immediately because your mind is " set " for French. Students who have passed from one foreign- language class to another have been known to reply in the Tvrong language. Mental set can often be induced by suggestion and cir- cumstance. A certain ticket seller states that when he is in his office, he can give immediately all details concerning the trains that pass through his station, but is quite unable to do so at home. Home starts a different mental set. At a Hallowe'en party, our minds are set by decorations and darkness for the seeing of ghosts. Talk of music for five minutes and the word " note " will call up one thing; talk of banking, or of classroom lectures, and it will sug- gest something quite different. The skillful teacher " pre- pares " the pupil's mind at the opening of a lesson by many NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CUEHENTS 79 suggestions or questions that will induce a favorable set of mind. Much depends, in every human situation, on inciting the right mental set. It makes a great difference whether we ask the people to prepare for war or prepare against war. Dorothy Leonard's poem, " Two Views," published some time ago in the New York Times, shows how each sees what his mental set (and perhaps brain set) causes him to see. Oh, what do you find in my little green garden ? What did you find in my garden so gay ? " Rosebugs and slugs and fat caterpillars. Little green worms and the rose-leaves half eaten, Mildew and bKght and a smell of decay." Oh, what did you see in my poor little garden? What did you see in my garden so dreary ? " I saw a bird like a jewel go flashing, Peonies blowing and purple flags flowing, Saw the sun set, heard the harp of the veery." Mental set, then, is a conscious, temporary tendency to open brain paths of a certain kind. It is probably ac- companied by the charging of certain parts of the brain with more than the usual amount of nerve energy. Intensity. — The wearing of brain paths is suggestive of the wearing of water ways. Where water goes depends on the " lay of the land." Where a brain current runs depends on the set of the brain. Further, if a deluge sends a flood current of water through a given channel, it is likely to be so deeply fixed that it will hold its own against all rivals for a long time. So, if a strong stimulus sends an 8o PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS intense impulse over a chain of neurones, the resulting channel may remain fixed for life. Throw out the word " fire " to start associations in a group of people, and somebody usually thinks of a fire which, years ago, gave him an intense experience. The brain path is so fixed that he tells you he " can never for- get." So the naturalist who ran into the cactus bush never forgot his lesson. It is for intensity that we use emphasis in speaking, underscoring in writing, italics in print, red chalk for misspelled words, etc. It is largely for intensity that we use objects and apparatus in school. Objects start stronger nerve currents, usually, than do words or ideas. Frequency. — Repetitio mater stiidiorum, " Repetition is the mother of learning," was long the teacher's motto. Resistance at the synapses seems to be reduced in pro- portion to the amount of nervous energy that passes through. As most of our nervous currents are of moderate intensity, we must depend on abundant repetition to fix many of our brain paths. " Practice makes perfect." So " bread and butter," " boy and girl," " day and night," are so often repeated that one member of a pair almost invariably calls up the other. Recency. — Brain charmels seem, Hke water channels, to become clogged if unused. And besides, new paths sometimes tend to obhterate old ones. In this respect, the brain is Hke a blackboard many times written over without erasing. Other things being equal, the most recent writing stands out. So, musician and orator want a recent rehearsal, no matter how old the performance; the student reviews his lesson on the way to class; the NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CUILRENTS 8 1 teacher is astonished at the meager results on examination day if he has not held a recent review. These five laws, brain set, mental set, intensity, fre- quency, recency, are the five fingers that make strong the teacher's grasp on his pupil's mind and behavior. Some psychologists would add the law of primacy also : the first time anything is experienced, the nerve cells are fresh and impressionable and pleasure or displeasure often in- tense. But intensity is included in the laws already given. Judge for yourseh whether primacy is sufficiently important to be made a sixth law. We shall find that these laws apply to every mental process, be it memory, thought, or emotion, and to the learning of every skillful act, such as writing. How can it be otherwise, since all experience and behavior depend on nervous paths, and these are the laws by which nervous paths are formed ? Attention. — As attention is supposed to determine what stands out in our minds, and so what gets itself expressed m our behavior, it must be closely related to the five laws just discussed. The word " attention " is much misused, and does not mean any one thing consistently and all the time. We often speak of it as if it were a kind of mysterious force- in-itself , capable of doing what it pleases ; but it is not. You probably feel that you can pay attention to what you please. And so, in a sense, you can. Yet you are just as much subject to stimuH, including brain currents, which themselves stimulate other centers, as an automobile is to its steering wheel. But it may take years to convince you of this. 82 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Attention is simply direction and force of consciousness. We shall probably get a truthful ^picture of the facts if we think of an interplay of neuro-mental currents (that is, nervous currents accompanied by consciousness) some- what like the interplay of a number of streams of water of varying size and force. Currents from some stimuli are inhibited : they are too weak to make much difference with the general direction of the stream. You pay little heed to the piano in the distance if your mind is flowing, fuU force, toward your lesson. The soldier in battle often does not know he is wounded and bleeding, till the charge is over, or he grows faint. Here we can see why a great and good purpose is the best inhibitor of all stimuli to do evil. As a stream flows with stronger current at the center and more lazily along the sides, so consciousness has an in- tense " center" and weaker side currents. One object, per- haps your friend as he approaches, is central in conscious- ness, takes your attention, while the whole expanse of landscape about him comes but dimly to mind. The " field " of attention (to use a different figure) is often hkened to the field of vision : make any one object promi- nent and clear, and all others recede and grow dim, some to the point of disappearance. Kinds of attention. — Many names have been invented for different kinds of attention distinguished by various psychologists ; but we shall probably keep closest to the truth of the matter if we recognize but two main kinds, natve and reflective. Naive means natural, childishly natural, natural in the sense of untaught, undisciplined, unorganized, unreflective. NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CURRENTS 83 We can see this naive attention (flow of consciousness) at its purest in the lower animals and young children, for they are capable of no other kind. In such cases, the high- level nervous centers are either not present or not active, and consciousness is likely to flit from object to object as one lower center after another is stimulated by the outside world. The playing child gives us the typical picture as he attends successively to the bark of the dog, the flitting of the butterfly, the smell of a flower, the tickle of the fly crossing his hand. But, as the child's mind wanders from perception to perception, so the adult attention may go haphazard from idea to idea, as every daydream shows. Naive attention is, for the most part, thoughtless attention, attention not guided by any clear purpose. Its interest does not, as a rule, reach beyond the passing moment. Rival perceptions or ideas often give rise to curious mental conflicts. When you find a friend undergoing such a conflict, it is amusing (if no harm can result) to start " currents " on one side or the other by offering suggestions. Children can be induced to reverse themselves two or three times in succession. It is a part of the art of salesmanship to watch the customer and really decide for him which of two articles he will take, by deftly retiring one of them and " talking up " the other. Reflective attention, on the other hand, is guided by clear purpose; and it is usually long-span attention, de- termined by something far in the future. A good example of it is the student who, though lured by theater, dance, and the gay life generally, keeps his mind on graduation years ahead and faithfully turns to and does his daily task. And whereas naive attention follows a feeling of 84 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS some kind, reflective attention, like high-level behavior, is " guided by thought." Here also, as we find so often in psychology when we try to make sharp distinctions, we can fix no very definite dividing line. When a horse works his halter off and finds his way to the feed box, or a dog watches unweariedly at a woodchuck hole for hours, there seems to be long-span effort for an object which may stand out fairly clear in the animal's mind. In our own lives and in the lives of our pupils, the struggle is ever to replace naive with reflective attention. In lower grades, we try to make every exercise so attractive that there is no temptation for naive attention to wander; but in the higher grades, we should train the pupil's mind to stick to the bitter end, no matter how bitter it may be. In time, reflective attention comes to need a thoughtful start only, after which it runs on as a habit for a con- siderable stretch. High and low consciousness. — Since attention includes both direction and force of consciousness, one further factor must be considered : the mental stream may be high or low. When you are in fine fettle mentally and feel equal to any task, consciousness and nervous energy are abundant, and you can easily " pay attention," that is, give lively consciousness, to almost anything. But when sleep weighs heavily on you, the stream of consciousness is reduced to a vagrant trickle. Lessons remain irresistibly hard, how- ever often repeated. Everything gets hazy. All is vanity save the enticing bed. You feel that you are not " all there " — and you are right. Attention is low. NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CURRENTS 85 To be strictly accurate, then, we should speak, not merely of naive and reflective attention, but of low or high naive attention and low or high reflective attention. Diffused and concentrated attention. — The amount of mental energy we can exert at any time is limited, like the amount of physical energy. We may expend it all on a single object, or scatter it on many. Which we do should depend on our purpose. If we want water to irrigate a wide expanse, we spread it out thin; but to turn mill wheels we concentrate it in one powerful stream. The teacher, standing before a class, must often give diffused attention to the whole room ; the student, alone with his lesson, should concentrate. In life at large, the diffusion policy irrigates the mind into variety and luxuriance of ideas, interesting as an un- explored jungle. Such diffusion is permissible in youth, when one may well be a jack of all things until the mind comes to itself; but the majority of men feel, as they mature, that the age requires of them the concentration of the speciahst. The most common demand is for high, concentrated, reflective attention. You have now taken a first general view of all that you will find in psychology, much as you take a first general view of a school before cultivating the acquaintance of the individual classrooms. In Part Two, we shall study such details of mind as are most necessary for the teacher to know. 86 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS CLASS EXPERIMENT The purpose of the exercise is to get some indication as to which laws control most of our everyday associations. Let the instructor pronounce the following hundred words ' to the class at the rate of about four per minute. As each word is pro- nounced, the student will write it, and following, whatever the word first suggests to him. Table Sweet High Memory Butter Dark Whistle Working Sheep Doctor Music Woman Sour Bath Loud Sickness Cold Earth Cottage Thief Man Slow Trouble Swift Lion Deep Wish Soldier Blue Joy Soft River Cabbage Hungry Bed Eating White Hard Priest Heavy Mountain Beautiful Eagle Ocean Tobacco House Window Stomach Head Baby Black Rough Stem Stove Moon Mutton Citizen Lamp Long Scissors Comfort Foot Dream Religion Quiet Hand Spider Yellow Whisky Green Short Needle Bread ChUd Salt Fruit Red Justice Bitter Street Butterfly Sleep Boy Hammer King Smooth Anger Light Thirsty Cheese Command Carpet Health City Blossom Chair Girl Bible Square Afraid Let each go through his list and indicate, as best he can, to what each association was due, whether brain set, mental set, intensity, frequency, or recency. B may be used for brain set, M for mental set, and so on. Cross out all cases where there is serious doubt as to explanation. 1 Taken, by permission, from the Psychological Review, Jan., 1913, p. 54. NERVOUS CHANNELS AND MENTAL CURRENTS 87 One member may compute for the class the per cent of associations due to each law. Doubtful cases are to be omitted. Criticize the experiment. Is it as good a test for brain set as Exercise 2 below? FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Practice drawing Fig. 17 imtil you can make from memory a fair outline sketch of the brain, showing its principal features. 2. Ask some one to write rapidly the first hundred words he can think of. Examine the list and try to tell something of his past life, occupation, chief interests, and so forth. 3. " I'll make you remember this ! " What law do we probably expect to make use of when we threaten thus ? 4. A boy, blind from birth, knew a cat by touch. On receiving his sight, he could not recognize the cat without touching her. At length he picked her up, stroked her, and at the same time looked at her intently, saying, " Now, puss, I shall know you next time." Explain in terms of connecting currents. 5. " Why does money in pocket lead us to-day to give to charity and to-morrow to buy some luxury? " 6. Give instances of your own to illustrate brain set, mental set, etc. 7. If brain set is so strongly fixed by heredity, what influence should this have on school work? 8. A good canvasser rarely cares to sell more than one line of goods. Why is this? Do people buy chiefly what they want, or what is sold to them ? 9. Why do some of your old enthusiasms excite you so little now? Ten years from now, how do you think you will regard your present self ? 10. Observe how much closer you can get to a fly if he is feedmg than you can if he is merely resting. Why is this ? 11. Can one be conscious and not be attentive to anything? 12. Collect many expressions contaming the word "attention." Can you harmonize them all with the explanation of attention given in this chapter? 88 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS 13. Introspect the difference in mental set as you (1) eat lunch with friends, (2) sit in the dentist's chair, (3) go before an audience. 14. Give your own examples of the kinds of attention. 15. How should you get the attention of a doctor? a miner? a lawyer ? a young lady ? an active boy ? a baby ? (Apply the laws of brain set, mental set, etc.) 16. Collect instances of your attention. Do you need anything more than the five laws given in this chapter to explain them ? 17. How can you start a topic of conversation that will " draw out " every one present? How can a politician find an issue that will interest and " catch " the majority of the voters? 18. " I can see the pink sunbonnet And the little checkered dress She wore when first I kissed her," etc. Do you think the law of primacy is necessary to explain this ? Why ? 19. Hunger will tame a Hon. Why? 20. Get several friends to teU you what word in the language means most to each of them. What do you find as to revelation of character in the result ? 21. Interrupt a busy friend and ask him quickly whether he would say " Six and seven is eleven,'' or " Six and seven are eleven." Explain the result. 22. The " psychological moment " for doing a thing (such as ask- ing another for something you want) is the most favorable moment mentally. Explain and illustrate in terms of mental set. REFERENCES AngeU, James Rowland, Chapters from Modern Psychology, Lecture II. Betts, George Herbert, The Mind and Its Education, Ch. IV. Ladd and Woodworth, Elements of Physiological Psychology, Part I, Ch. X. PiUsbury, W. B., Attention, Chs. XIX, XX. PART TWO A MORE DETAILED STUDY OF MIND AND BEHAVIOR CHAPTER VI WHAT THE MIND IS MADE OF Exercises. — i. (a) Select any object, such as a book, an apple, or a pencil. Make a list of the items of knowledge of this object con- tributed by each sense organ. What " news " of it is furnished by the eye, the ear, skin, muscles, etc. ? (6) If you take away, one by one, all these items of news, what is left of your perception of the object ? Suppose you had never seen, heard, etc. : what difference would it have made with your experience of this object ? What difference would it have made with your mind as a whole ? (c) Of what are perceptions made ? 2. Review pages 49-51. Mind is made of experience. But of what is experience made ? We have seen that the brain : 1. Gathers experience. 2. Records and reproduces experience. 3. Analyzes experience. 4. Synthesizes experience. 5. Expresses experience in conduct. The great bulk of our experience is gathered in the form of perceptions and reproduced in the form of ideas. In this chapter, we shall analyze a few samples of experience, and study their parts. The analysis of mind. — Analysis means " taking apart," especially, separating anything into its elements. Ele- ments are simplest parts. 91 92 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS In everyday life, you seldom analyze things: you use them — salt on potatoes, water to drink. But if you want thoroughly to understand salt or water, you analyze it. The result is often surprising: water yields two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, neither of which seems like the liquid you swim in. So, if you hope ever to look under- standingly into the soul of your pupil, you must analyze mind ; and the result is usually surprising — somewhat like analyzing a picture into so many dabs of paint: the picture is gone. But psychology synthesizes, too: you will make more beautiful pictures than those you de- stroy. You cannot pull your consciousness apart as you do a flower; for mind is made of processes, not things. To analyze it is much like separating the tongues of flame that enwreath each other in a dancing fire. Let us try the task. Analysis of perception and idea. — You recall that a perception is a mental picture of anything as present ; an idea is a similar picture of anything as absent — or at least, not seen, heard, touched, etc. Let us Ust the simple parts of your perception of an orange here in your hand, and your idea of one on a distant fruit stand. Perception Idea Color Color Form Form Size Size Touch Touch Taste Taste Etc. Etc. WHAT THE MIND IS MADE OF 93 There is a striking similarity : the elements seem the same. In fact, there is but one difference between this perception and this idea : the perception is made of impressions; the idea is composed of images. An impression is the simplest bit of experience as it comes to us by means of a sense organ. Examples are : the color red while the eye is fixed on it; the taste of sugar while it is on the tongue. An image is a revived impression. That is, the brain revives the impression as best it can without having the sense organ stimulated again. Examples are: red as imagined, say with eyes closed ; sweet as experienced with- out stimulating the nerve of taste. Contrast of perception and idea. — A perception is a unified group of impressions — unified because all referring to the same object of experience. In Figure i8, A suggests A B A. Perception. B. Idea. Fig. i8. — "Map" of a perception and of an idea. a perception, each solid Uttle circle standing for an im- pression. In B, the impressions are revived, resurrected in a pale, ghost-like form, as images. An idea is a unified group of images. As impressions are usually more strong and stable than 94 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS images, so perceptions are usually more clear, strong, and stable than ideas. You would hardly mistake your idea of a dollar for the perception of the dollar itself. Yet such confusions do occur. In one case, a man, on meeting a friend in the street, was even unable to teU whether he was speaking to the real individual or to an idea of him, until he touched the friend or heard his footsteps. All that is necessary to produce such confusion is to excite that part of the brain, where these images are recorded, as vigorously as it usually is stimulated by the action of the sense organs. So the lover, in Riley's An Old Sweetheart of Mine, says : " An old sweetheart of mine ! — Is this her presence here with me, Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory? " Images from childhood come back with almost the in- tensity they had originally as impressions. The climax of the poem is the substitution of a sure-enough perception for what turned out to have been a mere idea : " But, ah ! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair. And the door is softly opened, and — my wife is standing there : Yet with eagerness and rapture an my visions I resign, — To greet the limng presence of that old sweetheart of mine." i 1 From " An Old Sweetheart of Mine," by James Whitcomb Riley. Used by special arrangement with The Bobbs-Merrill Company, pub- lishers. WHAT THE MIND IS MADE OF 95 Ideas can vary more than perceptions. — Those who wish to see the world, travel all over it in search of new per- ceptions. Yet the number of such experiences is limited compared with the ideas you can build inside your own brain. Some ideas are revived perceptions, as was that of the orange ; but this is not true of all. For while the mind can not create new images outright, nevertheless, when once we get a goodly stock of them, we can combine them, separate, and recombine them, without end. So, you can make mental oranges that are red, green, blue, purple, black, gray, white — something nature has never done. It is just here that we so far outstrip the lower animals. We have more connecting fibers in our brains ; and we connect our images more variously to make more new and original ideas. Sensation. — There is no essential difference between a tone as it is sung into a good phonograph, and the ma- chine's reproduction of that tone. So, there is no difference in kind, or quality, between an impression, which results from the stimulating of a sense organ, and the brain's reproduction of that impression in the form of an image. An impression and its image may be likened to a sound and its echo : both echo and image are the same as their originals, only fainter. Now, impressions and images often mingle in complex ways, so it becomes convenient to have a word that in- cludes both. That word is sensation. A sensation is either an impression or an image, just as a sound is either an original or an echo. 96 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS The "feelings." — Watch your mind as you read this stanza : " The day is cold and dark and dreary ; It rains, and the wind is never weary ; The vine stUl clings to the moldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary." You get pictures, ideas, of rain, wind, old wall, falling leaves — but there is something more, a feeling. A feeling is a like or a disUke, pleasure or displeasure in something. " Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake — Hate to take the castor-Ue they give for belly-ache ! " Here are the fundamentals of all feeling, the loves and the hates, the attractions and repulsions. In common speech, " feeling " is used to refer to touch. Not so in psychology. For example, the psychologist never says, " The desk feels smooth." It ought to be correct to say, " The desk touches smooth," just as we say, " The lake looks rough," or " The meat cuts tough." Later (in Chapter XIII), we shall study the various kinds of feeling. But just now we are after elements, simplest parts. What is there in a feeling that makes it different from a perception, or an idea ? Let your eye rest for a moment on various colors about you, one at a time. Select one that you like and one that you dislike. This simple bit of like or dislike that accompanies a sensation is the element we are seeking for. It is called an affection. Beware of the popular meaning of the word. An affection is the least bit of like or disUke. WHAT THE MIND IS MADE OF 97 In other words, it is an element of agreeableness ordis- agreeableness in our experience. Sensation and affection. — Here, then, is what mind is made of, sensations and affections — nothing more. From the birth of the babe to the death of the adult, in dreaming or waking, from the depths of the sinner's sorrow to the heights of the saintUest joy, back of the fool's babbling and in the wisdom of the wisest, we shall find no consciousness so complex that it cannot be reduced and resolved into sensations and affections. Let us compare the two. Sensation is a mental element that is referred to some particular bodily organ. Colors come to us by the eye, sounds by the ear. Affection is a mental element that is not referred to any special bodily organ. The bit of agreeableness or disagreeableness may seem to be in the tongue as we taste, in the nose as we smell, or nowhere in particular, a sort of feels-good-all-over ex- perience, or the opposite. " A sight to deHght the eyes," we say : yet we know the delight is not in the eye. The sensation is definite, results from a definite stimulus on a definite sense organ. It is like a tap on a bell at a certain point. The affection is indefinite: it resembles the spreading thrill that vibrates throughout the whole bell. Affection can never come alone, but only following a sensation. A sensation is the stimulus of every affection : you are never glad of nothing, but of something, something which comes to you in the form of sensations. Finally, sensation is the mental element that stands for something other than itself, usually something in the en- vironment. We may almost say that our sensations form gS PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS a kind of intermediate, neutral zone between the purely objective and the purely subjective. Affection is the mental element that has no direct objective reference. One laughs, another cries, over the same event : they get the same sensations from it, but not the same affections. The feeling each has depends very largely on his permanent brain set, and on his mental set at the time. Properties of sensation and affection — By a property, we mean an attribute, trait, characteristic. Grass has the property of greenness, and yourself, the property of honesty. Now, what properties have sensation and affection? Psychologists disagree here; but all can agree on this: whatever you study, mind or matter, a sensation or an affection, there are two great questions you should always ask about it. They are What kind? and How much? The first inquires about quality, the second about quantity. The quality of a sensation or an affection is the property by which we recognize and name it. Red, green, sweet, hard, pain, hot, tone of middle C (on the piano) are qualities of sensation. We experience not less than fifty thousand different kinds. There are but two kinds, or qualities, of affection, the agreeable and the disagreeable.^ In dealing with sensations and affections, quantity is called intensity. The intensity of a sensation or an af- fection is the amount of it per unit of time. Pour out three glasses of water. Put two teaspoonfuls of sugar in one, four in the next, six in the next. Stir and taste. Sweet, sweeter, sweetest, hard, harder, hardest, painful, ' Some psychologists give more. See Josiah Royce's Outlines of Psy- chology, § 66 ; and Wundt's Outlines of Psychology, § 7. WHAT THE MIND IS MADE OF 99 more painful, most painful, hot, hotter, hottest, loud, louder, loudest, are degrees of intensity. They indicate that some sensations hit us harder, so to speak, during every second of time we experience them. Elements and complexes. — While it is true that mind is made of sensations and affections, yet these elements never come to us singly, following one after another like a line of marching men. Our experience is made up of complexes. A complex is a group of elements. (The student of chemistry will observe that elements and com- plexes in psychology correspond to elements and com- pounds in chemistry.) So, an impression is an element; a perception, composed of impressions, is a complex. An image is an element; an idea, composed of images, is a complex. An affection is an element; a feeling, which always contains affection, is a complex. Let us here begin an outline of the structure of the mind, to be completed as our knowledge advances. MIND Elements Complexes 1. Sensations i- Sense complexes a. Impressions a. Perceptions b. Images , &• Ideas 2. Affections 2. Affective complexes A sense complex is so called because sensations stand out the more prominently in, it, as in a perception. In an affective complex, affection stands out the more promi- nently, as in a feeling of happiness. But there is no com- plex that does not contain sensations ; and although per- ceptions and ideas have been spoken of as though composed 100 PSYCHOLOGY FOE TEACHERS purely of sensations, there is probably no conscious state that does not carry some trace of affection. Suggestions of S3mthesis. — You have now analyzed consciousness into its elements, its simplest parts. But mental life is a daily synthesis. The mind is a kaleido- scope that shifts its pattern every time a stimulus taps it. Even the very same elements can be composed into many different patterns. Your dirmer would not seem the same if you began with the ice cream and closed with the soup ; yet you stiU would get about the same impressions of taste as usual. " Old Glory," with the stars in the middle, would be another flag. The moving picture would be spoiled if the film ran through the wrong way. And " Annie Laurie " would arouse much less feehng if played backward, though we should have the same old impressions of sound, but in different order. CLASS EXPERIMENT' The purpose of the experiment is to stttdy the affections aroused by colors. Procure a 6X6-mch square of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet papers. Arrange to expose two at a time through 4-inch windows cut near each other in a large gray cardboard. The card- board should be mounted on supports. A flap of cardboard, fastened behind the two windows by a cloth hinge at its lower edge, wiU hold the exposed papers in position. Take red as the first " standard " and keep it in the window at the students' left, exposing the other colors successively for a few seconds each in the other window. As each pair is exposed, the student will record which arouses in him the more agreeable afiection. 1 Adapted from Robert M. Yerkes's Introduction to Psychology, p. 156. Used by permission of Henry Holt and Company, publishers. WHAT THE MIND IS MADE OF lOl Each color in turn serves as standard. The whole process may- then be repeated, but keeping the standard color on the students' right. For scoring, each student wUl prepare two forms Hke the one be- low, but omitting figures and plus and minus signs. As each standard, whose name is at the left, is compared with the other colors, its horizontal column is filled with scores. Plus is a vote for the standard, minus is a vote for its rival. In case of no choice, record zero. When the scoring is completed, add plus signs horizontally and minus signs vertically. To get from a score card the complete score for any color, add its score in the Totals column at the right to its score in the Totals column at the bottom. Thus, on the record shown, the total for red is 8 ; for orange, i, etc. Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet Totals Red . . . + + + + 4 Orange — — — — — o Yellow — — — — + I Green — + + — + 3 Blue. + + + + + S Violet — + + — — 2 Totals 4 I I 3 S I 3° Each student wiU compute from his two record sheets the final score for each color, and some one may work out the totals for each sex, and for the whole class. FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. We can teach a great deal of geography by means of moving pictures. Could we teach mathematics equally well by such a method? Why? Answer in terms of perceptions and ideas. 2. A student gave the following story from her childhood days. " One day Mother took me to a picnic, and when we were on the steamer crossing the lake, I cried because she would not allow me to get in the water. I said, ' O Mama, let me get off and walk, the I02 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS water is so nice and smooth.' " Explain the psychology of the situa- tion. Do perceptions usually stand alone in the mind? 3. Name a number of images found in the idea of your home. 4. There are two kinds of mental element, sensation and af- fection. Experiment with a two-color kaleidoscope, such as you can buy at a toy store. Show how the mind is like a kaleidoscope. Or, cut red and white paper into bits, letting the red represent affection, the white, sensation. Make a pattern to represent a thoughtful state of mind ; a pattern of an emotional state. 5. Show how the popular use of the following terms differs from the psychological use: impression, image (remember, the image is simple), perceive, sensation, affection, feeling. 6. Should you rather endure the memory of a burn, or the original burn itself ? Just why is this ? 7. Explain, psychologically, the force of the following description. " The past, as it were, rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. . . We see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers." Robert G. Ingersoll, A Memorial Day Vision. 8. " Impression must precede image." This is fundamental in teaching. Show why. 9. Galton caUs attention to the fact that, since our language was formed by " barbarous ancestors," it is not well adapted to the ex- pression of fine grades of difference. A pedestrian, asked to teU how heavy the knapsack on his back feels, " cannot find a reply in two words that covers more varieties than (i) very heavy, (2) rather heavy, (3) moderate, (4) rather light, (5) very light." Galton tried to form scales of descriptive words that would express more than five degrees of difference, but did not succeed; for what proved acceptable to one person was understood in a different way by others.' Explain this in terms of intensity. 10. Select any object to be used in an object lesson for yoimg . children. What impressions must you give them in order to build up a complete perception of the object? ' See Francis Gallon's Inquiries into Human Faculty, article on Sensitivity. WHAT THE MIND IS MADE OF 103 11. A celebrated Boston cook could " steal " the recipe for any dish by eating some of it in a restaurant. What mental abilities does this demand ? 12. Give examples of ideas which are not revived perceptions. 13. What sensations bring your agreeable affections when you go in swimming? When you eat dinner ? 14. Select some time when you have been unhappy, and trace out the sensations which brought the disagreeable affections. 15. Show by schoolroom examples that the perception of an object rouses more feeling than the idea of it. 16. Name all the feelings you can and point out the Uke or dislike, the attraction or repulsion in each. REFERENCES Angell, James Rowland, Chapters from Modern Psychology, Ch. I. LaRue, Daniel Wolford, The Science and the Art of Teaching, Ch. VI. Thorndike, E. L., The Elements of Psychology (2d ed.), Chs. II, III. Titchener, Edward Bradford, A Text-Book of Psychology, chapters on Sensation and Affection. Yerkes, Robert M., Introdttction to Psychology, Ch. VII. CHAPTER VII GATHERING EXPERIENCE : HEARING AND SEEING Exercises. — i. Make a list of all the senses, so far as you know them. Check those that children use most in getting an education. 2. (a) Paint or otherwise apply a sample of color to a sheet of paper. Write an accurate description of the color and preserve the sheet. Record on it also descriptions of this color, given by your friends, independently. (6) When you have studied this chapter, see if you can improve the above description. Just how many words (or symbols) are re- qmred to describe a color completely ? 3. It will be good for you, at this point, if you can begin to use your eyes and ears as though you had never used them before. Prac- tice for pure pleasure on colors and tones, as they do who have just received their sight or hearing.' Listen, with RUey, to the " husky, rusty rustle " of the corn, with Poe to the " tintinabulation of the bells " ; and let your heart leap at the sunset, the autumn woods, and the emerald moss on the old gray rock. To one who can look and listen well, lite is an endless succession of concerts and colored pictures. Order of appearance of the senses. — It is said that sight and hearing minister to the soul, the other senses to the body only. Any~way, there v?as a time when the poor, struggling, evolving animal race had no eyes or ears. First of all came such senses as touch, warmth, cold, and pain; then taste, which is a kind of preliminary sample 1 A man who had been blind from birth to age forty had cataracts re- moved from his eyes. "From the time when his eyes were unbandaged and he had exclaimed, 'I can see!' he became a changed man. His one object in life was ' to see. ' " Edward A. Ayers, First Sight at the Age of Forty, Harper's Magazine, August, 19 10. 104 GATHERING EXPERIENCE : HEARING AND SEEING 105 of digestion; and smell, which is taste-at-a-distance, though the particles smelled must touch the smell-organ. Finally appeared the " distance-receptors," the ear and the eye. No longer need the animal grope and bimip its way about the environment: it becomes aware of its pursuer or its prey while yet afar, and adapts itself to the situation in advance. Whether or not man will evolve more sense organs is a question for speculation. These most delicate and most precious two not only evolved last in the race, but appear last in the develop- ment of each child, minister most to our highest mental culture, and give way first under the strain of old age. With them shall begin our study of the senses. Physical and physiological sound. — This is no place to study physics and physiology, but we shall understand our psychology better if we observe what sound is, in the air and in the ear, before it appears as sensation in the mind. This world is full of jars and shakes ; and it is highly important for animals to be able to receive and interpret the small, far-traveling, warning vibrations, in order to avoid being jolted or crushed by more powerful quakes and convulsions near at hand. So, as ships are equipped with a vibration receiver to detect the approach of a sub- marine, nature has equipped her animals with such vi- bration receivers. Crude shake-organs, or jar-organs, are found along the sides of certain fishes. The grass- hopper has his vibration organs, his " ears," under his wings. Man has his in his head. The auditory nerve has two branches, the cochlear and the vestibular. The vestibular branch goes to the vesti- bule, and to the three semicircular canals which branch out I06 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEAC3IERS from it. In these canals are projecting brushes of fibers which, when the fluid of the canal is disturbed, are stimu- lated. These are man's original shake-organs, valuable now chiefly as balancing organs, organs of equilibrium. It is these that give us our sensations of dizziness, and which the child excites when he whirls round till every- thing else seems to whirl. There are three of these canals in each ear, one lying in each plane of space, as the three walls of a room come together in the corner. No matter how we move, then, the Hquid in at least two canals (one in each ear) is sure to be moved. Subjects in whom these shake-organs do not function cannot be made dizzy by such whirling; neither can they sit a horse safely on the merry-go-round, or be sure of coming to the surface when they dive under water. Quite usually, they are deaf also, the whole ear being affected. We have many nerves that respond to coarse shakes and vibrations. Even the deaf, at their asylums, are called from the fields by a steam whistle. They do not hear it ; they " feel " its powerful vibrations. But it is the cochlear branch of the auditory nerve that thrills to the finer stimuU of this sort. This branch goes to the cochlea, or snail shell, where there is coiled a physiological harp of many strings. This minute harp is played upon by the vibrations of air that enter the ear, and responds, not by throwing out physical sounds of its own, but by sending impulses over the auditory nerve to the brain. Of course, sound vibrations may enter the ear through other substances, such as water. In water, sound travels with great momentum, and may burst the ear drum. Bathers sometimes play cruel and dangerous " jokes " on GATHERING EXPERIENCE : HEARING AND SEEING 107 each other by clapping stones together under water when the ears are submerged. Sound as sensation. — Sound is of two kinds, tone and noise. Tones result from vibrations that are regular, smooth, constant ; noises from changeful, rough, irregular waves. Also, tones are more agreeable than noises, other things being equal. Noises, the pops, bangs, screeches, scrapes, thuds, groans, squeaks, booms, and roars, seem to be made of fragments of tones. Quality and intensity of sound. — In psychology, the quahty of a sound is its pitch. The higher the rate of vibration, the higher the pitch. Sing or play the scale, and you run through a range of qualities. " Quahty," as used in music, is also called timbre, or tone-color, and is that which enables you to tell whether a given tone, say " middle c," is whistled, sung, or played on this or that instrument. It depends on partial tones. When a string (for example) vibrates, it not only vibrates as a whole, but in addition, certain parts of it, the half, third, fourth, and so on, set up lesser vibrations of their own, whence come the partial tones. In the case of a voice, or a musical instrument such as the violin, these partial tones are all-important, as they make or mar the general effect. A tone quality, in strict psychological language, contains none of these partial tones, or overtones. Such a quality can be sounded from a tuning fork. Intensity of sound is loudness. Hum a tone, or sound it softly on an instrument, and then sound the same tone loudly. The difference is one of intensity. A chart of all possible tones. — Taking the vertical line in Figure 19 to represent quality, we can plot on it all io8 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS HIGH INTENSITY LOUD- pitches heard by the human ear, from the lowest, which results from about 30 vibrations per second, to the highest, which enters our ears at the rate of 30,000 or 40,000 vi- brations per second. Between these two extremes can be distinguished about 10,000 tones. All these numbers vary with different individuals, and for the same individual according to age, health, etc. Galton found that the aged lose their sensitivity to high tones. (Read the account of his highly interesting researches in his In- quiries into Human Faculty, article on Whistles for Audi- -SOFT bility of Shrill Notes.) To complete our chart, we should have to draw a hori- zontal line, an intensity line, for each of these 10,000 quali- ties. Only five are shown, and LOW as the number of intensities Fig. 19. — A chart of tone quali- of each tone is unknown, the ties and intensities. , ,, . ,, ,. lengths of these cross Imes are uncertain ; but as the ear is very much more sensitive to high tones than to low ones, these loudness lines must grow longer as we go up, until we approach the upper limit of hearing, where the number of different intensities is small. Music. — Both as psychologists and as teachers, we are interested in the combining of tones to make music. This, perhaps the most complex of the arts, is determined by three simple factors, (i) rhythm (including " time "), (2) the choice of tones to be used, and (3) the gaps, or GATHERING EXPERIENCE : HEARING AND SEEING 109 intervals left between those tones when we combine them. As rhythm runs through all our experiences, it will be dealt with elsewhere (see page 130). Of the 10,000 tone quahties, music employs less than a hundred, chosen from about the middle of the total range, where lie the tones of the human voice, and where the ear can make its finest discriminations. Of the many possible intensities, music uses but six, ranging from pianissimo, very soft, to fortissimo, very loud. It is the intervals between tones^ however, that have most to do with musical effect, which distinguish Oriental from Western music, and major from minor scales. We can picture the more common intervals as below, where the circles stand for notes, those in the upper line being a half tone apart. Scales Chromatic : Major : Harmonic Minor : Melodic Minor : The intervals, and hence the kind of music, that both nations and individuals prefer, is very largely a matter of habit.^ Chinese and Japanese music differ from ours, and 1 See how mechamcally our Western musicians establish the "equally tempered" chromatic scale in common use: the a above Ci ("middle c"), they have agreed, shall be a tone of 435 vibrations per second. Then of course the tone an octave higher has 870 vibrations per second. They now divide this whole interval of 435 vibrations into 12 equal parts, half-steps, and distribute the 11 intervening notes accordingly. Yet so "natural" does it seem to sing the major scale with half-steps between notes 3 and 4, and notes 7 and 8, that some actually assert the human voice to be con- structed on this plan ! If this were so, all nations and tribes would use it. Habit determines the matter. no PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS HIGH, OR LIGHT, VALUES i middle)- -GRAY . both from each other. Even in chords, where perfection of harmony is determined by absence of " beats," fashion reigns. Modern ears can tolerate more beating, and find beauty in it, than could those of long ago. Visual impressions. — If the colors seem a Uttle complex, it is because nature has made so many of them, and has given us such wonderful eyes with which to view them. But we can greatly simphfy our study by arranging the many thousands of colors into a system of some kind. Na- ture has begun the system by arranging the colors of the rainbow, and by giving us every gradation of gray from lightest to darkest as we pass from white dayhght through the twilight hour into the black- ness of night. Let us begin with these grays. If we lay down black at one end of a scale and white at the other, filling in the dark grays, mid- dle gray, and the light grays between, we find that the average eye can easily distin- guish some ten steps of difference in passing from end to end of it. This is indicated in Figure 20. Middle gray stands halfway between black and white. All the grays above the middle are high, or light, values, and all below middle gray are low, or dark, values. This makes a value scale of 8 grad- uated steps from black through the neutral grays to white. We are now ready to construct the color pyramid — for nothing less than a three-dimensional soHd will enable us to show the three dimensions of color, that is, the three ways in which colors differ from one another. Taking the LOW, OR DARK, ^ VALUES 1 - BLACK Fig. 20. — A scale to indicate the values of gray. GATHERING EXPERIENCE: HEARING AND SEEING III scale of grays as our axis (having white and black as its poles), we build upon it our double pyramid of color. (See Figures 21 and 22.) Such a sohd includes all the colors with which either nature or art ever stimulates our eyes. Now for the three dimensions of color, hue, value, and chroma. White Black Fig. 21. — Base and axis of the color pyramid. Hue. — Hue is what gives a color its place in the rainbow (or spectrum). It also gives to the color its common name. Experimenters have distinguished about 1 50 different hues ; but the number of names in common use is much more lim- ited. In Figure 21 appear the initials of four of the most used names, Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. Lying between each pair are found, respectively, yellow-red (" orange "), green-yeUow, blue-green, and purple-blue (" violet "). All the hues, then, are found by following the outline of the base of the pyramid, as from R to Y, to G, to B, and finally back to R again. It is somewhat as if a rainbow had been wrapped around a figure whose shape approaches a square. 112 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Value. — Value is lightness (or darkness) of color. On the pyramid, each hue grows gradually Hghter from the base to the upper pole, gradually darker from the base to the lower pole. At the north pole is white ; at the south pole, black. On the base itself are the middle values of all hues ; above the base are the high, or Hght, values ; below the base, the low, or dark, values.^ Chroma. — Chroma is strength (saturation) of color. In addition to being hght or dark, hues are either strong or weak. With crayon or water color, lay down a strip of any hue of medium value on a sheet of middle gray paper. Make the color strong at one end of the strip, then weaken it gradually till it is lost in the gray of the paper. Or, if your " blackboard " is gray instead of black, as most slates are, you can perform this experiment easily, and accurately enough for practical purposes, by using the side of a piece of colored chalk. Here you have about the same hue and value throughout, but different chromas, satura- tions, strengths, of the color. In the color pyramid, if you draw from any point on the surface (say R), a horizontal, it wiU pass through a similar succession of chromas, ending with some value of gray at the axis. The interior of the pyramid, then, is full of colors, of hundreds of hues, values, and chromas. On the axis are the neutral colors, black, white, and every value of gray between. Consider further the location of the hues : as said above, we can find them all by following the perimeter of the com- mon base of the two pyramids. But the hues so found are 1 " Tint " is sometimes used to indicate light value, and " shade " for dark value. GATHERING EXPERIENCE : HEARING AND SEEING 1 13 of Strong chroma, full saturation, like the colors of the rain- bow, and of medium value. We can also find all hues by going about the pyramid above or below the base, along lines parallel to its sides, in which case the hues are a suc- cession of tints or shades. Finally, we can find all the hues, in weakened chroma, by going inside the pyramid and following such a path as R, Y, G, B. It will pay you to practice describing, in terms of hue, value, and chroma, the colors you would find at various points on and in the color pyramid. Color as used in the schoolroom. — At the points of the pyramid, we find the extreme colors, the strongest that either man or nature has produced. But no artist makes much use of them. Our best pictures are painted in milder colors, that is, in weaker chromas, " subdued " by the mixing in of gray. Young children, like all other instinctive creatures that have color vision, may enthuse most at first over the colors that are most flaring, just as they run after the blaring circus band. But it should be a part of their education to learn to appreciate the nulder and more mentally hygienic colors, and to choose and use them. Such taste and choice cannot be acquired by rule alone, but is a personal art, to be gained by long practice and criticism. From kindergarten to college, we exhort our pupil to express himself in agreeable tones and combinations of words pleasing to the ear ; yet self-expression in color is more constant. Let us make an equal effort to secure agreeable colors and combinations of color pleasing to the eye, on every wall and wayside, in all dress and adornment. 114 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Physical and physiological color. — Physicists tell us there is a substance, called ether, much finer than air, too fine to be seen or touched, but spread throughout space. As physical sound is vibrations in air (chiefly), so physical color is vibrations in ether. These minute ether vibrations come pulsing into the eye at the rate of many biUions per second. Black Fig. 22. — The color pyramid. Further, ordinary sunlight is a perfect harmony of all the colors of the rainbow, with their various wave lengths, from the longest wave which makes red, to the shortest, which makes violet.^ With a triangular prism, you can break up sunlight into its various colors, as nature does in the rainbow. Observe the order in which they occur. But the retina of the primitive eye responds only to ^ The terms, tint and shade, are misleading, and their use should be discouraged. Avoid also the application of musical terms to color, such as " color tone," " pitch," " note," " painting in a minor key," etc. r GATHERING EXPERIENCE: HEARING AND SEEING I15 black, white, and the grays. Such an eye saw just what the ordinary camera sees and photographs. The owl, the mole, and people who are totally color bhnd, ^ still have such eyes. In dim hght, we are all " color bhnd," in a sense; for then very httle or no chroma can be seen. Later in the course of evolution, there appeared on the retina a roughly circular patch of a substance which is sensitive to the yellows and blues.^ Such an eye could see all colors except the reds and the greens. It is possible that even in historic times man has improved in color vision, for delvers in Homeric and BibUcal research think they have discovered signs that the ancient writers had color vision less developed than ours. StiU later, probably, appeared another and still smaller patch of film, lying straight back from the pupil as you look into your neighbor's eye, and sensitive to the waves of red and of blue-green. Color vision was then complete — as complete as human beings have it. We may call these three nearly concentric patches of film the white-black zone, the yellow-blue zone, and the red-green zone — though of course the films themselves are not so colored. Each zone can see all that any larger zone can see, but is bhnd to the rolors that any zone smaller than itself can see. According to Bering's theory of color vision, now commonly accepted among psy- chologists, white, yellow, and red tear down, chemically ' There is such a thing as color blindness which depends on the brain instead of the eye, but it is extremely rare. " The color names are here used to indicate large sectors of the color pyramid. " Yellow " includes, roughly, all the colors in the neighborhood of yeUow. Il6 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS decompose their respective films; and black, blue, and green build them up. Observe how tiresome are much bright white or strong red or yellow in your surroundings. You never paper a room with such stimuli, nor use much of them in your everyday clothing. Our eyes are " beauti- fully adapted to look long at the canopy of blue above us and the sheet of green below." If either the tearing down or the building up process is carried to an extreme, its opposite begins. Look steadily at a patch of red for fifteen seconds, then shift your gaze to a point on a sheet of middle gray 8 for a few seconds more. The retina starts the building up process, and this is the seeing of blue-green, so far as the eye is concerned. Such an after-impression is commonly called an " after- image." If it is the opposite of the original, as in this case, it is called negative; if it is a continuation of the original, as when a whirling spark seems to be a circle of fire, it is called positive. The " tail " of a rocket is chiefly positive after-impression. If equal and opposite stimuli fall alternately on the appropriate zone, — for example, if the color wheel causes equal areas of red and blue-green (of proper value and chroma) to stimulate alternately the red-green zone, the building up and tearing down are equal, as when a man lays up bricks with one hand and lays them down with the other. The result is nil: one sees middle gray. This results from the usual action of the brain cells, and is just what a blind man sees all the time, in so far as he sees any- thing. GATHERING EXPERIENCE: HEARING AND SEEING 1 17 CLASS EXERCISES I. Gaze at patches of various colors about 15 seconds each and then project the after-sensations on a sheet of middle gray. Do not permit the gaze to wander. Try to formulate a law that wiU enable you to predict the after- sensation of any such stimulus. 2. Show (roughly) that if any two colors of the pyramid are mixed on the color wheel,^ the resulting color Kes on the straight line that joins the two, and at a distance from each which is inversely proportional to the amount of each color included. 3. Find or make pairs of colors which, when mixed about half and half on the color wheel, produce approximately a middle gray. (Such colors are caUed complementary.) Show that this is simply a special case of the law of mixture, given above. 4. Illustrate change of valtte in any color by adding white or black. Illustrate change of chroma by adding gray of about the same value (that is, of about the same level in the color pyramid) as that of the color itself. Using disks of different diameter, change the value of the smaller red by adding 50 per cent of white, and the chroma of the larger red of the same hue by adding 50 per cent of gray. Display them together on the wheel. FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Suggest aU the facts you can think of to explain why tones should ever have come to be called " high " and " low." Where do the height and the lowness come in ? 2. If you have an opportunity to hear Indian or other unusual music, try to explain its effect in terms of rhythm, choice of tones, and intervals. 1 An inexpensive color wheel can be obtained from dealers in kindergarten materials. It is well to have two complete sets of disks, of different diameters. Il8 PSYCHOLOGY POB. TEACHERS 3. Sound makes no noise in the brain. Analyze this confusing statement and show that it is based on the difference between physical and mental sound. 4. Whirl about with your head in different positions, (o) up- right, as usual, (6) face upward or downward, and (c) recUned nearly on the shoulder. Notice, in each case, how things seem to move when you stop. All depends on which semi-circular canal you stimulate, and the direction in which its fluid tends to move. Try to work out a law for this, so you can predict what will happen in any case. Is it any wonder that the whirling dervishes can bring on a sacred fit in this way? 5. Observe the affective value of tones, especially of voices. Which do you like, which dislike ? How do you want your voice to sound when you teach ? 6. Practice bounding the hues. Thus red lies between red-blue (violet) and yellow-red (orange). 7. Draw and carefully color (o) a cross-section through the base of the color pyramid; (6) any cross-section you choose that cuts the axis lengthwise. 8. Make a colored drawing to include all the blues. 9. Can you explain now the ghost you saw on an earlier page (page 4s) ? 10. Describe completely and accurately many colors that you find in nature, clothing, decorations, etc. 11. Select pictures whose color combinations please ; others (such as those found in certain Sunday newspapers) that displease. Study the colors and try to explain the effect. 12. Every human complexion can be matched by combining red, yellow, white, and black (or some of these) in the right proportions. Has this any significance for dress ? 13. Would not the United States flag be more artistic if its chromas were weakened? Do you wish them reduced? Why? What is a flag for, primarily? Consider its area as compared with its usual surroundings. 14. Take in your right hand a piece of red of medium value and strong chroma. Keeping your eye fixed on some point in front, ex- GATHERING EXPERIENCE: HEARING AND SEEING II9 tend the arm backward and then bring the red slowly around toward the front. Can you see it as an object before you can tell its color ? Can you teU when the rays of light from it are crossing the yeUow- blue zone of your retina ? Try this with other colors, and on other people, who do not know which color is to appear. 15. The most common form of color blindness is blindness to reds and greens. What is the meaning of this? Which color film of the retina is the smaller? The more likely to be absent or de- fective ? 16. Why do oculists prescribe blue, green, or gray glasses for sensitive eyes ? Why not white, yeUow, or red ones ? 17. " A is the standard pitch, having 435 double vibrations per second at a temperature of 68° Fahrenheit. Many pitches have pre- vailed in different countries at different times. At the time of Handel and Mozart, the pitch was lower (422.5 and 421.6). England has had the pitch run as high as 454.7 and the United States as high as 460.8." (Quoted from Gardner, p. 48. See References.) How do you explain this ? REFERENCES Gardner, Carl E., Essentials of Music Theory. Ladd and Woodworth, Elements of Physiological Psychology, Part Second, Chs. I-HI. Titchener, E. B., Text-Book of Psychology, §§ 14-22. CHAPTER VIII GATHERING EXPERIENCE : IMPRESSION AND PERCEPTION Exercises. — i. Analyze the " taste " of ice cream. In other words, make a list of all the impressions you get by way of the mouth when you eat ice cream. Should you like it as well if it were as hot as coffee ? If it were black and brittle like anthracite coal ? 2. Place an object, such as a button or a coin, in an ordinary washbowl. Step back until the object is just out of sight behind the edge of the bowl, and then have some one fill it with water. Now take a pointer and thrust the end of it in where the object seems to you to be. Did you touch it? Explain. Of course, the water bends the rays of light ; but this is the physical part of the explana- tion. Why did you not see the object just where it actually was, in spite of the bent rays? Having studied hearing and sight, we shall now take up the remaining senses. Gustatory impressions. — To the primitive animal, taste is the fore-test of digestion : what smacks well in the mouth sits well in the stomach. And this is true of man when he follows his appetite carefully, rationally, introspectively. But our cookery is too often the art of bribing the tongue instead of serving the stomach. It might be better if we were more like the amoeba, which probably gets most of its taste experiences while digestion is going on ! Observe the tip of your tongue and you will find it flecked with small specks of strong pink. These are bud-like formations, called taste buds, lodged in the walls of the furrows of the tongue. In them are spread out the fibers of the three nerves of taste. These buds are found chiefly GATHERING EXPERIENCE: IMPRESSION, PERCEPTION 121 at the tip of the tongue, where we taste sweet best; at the back, where we taste bitter best, and at the sides, where sour is strongest. Salt can be tasted at all three points. AU our complex tastes can be reduced to these four simple ones — sweet, bitter, sour, and salt. Much of what we commonly call taste is touch, tempera- ture, or smell. If we hold our noses, medicine does not " taste " so bad, and potato can scarcely be distinguished from apple. Yet the sense can be cultivated to extreme nicety. There is a story, which appears to be rehable, of two expert winetasters who shocked a wine merchant by tasting, one leather, the other, iron, in his finest wine. Later, a tack with a leather head was found in the cask. The sense repays reasonable cultivation by its aid in test- ing food, chemicals, and the like. Olfactory impressions. — To the lower animals, smell is indispensable, and so is constantly sharpened by exercise. The dog can track his master by smell, but the master can hardly track his dog by this method. Smell, as Titchener says, is a " ground sense." ^ It is found at its keenest and used most by those animals, such as the dog and the cat, whose noses are constantly near the ground, and which depend on their sense of smell to get them a living. Evo- lution, in giving man an erect posture and an upward gaze, has lifted his nose from the ground and given him less use for smelling. But if we feel above those humble animals which do so much nosing around, the birds may feel superior to us, for at their height they have so little use for smell that they have almost lost the sense, and so depend on their eyes and ears instead of their noses. ' Edward Bradford Titchener, A Beginner's Psychology, p. 50. 122 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS But this humble sense is well worth cultivating: it is useful in cookery and chemistry and many other under- takings. Aside from the charm of agreeable odors, there are many practical situations where health or even life itself, may depend on the sense of smell. Round every odorous body is a cloud, usually invisible, of floating particles that enter the nostrils and make con- tact with two little smell spots, sensitive patches of mucous membrane lying up in the dome of the nasal passages. As the smell spots are above the usual breathing currents, we commonly carry the stimulus up to them by sniffing. If smells could only be classified and systematized, like tones and colors, we might be able to produce a perfect concord of sweet smells, a music of odors ; but they are very numerous, and so far, they seem as vagrant and un- related as random tones and colors must be to a little child. Many smells are markedly agreeable or disagreeable. But odorless air is best, not laden even with a sweet smelhng savor. Foul smells often cause immediate nausea — na- ture's warning that back of the ugly odor there is probably something injurious to general health. In the schoolroom, we must make every effort, by health, cleanhness, and ventilation, to keep the air so fresh and pure that it is odorless. Impressions from the skin. — The skin gives us touch, warmth, cold, and pain. So do many other organs; but we are especially interested in the skin because it stands, so to speak, between us and the outside world. The nerves of these senses come to the surface — or near it, in spots, irregularly distributed, for the most part, GATHERING EXPERIENCE : IMPRESSION, PERCEPTION 1 23 and varying in number on different parts of the body. On the average, we have, for every warmth spot, ten " cold spots," ten touch spots, and forty pain spots. The tip of the tongue and the finger tips are most sensitive to touch — and most mobile, let us observe. AU these nerves, except those for pain, have special ends, " corpuscles," " bulbs," and so on. The pain nerves simply taper to an end. Pain, then, is a sensation which results from the stimulating of " free " nerve endings, as they are called. It includes itch, prick, and ache, as well as common pain, and may be agreeable or disagreeable. Pain is frequently confused with disagreeable affection, and hence the word is commonly misused. Pain is not the opposite of pleasure. It is very important for the teacher to know that we can- not trust our temperature sense in judging the heat of a room. What we experience is the temperature of our skin rather than that of the surrounding air, and they are not always the same. In every living room there should be an objective standard in the form of a reliable thermometer, to guide us. AU other skin experiences, such as wetness, roughness, tickle, and burning, are complexes, and include no im- pressions outside of touch, warmth, cold, and pain. The tactual-motor sense. — Touch, and especially the intense form of touch called pressure, is not confined to the skin. In the tissues beneath the skin, in muscle, tendon, joint, and bone, are special nerve-endings sensitive to con- tact and pressure. These give us our sensations of re- sistance and movement, called kinsesthetic sensations. The kinsesthetic sensations include pressure, the strain of 124 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS resistance (as that experienced in a finger joint when we pull it), the efort of active movement, 2iQ.d. fatigue. These kinsesthetic senses, acting with those of the skin (especially touch), form what may weU be called the tactual-motor sense, the touch-movement sense. In esti- mating the weight of objects, you can do better by lifting them than by letting them rest on your motionless hand. In judging extent of movement, you can do better when you move across the object than when the object moves across you. Tactual-motor sensations from about the joints teU us, even with eyes closed, how far the limbs have moved. The joints most sensitive to angular movement are the wrist, shoulder, and those between hand and fingers. The elbow and joints within the fingers are less sensitive. Such sensitivity is greater for rapid than for slow movement. Every part of the body has greater discriminating power when permitted to move. The moving hand is the most sensitive exploring organ we possess. Probably the value of the tactual-motor sense, both in and out of school, is commonly overlooked. In dressing, eating, writing, moving about, we constantly depend on it. Men can learn to shave and women to adjust hair and hats without a mirror. The fingers of the violinist " have eyes " that guide him better than his real eyes possibly could. A rat, deprived of sight and smell, can beat a human being who has both, in learning the way through a labyrinth. Touch typewriting and touch piano plapng are not difficult. Nor can the blind excel us in tactual- motor accomplishments when we exert ourselves. Organic impressions. — These are sensations from the maintenance systems of the body, the digestive, circulatory, GATHERING EXPERIENCE : IMPRESSION, PERCEPTION 1 25 respiratory, excretory, and reproductive systems. Hunger, thirst, nausea, suffocation, and the hke belong here, either as elements or complexes. Thirst is due largely to the drying and contracting of the mucous membrane of the mouth and throat. Hunger is caused principally by con- tractions of the stomach. At the Harvard Medical School, a student swallowed a rubber bag, which was then inflated through its attached tube. The subject pressed a lever at the intermittent onsets of hunger. The movements of this lever followed those of another which, out of sight of the student, registered the pressure of the stomach on the inflated bag, showing that the sensation of hunger and the contraction of the stomach occurred together. Organic sensations have a variety of stimuh, food in the stomach, cold air in the lungs, changes in circulation, etc. They are for the most part rather vague, hard to localize and to analyze, but important because they signify so di- rectly the wefl-being or ill-being of the body, and contribute so much to our emotions. Laws common to all impressions. — A sensation is not, of course, a fixed thing, carried bodily from the outside world into the mind. It is a process, and so a kind of compro- mise between the stimulus and the condition of the nervous system that receives it. The same stimulus may produce different results, chiefly according to the following laws. Adaptation. — Long stimulation is followed by a fading impression. The nose soon adapts itself to odors, sweet or foul, and we cease to smell them. Teachers and pupils become adapted to an overheated schoolroom, to the detriment of their health. Stare at a point in the land- scape for a minute or two and its colors fade. Stay in a 126 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS room that seems at first blindingly light or dark and you will soon be able to see. If sweet were always in the mouth, there would be no sweet. If we want to be extreme and paradoxical, we may say that to have an experience all the while is not to have it at all. Contrast. — Opposites enhance each other. This ap- plies to both quaUty and intensity. Red cheeks look redder against a green gown and hat. Frosty air makes fire welcome. Spring out of doors makes the schoolroom dingier than ever. Sweet, lingering in your mouth, makes sour more sour. The bright and the dull increase each other. Only as contrast breaks up adaptation can we hope for variety of experience. Facilitation and inhibition. — One stimulus may strengthen, weaken, or destroy the effect of another, as already shown (see p. 64). The second flash of Kght or the second calling of our name may rouse us when the first one fails to do so. The first stimulus seems to clear the nerve channels for the second. Or the two stimuli may come together. Laying your hand on a pupil's shoulder and speaking to him at the same time make each more effective. On the other hand, complementary colors may destroy each other and give no color. Hot coffee kills all cooler tastes. Dazzling light excludes all else. A mischievous boy may extract a hair without the victim's knowledge by rapping him sharply on the head as he pulls. In the schoolroom, it is a rare' page of print that can compete with loud noises. Impressions fuse to form perceptions. — We have al- ready found that a perception is a unified group of im- GATHERING experience: IMPRESSION, PERCEPTION 1 27 pressions. But the impressions do not group themselves mechanically, each maintaining a square-faced inde- pendence, like so many bricks forming a wall. They are more Uke currents of colored water or beams of colored light, which mingle, change, and even suppress each other. A peach falls from the tree with a soft thud (auditory impression) . You pick it up and dent it with your thumb (tactual-motor impressions), gaze at its beautiful colors (visual impressions), smell and taste it (olfactory and gustatory impressions). But ordinarily, you make no such careful inventory of impressions. They flow together into the one experience, peach. A young man who was suffer- ing a touch of love at first sight was asked the color of his lady's eyes. He was unable to tell, although he had been in her presence for hours. How much or how little is included in one grasp of per- ception depends on one's state of mind, especially his pur- pose. The fruit buyer may take in a carload of peaches at a glance ; the housewife, a quart ; the artist, a group of two or three; the biologist, a single cell of peach pulp. Every teacher should practice looking over the heads of her pupils until she can see her whole room at a glance. Classes of perception. — Perceptions are often named according to the class of impressions that predominate, as olfactory, or gustatory. Most prominent are the visual, auditory, tactual-motor, and mixed. A mixed perception is one composed of a goodly proportion of various kinds of impression, as that of the peach, described above. Perceptive tjrpes. — Corresponding to the chief classes of perception are the types of perceiver, visual, auditory, tactual-motor, and mixed. In the case of the great ma- > Fig. 23. — The Mueller-Lyer illusion. -< 128 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS jority of children, learning flows in fastest and best through the channel of the eye — note how much eye learning there is in the average schoolroom. But the increasing emphasis on manual training, domestic art, play, gardening, and the like, is an indication that in the old-fashioned school, tactual-motor learning was all too rare. The younger the child, the more of a tactual-motor learner he is likely to be. False perceptions. — Ordinarily, you expect your news to be true news. But the old symbols or signals, sent >in in the old way, are sometimes deceiving, as when a false fire alarm is turned in. It sounds the same, at head- quarters, as a true alarm, and the firemen respond in the same way. Similarly, the brain may be deceived. When you see a crooked stick lying across the dim wood path, you may have the very impressions that ordinarily mean " snake," and the brain responds as it would if you had actually seen one. The well-known Mueller-Lyer illusion is given in the figure (Fig. 23). The horizontal lines, really of the same length, appear of unequal lengths because of the angles at the ends, which urge the eye to "go on " or " hold back." A false perception of a real object is called an illusion. A hallucination is a false perception of an unreal object. One who is drunk or highly nervous may see snakes where there are none — not even crooked sticks. The dead have been " seen " in open daylight, alive and active, by persons otherwise normal. Students, sitting in their own rooms, GATHERING EXPERIENCE : IMPRESSION, PERCEPTION 1 29 have spoken to friends whom they " saw " entering, when those friends were certainly nowhere about. But usually there is some objective hint of the object sup- posedly perceived. Enlarged blood vessels in the eye may be projected as snakes. Clouds suggest angels. The white streak becomes a ghost. The essential condition is that the brain tract in which a certain idea is recorded shall be so excited as to make that idea " as real as Ufe," that is, as in- tense as a perception, whereupon it can readily be projected and mistaken for one. Occasional experiences of this kind are quite common ; but frequent or persistent hallucination is a strong symptom of insanity — is insanity, in fact. Strictly speaking, the illusion and the hallucination are not false perceptions, but false ideas started by a perception or other objective suggestion. There is no sharp dividing line between them : the illusion shades into the hallucina- tion, and this into the delusion. A delusion, as James says, is " a false opinion about a matter of fact," as when the insane patient thinks himself a king. >t- Apperception. — This overworked word has many meanings, too in- tricate and rambling to be dis- , , „, i- 1 r i • Fig. 24. — Duck or rabbit? cussed here. The essential tact is this : we perceive according to our past. Nerve paths have been opened by old experience, and new perceptions follow the law of least resistance. This causes certain determin- ing impressions to stand out and fix the general character of the whole perception. An old but good example of this is given in the figure (Fig. 24). It is perceived as duck or as rabbit according to the post of the perceiver. Most of 130 PSYCHOLOGY POR TEACHERS US, who are familiar with both duck and rabbit, can make it shift from one to the other under our eyes. The child who calls a fern " a pot of green feathers," who speaks of roast chicken as " hen-beef," or (being familiar with locomotives) names the steamboat, coffee pot, spirit lamp, or anything else that hisses or smokes, a locomotive, or apphes the term " star " to the candle, gas flame, and the like, is apperceiving, " interpreting the new by the old." ' Note that apperception depends on the ideas present, rather than on the perception pure and simple. Whenever impressions enter the mind, they are met by a rush of old friends, namely, the images that have previously been associated with these impressions. It is largely this re- ception committee of images which steers ^the course of the apperception. Perception of rh3^hm. — Rhythm lies deep in nature. It is the pulse of her heart. We find it in the speeding and slowing of the earth in its course round the sun, in the ebb and flow of tides, in the seasons, in our heart- beat, our footfall, our daily rise and fall of energy, our pulses of mental effort. Rhythm, considered subjectively, is the regular repetition of experience. There is a rhythm of time and of space. Temporal rhythm is best illustrated by the flow of sounds in music and in poetry. Spatial rhythm appears in the regular recurrence of columns, arches, windows, spires, and other units used in building. Architecture is indeed "frozen music." We dislike big blank areas of wall: the music must not be all rests. 1 These illustrations are taken from T. G. Rooper's A Pot of Green Feathers. Every teacher should read this delightful and enlightening monograph. GATHERING EXPERIENCE : IMPRESSION, PERCEPTION 131 It is interesting to note how rhythm, and especially ac- cented rhythm, flows through our common hfe. The march, the dance, the flowered paper on the wall, friezes and frets, designs in tiles and m carpets, the chant, the song, the poem — all show how deeply rhythm throbs through our natures. Perception of space. — If we take an inventory of the senses, we find two only which help us much in determin- ing how the outer world is arranged around us. These are sight and the tactual-motor sense. Two observations are important : 1 . A two-dimensional sense organ enables us to perceive two-dimensional space ^ (that is, plane surfaces). A patch of skin, hke the retina of the eye, is spread out so as to enable us to perceive length and breadth ; but neither tells us anything of the third dimension, distance out from the body. If we had to perceive the world through such a patch of skin, or a retina, fixed in its place, we might work out plane geometry, but of solid geometry we should have no idea whatever. 2. Only movement (including movement of the eyes and the small muscles cormected therewith) can tell us of distance out from the body. The baby reaches for the moon, actually expecting to grasp it, as he does his balloon. The born-blind, on receiving their sight at maturity, think all objects close to their eyes, and keep their hands up for ' Provided the points in the sensitive surface of the sense organ can be so stimulated as to make them correspond to the points in the surface per- ceived. The smell-patches in the nose present a sensitive surface spread out in two dimensions ; but they are stimulated by a puff of odorous air, and not point by point. 132 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS protection as they go about. One such subject, on seeing a picture, painted in perspective, ran his hands over it and then asked which was the lying sense, sight or touch, explaining that his hands made it out to be flat, while his eyes saw it as stretching off a great distance from him. Observe that the " movement " which alone gives us information of distance out from the body, includes muscular contractions which are very minute, very obscure, but very significant. Such are the movements of the muscles of the eyes, especially those which converge the eyeballs and focus the lenses. With practice, our judgments of space, based on such minor movements, come to be very accurate. The big lesson for us teachers to learn from the study of space perception is the importance of tactual- motor impressions in getting our bearings in this world and esti- mating its distances. Only by pushing our way through space do we ever come to know space thoroughly. See how much your shop-loving, bicycle-riding boy beats the library-haunting girl in estimating distances and measure- ments of all kinds. The school must have plenty of move- ment in it if it aims to make its pupils experience the world as well ordered in space. CLASS EXPERIMENTS Testing the Range of Perception I. Make a tachistoscope by fastening two four-foot uprights one foot apart, so as to support a sliding board three feet long. At the center of the board, cut out a square of ten-inch side. On white, foot-square pasteboards, leaving a margin of two inches, paste (a) squares of black paper, (6) large black letters, (c) short words, (d) pictures of objects, or (e) patches of different hue, all in a non- GATHERING EXPERIENCE : IMPRESSION, PERCEPTION I33 symmetrical pattern. All should be clear to the eye, across a room. A series of each kind may be prepared, so as to expose anywhere from three to ten objects when the board falls. Two feet from the floor, fix a support for these pasteboards. Raise the slide. (It may be held by a nail which moves through the upright.) Then fix a cardboard in place. Let all gaze where they know the cardboard to be. (A tack or a bit of paper wUl fix the gaze.) Drop the slide. (Felt placed beneath it wiU deaden the noise.) Let all record what they have seen, after which the in- structor will state the number of objects actually on the card. Record this also. The average for the class may be computed at the close, taking from each student the highest number he perceived correctly every time. 2. The ear may be tested by one- to-several tones produced simul- taneously on harp or piano, or by noises of various sorts. What is the greatest number of tones that a musician should put into a chord ? 3. Thrust pins slightly through a cardboard, keeping them about one eighth of an inch from each other. Make groups of from one to eight. Test as to the number distinguishable by a finger tip. How many points can safely be used in forming a raised alphabet for the blind? Would practice be likely to extend the range of perception ? How could you find out ? Illusion An abundance of low-priced material to Ulustrate illusions can be obtained from the Milton Bradley Company, Springfield, Mass. FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Make a table of all the sense organs, their stimuli, and the class or classes of sensation which they yield. 2. Classify stimuli. They are commonly set down as mechani- cal, thermal, electrical, chemical, and photic. Do you agree? 3. Give an account of the impressions that guide you when you go up or down stairs in the dark. 134 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS 4. Why should we have so many pain spots in proportion to touch and temperature spots? Can you see any use for pain? 5. Close your nostrils and let a friend place samples of difierent food on your tongue. Can you tell what you are tasting ? 6. Do you know of any national smells or tastes, as we have national colors and music ? Why is this ? 7. Chart the impressions received from the skin, as you did those from the ear. Remember there is but one quality of touch, of warmth, and of cold. There is disagreement as to whether we experience more than one quality of pain. What do you think ? 8. You are caught in a shower and get disagreeably wet. Is this " painful " ? Can the hero properly be said to be " pained " when the heroine refuses him ? How is he affected ? 9. Why does a dental cavity, or the place of an absent tooth, seem so large when explored by the tongue ? 10. When you enter your room, especially if you are very warm or cold, can you teU the temperature accurately by your impressions? Have you a thermometer in your room ? 11. Try to analyze such experiences as wetness, roughness, tickle, and (painful) burning, into their constituent sensations. 12. We cannot see our mouths. Why do we not need mirrors to enable us to deliver the food into them? Can the young child locate his mouth easily ? 13. Do you know of any part of the body that cannot serve as sense organ? 14. Close your eyes and bring your index fingers together in front of you ; back of you. Comment on the result. 15. Estimate several distances (as the lengths of strings or pieces of paper or wood) by sight, and then by touch. Which set of esti- mates is more accurate in your case ? 16. Why do you not experience the touch of your clothing all the time? Why do you lose hearing of the train or automobile in which you ride ? 17. Why does the night seem darker just after a flash of lightning? 18. Look up the derivation of the word apperception. Show how the root meaning apphes. GATHERING EXPERIENCE : IMPRESSION, PERCEPTION 13S 19. A countryman, on seeing a bicyclist for the first time, described him as " a straddle-bug, mounted on nothin', and clawin' away like aU possessed." Explain. 20. What was the apperceptive trouble in case of the man who, after gazing at a rhinoceros for some minutes, exclaimed, " Gosh ! there ain't no such animal " ? 21. Why is it so difficult to keep from stepping to a weU-played march ? 22. " Only movement can tell us of distance out from the body." Give a detailed accoimt of the experience necessary before a person can say (truthfully), " I beUeve I see an apple about ten feet away." How came he by the idea of ten feet, originally? 23. State any differences you have observed among individuals as to their preference for the use of one sense rather than another. If you wished to impress a piece of music on your mind, should you rather see the notes or hear them played ? Why ? 24. Mention kinds of school work in which the tactual-motor sense would be of value. REFERENCES Kirkpatrick, Edwin A., Genetic Psychology, Ch. VIII. Ladd and Woodworth, Elements of Physiological Psychology, Part Second, Chs. IV, V. Rooper, T. G., ^ Pot of Green Feathers. Titchener, Edward Bradford, A Beginner's Psychology, Chs. II, V. CHAPTER IX RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE Exercise. — How can you memorize fastest, through the eye, the ear, or the hand? To help you answer this question, memorize the nonsense syllables given below. So far as possible, stick to the syllables themselves and pay no attention to what they suggest. (For example, sov might suggest sovereign.) Note the time required in each case untU you are just able to repeat the list correctly. Rest a little between tasks. First, to familiarize yourself with nonsense syllables and get practice on them, memorize the following list by the method you commonly use : var, mup, tib, sov, raz, bal, vej, zik, tev, kes. Now, memorize the following by using the eye only, picturing each word carefully : rad, guf , dut, nib, wap, cag, taz, ber, fon, tig. Have some one read to you the following list at the rate of about one per second, repeating the reading until you can give the whole correctly : tol, kuf, jer, kus, pif, geb, mez, fex, reg, fik. 'Finally, copy the following repeatedly imtil you can give them without error : ren, sur, kep, luf, dar, kam, tuc, sor, lod, zan. Which method do you find more rapid? Which most fatiguing? One hour later, which list can you best recall as you run through it, uncovering each syllable after you have tried to give it? Do you think this should be regarded as conclusively showing the best way for you to memorize ? Why? Tabulate the results for the class. What per cent succeed best by the eye method? the ear method? the tactual-motor method? What does this suggest as to the best way of teaching most children? As already stated, the brain (i) gathers experience, (2) records and reproduces experience, (3) analyzes ex- perience, (4) synthesizes experience, and (5) expresses 136 RECORDING AND REPR0DX7CING EXPERIENCE 137 experience in behavior. We have studied (in Chapters VII and VIII) the gathering of experience through the sense organs. We take up next the recording and reproducing of experience. In other words, we shall now study memory. What if we had no memory ? — We have likened the brain to a moving-picture factory. In the sensitive film there used, the pictures are preserved, and may be repro- duced at will. But if we had no memory, the brain would be like a looking-glass, picturing everything that came before it, but only so long as that thing was present. No image would remain to represent the object when it was taken away. Close the sense organs, and the brain would be as blank as a mirror in the dark. A man without a memory would have no idea of yester- day or of to-morrow. A nation of such people would have no conscious history or anticipation of a hereafter. There would be practically no imagination, nor continuous thought, nor science, nor preparation for the future. In our conduct, we should be as helpless as feeble-minded children. Because of this, certain mongers of memory systems make such extravagant declarations as that " you are no greater than your memory." They might as well say you are no greater than your bank account. Memory, like money, is indispensable in moderate amount ; but one may easily spend too much time accumulating. We show our caliber by the use we make of what we have. Of course, as James says,^ it is the man whose learning sticks who can keep building on it and advancing. But he '■Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 60. 138 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS warns us that mere native tenacity will not make one great unless backed up by unusual feeling and extraordinary intelligence. He quotes the case of a young man who had with difficulty been taught to read and speak, yet who could so mentally photograph an ordinary page of print by two or three minutes of study that he could then spell out the words from memory as well as if the book lay open before him. A second example from the same author is that of a Pennsylvania farmer, almost bUnd, who could recall the day of the week for each date of over forty years, the nature of the weather, and his occupation on each day. What is memory ? — Memory, like habit, depends on the fact that the nervous system preserves in itself a record of what it has gone through, tends to do again what it has done before. The sounding boards of violin and piano preserve in their structure the results of past activity and throw back the general quality of the notes to which they have vibrated most frequently. Paper, once folded, folds again accordingly. The stream glides easily in the old channel. The knife blade, once magnetized, holds its new behavior for long. The brain, once thrilled by an experience, may reproduce it indefinitely. It is the brain, then, not the mind, that remembers. The brain is the candle : mind, including our remembered experience, is the flame. Memory is the power of the brain to record experience and reproduce it. Or, expressed more precisely in terms of mind, we may say memory is experience recognized as reproduced. Experience may be repeated from the brain records alone, in the form of ideas, as when we say over some old, RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE I39 familiar gem of poetry; or in the form of perceptions, as when we realize, on traveling a certain road, that we have passed over it before, though we could not have described it. So, a song sung to us may be recognized as old, though we could not have revived it from our brain records. When we wish to be very accurate, it is well to use the word " recognize " if the experience is repeated in the form of perceptions, reserving the term " memory " to indicate the reproduction and recognition of ideas. We should hardly be willing to say that a child remembers his mul- tiplication table if he merely recognizes it when it is shown to him in the book. The word " recollect " is used to refer to the very definite and detailed placing of an event in one's past, as when a witness recollects the exact day of an event, where he was going, whom he talked with, etc. You may remember the multiplication table without being able to recollect just where or when you first saw it, or learned it. The subjective mark of memory. — Stop and perform an experiment. How do you know, without appealing to an objective record of any kind, what you were doing yesterday at this hour? "I was here, studying psy- chology," you say. But how do you know? "Why, the fire whistle blew," etc. But perhaps you are imagining all this. What makes you so sure that it all happened yesterday ? Psychology is forced to conclude that what makes us sure of ourselves in such cases is the feeling of familiarity. In the figure (Fig. 25), £ is any experience, such as yours yesterday at this time. E' is a repetition, more or less I40 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS exact, of E. But E' brings with it something additional to E, and that is F, the feehng of familiarity. This is the subjective sign that tells us we are really remembering. Fig. 25. — E, any experience. E', this experience repeated. F, the feeling of familiarity. This feeling of familiarity may be present in any degree, from the mildest flicker to the strongest flame. Titchener says that in experiments on the recognition of grays, he " has reported positively that a particular gray had been seen before, without being able to find anything whatso- ever, in the way of verbal idea or kinaesthetic quiver or organic thrill, that might carry the meaning of f amiHarity ; the brain habit just touched off the report ' Yes,' and that was all that could be said." ^ Such recognitions are characterized, not so much by the presence of a feeling of familiarity as by the absence of the feeling of strangeness, unfamiliarity, which we expect with experiences that are new. But even when the feeling of familiarity is strongly present, our memory may be false to the facts. Children, 1 A Beginner's Psychology, p. 182. RECOIIDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 141 especially if led on by suggestions or swayed by interest, may be emphatic, erroneous, but perfectly sincere reporters of their past. There is no single memory center in the brain. — Memory is all too commonly thought of as a single faculty, or power, lodged in some particular lobe of the brain. But plasticity, in the sense of remembering power, seems to be found wherever mind is found. The brain does its bookkeeping, so to speak, right where the business is transacted: the part of the brain used in experiencing a thing is the part used in recording that experience. An injury which destroys the seeing centers of the brain destroys not only the power to see, but also the ability to remember how things looked. A man whose brain is injured or diseased may be unable to remember any previous experience of sounds, words, or even of nouns or verbs, while memory for all other matter remains intact. All depends on which part of the brain is affected. This fact, that we do not have in our heads one remember- ing machine which records all kinds of matter, but have many special memories in nerve centers or tracts scattered widely over the brain, is of weighty importance to the teacher : for as Kay says,^ " A leading error that arises from regarding the memory as a single faculty is the belief that, in whatever direction we exercise it, we improve it as a whole." But to exercise a part of our neurones will not improve all of them, any more than exercising one muscle will strengthen all the muscles. A certain mathematician was able to repeat over fifty figures in order after they had been ' Memory: What It Is and How To Improve It, p. 13. 142 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS read off to him, yet could not give even ten letters which he had heard in the same way. If, then, there is so much variation in memory power within a single sense, accord- ing to the kind of matter presented, we can hardly hope that improvement in eye memory will pass over to ear memory or touch memory or memory in any other sense. It is not surprising that one may have a good memory for names but a poor one for faces, or be able to describe the forms of objects while unable to recall their colors or vice versa. Something, of course, depends on what kinds of memory have been strengthened by practice; but still more de- pends on which brain fibers have been born strong and which weak. Essential processes of memory. — From what has been said, it is evident that four processes are involved in a complete act of memory. They are recording, retaining, recalling, and recognizing. If we wish to improve our own memories and those of our pupils, we can do nothing better than to study these processes thoroughly, especially the first. I. Efficient recording. — It is impossible to reproduce a moving picture well with the cinematograph, or sound successfully with the phonograph, unless a high grade film or record has been made. The brain, like these other machines, cannot reproduce what has never been recorded in it. If you would remember well, throw your whole soul into the making of clear, strong impressions. This is exactly what the uninterested, inattentive learner fails to do. We have found (Chapter V) that experience leaves its marks in the nervous system according to the laws of brain RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 143 set, mental set, intensity, frequency, and recency. As we should expect, these are the laws according to which we must imprint on the brain whatever we wish to recall. Brain set. — A brain is a complex machine composed of many centers, tracts, parts ; and each part may be good or bad. Rarely do we find them all good. Now, all these varying parts, when united, make a recording mechanism which is pretty sure to work better on some material than on other. Hence there are large individual variations in power of memory. The musician may find it impossible to remember dates well, while the historian may fail to retain tones. Fortunately, our best memory seems in- variably to follow our strongest interest. We should try to discover this and cultivate it, even at the risk of weak- ness in other directions. In this way we shall succeed better, in the long run, than if we cultivate an all-inclusive, universal kind of memory. It is a curious fact that our brains can record matter more effectively when it is presented in rhythmic form. Often, when we cannot quite recall a word, especially a name, we can tell how many syllables it has, and where the accent falls. Several times, I have known the names of Julia Ward Howe and Harriet Beecher Stowe to be interchanged by scholars who certainly knew better. One reason for this is evidently the rhythmic similarity. But so many of our fundamental experiences come by pulses that we should almost expect the brain to work best by spurts. It is easier to learn poetry by heart, than prose. Your pupils can learn their addition tables more easily by saying " three, five, eight," " five, six, eleven," and so on, than they can if the " swing " is left out. This is one 144 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS reason why children so easily fall into " sing song," and why we all tend to sUde the accent on to a certain syllable in learning our declensions and conjugations. For the same reason, doggerel verse has been overdone as a means of committing to memory. Such an artificial device should be reserved as a last resort for very important pieces of knowledge which resist more direct attempts at learning. That old arithmetical memory gem which begins, " Thirty days hath September," is commendable doggerel. These riming aids to memory illustrate a further principle of brain set, that of unity. Our brains remember best that which is unified, organized into some kind of system, so all nervous and mental currents course in the same direction and reenforce each other, instead of being dissipated in devious ways.^ The best kind of system for one to use depends on how his brain naturally works best, and the purpose, permanent or transient, for which he is preparing. But since we are constantly trying to adjust ourselves with our environment, a thoughtful mind will do best, in the long swing, by think- ing things together in the mind as nature makes them work together in the environment. •Lightning causes thunder, heat forms steam, and so on. The result is a thoughtful, logical system, a building every part of which supports all the rest, just such as we find in every science. Memorizing by wholes, when committing verbatim, probably owes its superiority over the " part " method, to the same principle, that of unity. If we memorize ' See the Class Experiment at the dose of this chapter, and G. F. Stout's Groundwork of Psychology, p. 62 ; also the author's Science and Art of Teach- ing, p. 96. RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 145 prose by paragraphs or poetry by stanzas, these parts re- main more fragmentary and less unified than if we commit by repeating the entire piece time after time until we have a good grasp of it as a whole. When this is accomplished, it is then best to take the tougher parts separately and master them one by one, by intensive, isolated repetition. Mental set. — In an ofl&ce, much business is transacted that never goes on the books. That only is set down which is likely to be wanted for future use. Our minds seem to work similarly: much is experienced which, so far as we can discover, is never recorded. Further, this is true not of day dreams merely, which may flit through our minds and leave no trace: even serious matter, which costs a struggle to understand it, may not be registered unless we specifically direct our brains to set it down for future purposes. The student who has solved a problem, such as an original in geometry, but neglected to make special note of the chief points, the guide posts, in his solution, often finds that it costs him a severe effort to resolve his problem in the classroom. Whenever we approach any subject of interest, we are mentally set to perceive it, or remember it, or imagine about it (weave it into a story), or think it out, reason about it, or perhaps just to enjoy it, but seldom to do all these things. The child, in his naive way, wants to perceive and to enjoy. By and by, experience teaches him that it pays, some- times, deliberately to jot things down in his brain cells for future use. It is a matter of common observation, which more careful study would probably prove true, that we tend to specialize, either in memory at the expense of reasoning, or in reason- 146 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS ing at the expense of memory. If there is such a thing as a mind which can be both storehouse and factory, its kind is rare. Further, mental set has much to do with the time a record shall last. Commit for a day only, and memory tends to sink with the sun. " Stories and numbers were presented to groups of children. In one case the children were led to expect that their remembrance would be tested on the following day; in another case they were told that the test would be deferred for several weeks. In both cases the test was actually deferred for several weeks ; and the results show that the material was much less completely remembered in the case where the learner expected that the test would take place in the near future." ^ A dis- tinguished actor was asked, on a few hours' notice, to take a new part. He soon worked it up, and gave it with pre- cision, but then immediately forgot it. Although he acted the part for several successive days, he found that he was compelled to relearn it, in some measure, for each day. Yet characters which he had mastered more slowly and thoughtfully he could play at any time without previous notice or preparation.^ Carpenter {Mental Physiology, p. 444) gives a case of a minister, of sound mind and health, who preached the same sermon, accompanied by the same prayer and hymns, on two successive Sundays, to the same congregation. Yet on leaving the pulpit, he had no recollection whatever of having gone through with this very same service a week before. ' A. Aall's experiment, as reported in the Psychological Bulletin, Vol. X, No. 9, p. 339. 2 See Kay, op. cit., p. 323. RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 1 47 The first question, when confronted with anything to memorize, is. For what, and for how long, do I want this ? The teacher who has not mastered a subject, but has to relearn (not merely review) each lesson in order to teach it, is likely to keep up this wasteful practice year after year. Intensity. — This includes both interest and attention. A feeling of pleasurable interest is one of the strongest and most necessary factors in all learning. It seems to start a flood of nerve currents in the right direction. Other things being equal, the happiest learners learn fastest. We all tend to remember best what pleases us most. But if feeling becomes too strong, it may prevent the registering of impressions. A lady, on singing a certain hjonn, could not recognize it as one which had been used at her brother's funeral only a short time before, yet so it was. So, the stage-frightened speaker may be unable to tell, when he finishes, what he said on the platform. The fighter, when he recovers from his fighting rage, may be a poor witness as to what took place during the strug- gle. One trouble in such cases, however, is that the feeling is directed, not toward memorizing, but toward some- thing else. Hence it disturbs or prevents the recording process. Attention, as we have seen, means force and direction of consciousness. We must put in plenty of powder and shoot straight. There must be, then, first of all, the will to learn, closely related to mental set. If a learner remains mentally passive when a list of nonsense syllables is placed before him, he learns but little. And even if he actively attacks them, but with the purpose to observe, as how they 148 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS are formed, and so on, rather than to remember, he may still see them many times without being able to recite the list.i Direction of consciousness, of all the controllable factors that make a good memory, is probably hardest to manage, but capable of most improvement. Direction includes concentration, the centering of the whole heart and soul on the matter in hand. Try to be deaf, blind, dead to all around you, to roommate or classmates, — unconscious even of where you are : live and be, for the time, the thing you are learning. With concentration comes discrimination. One should first center his attention on the task as a whole, make a kind of snapshot of it in bulk, get a general understanding of it, and then turn the focus of his consciousness from point to point as a panoramic camera sweeps from side to side, taking in a whole landscape bit by bit through its narrow but well focussed lens. Where this process goes, there follows memory. You remember best where you discriminate most accurately. Intensity takes time. — You must linger over what you wish to remember. The chemicals in the nerve cells are somewhat like those of a camera : they must be given time to work. Too short an exposure means a poor picture. A list of nonsense syllables can be memorized quicker by dweUing a little on each to drive it home, than by running over the list repeatedly at top speed. Here is one reason (but not the only one) why great scholars are so often slow readers, and why our frantic, eleventh hour cramming is likely to be of Uttle avail. ' Ladd and Woodworth, Elements of Physiological Psychology, p. 582. RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 149 Frequency. — As stated before, repetition reduces re- sistance in the nervous system. Of course, each repetition should be made as intense as possible. We must apply the law of frequency also in arranging study periods. Experiment proves that frequent, short periods of concentrated study are better than infrequent, long periods. Ten minutes each day will accomplish more than sixty minutes every six days. The figure (Fig. 26) ,.20 MINUTES ONCE A DAY ../•'tJC^ 10 MINUTES TWICE A DAY 40 MINUTES EVERY OTHER DAY '\_/ \^/ 120 MINUTES ALL AT ONOE 20 40 60 80 100 120 Fig. 26. — Showing improvement in writing numbers for letters, ac- cording as the total time of 1 20 minutes is distributed in four different ways. Based on work of Starch. While this test was not strictly a memory exercise, it illustrates a general law of learning which of course holds true for memory. shows four rates of improvement due to four different ways of distributing study time. One reason why the long work period is less profitable is that fatigue soon sets in and diminishes the value of the latter part of the period. Another reason may be that interest flags, and is renewed with rest. Further, as we I JO PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS shall see, brain fibers develop and learning increases even during sleep. Just how short and frequent the study periods should be made probably depends on the age and ability of the pupil and the kind of material to be memorized. Very likely this will have to be worked out by experiment for various types of pupil and of lesson. But we can all safely make use of the general principle. In repeating and reviewing, use ideas as much as possible. That is, struggle to recall without re-perceiving what is to be. learned. Such effort has an effect which may be compared to the developing and fixing process in photog- raphy. Recency. — We all know how our brain records fade with time, how we catch a last glance at the lesson to be recited, and rehearse our parts shortly before exhibition. How rapidly or slowly this fading goes on depends on how thoroughly the matter has been learned. 2. Efficient retaining. — Where are ideas when they are not being remembered ? Where are the moving pictures when they are not on the screen, or the tones of the phono- graph when the record lies in the cabinet? Between the recording of an experience and its reproduction, it ap- parently exists only as physiological traces in the brain cells. In popular speech, much is made of the subconscious, where our ideas, as ideas, as fragments of consciousness, are supposed to dwell when not in use. But the sub- conscious, so far as we can see, is nothing but brain structure and a certain kind of brain process. Of the many picture records on the film, only one at a time is RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 151 projected ; of the many sound records on the disk, but one at a time is intoned ; of the many idea records in the brain, but one at a time is " played," energized. Of course, we must not say that the brain works just Hke a phonograph or a cinematograph, but the similarity is close enough for illustrative purposes. Our first duty, then, is to keep the brain in fine physical condition, nourished by a strong, pure blood stream, rested by sleep, and toned up by recreation that really re-creates and does not burn out and exhaust. Wholesome brain exercise, too, is needed. Muscles improve with right use, and very likely neurones do, too. Everything we know about them would lead us to expect such improvement, both in their general condition, and also in an increasing fineness of fiber and nicety of connection with increasing discrimination and accuracy of reaction.^ Such growth and improvement go on unconscioysly. Owing to these progressive brain changes, you find that you can remember easily, in the morning, what you could barely rehearse the night before. But if, having memo- rized a lesson, you go on trying to stamp more records on the same neurones, your memory will be less effective. Two exposures of the same photographic plate may spoil both pictures. The learner should rest for a few minutes after each study period, or, if he is still fresh, turn to a different kind of learning and so use a new set of neurones. Finally, one should not disturb his brain records by worry, or by fear of forgetting. " Learn to trust the memory," says Kay, " and, in order to trust it, strive to 1 See Ladd and Wood worth. Elements of Physiological Psychology, p. 616. 152 PSYCHOLOGY POR TEACHERS make it worthy to be trusted. It grows in trustworthiness by being trusted." ^ 3. Effective recalling. — In a business office, when we have made a good record of anything, our next concern is to file it so we can find it. This is true also in a business- like brain. When we forget, the brain record is not, as a rule, obhterated ; but we cannot turn to it. We are like those fussy people who don't know where they have put things. Let us notice that (practically) everything comes into the mind following something else, which has aroused it. So, August may be followed by Augustus Casar, and this by Julius. The brain cells seem to empty their contents like the cartridges of a machine gun, each charge setting off the next. This gives another reason why it is better to memorize a piece by complete readings rather than by lines, paragraphs, or stanzas. The complete readmgs leave no breaks between records. Assuming that we have well-impressed records, the whole art of effective recall depends on getting the right records to- gether, so that each, when energized, will set off the next. Take a common case. Why does one tie a string on his finger to make him remember some commission he is charged with, such as a purchase? Because, first, by this unusual performance, the purchase is intensely impressed upon his mind and associated with the string. And secondly, since the hands (and so the string) are sure to be seen frequently, the string-record will not only rouse the purchase-record frequently, but will be very sure to start 1 Op. cit., p. 323. RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 153 the purchase-cell into action as one approaches the proper place for making the purchase. Let us refer again to our five familiar laws. Brain set. — This reveals two ways of organizing memory material, the naive and the reflective. The most naive way of all is to let events organize themselves as they occur, form whatever accidental associations they will. One stage of progress beyond this comes the arrange- ment of brain records in chronological order ; in other words, recording and recalling everything in the order in which it was experienced originally. He of naive, chronological memory is likely to unload upon you an endless cargo of details, telling everything " just as it hap- pened." Ask him a question that requires thought and you " throw him off the track." His brain record, like a phonograph record, must be played from start to finish. One who has an unusually strong verbatim memory often finds it an inconvenience to him. A well-known EngHshman who could repeat a whole Act of Parliament, or other similar document, after a single reading, was heard to declare that this very power often gave him much trouble ; for if he wanted to summon into mind any par- ticular point of what he had read, his only way to do it was to repeat to himself the whole piece from the beginning (like a child running up the multiphcation table) until he reached the point desired. As one would expect, this gentleman could learn languages with unusual ease.^ Reflective memory, called logical memory, is selective, a card-index kind of memory. Brain records are filed according to purpose, the purpose for which they are likely ' See William B. Carpenter's Mental Physiology, p. 451. 154 PSYCHOLOGY FOE TEACHERS to be used, in a definite system. For example: Edison says that his Hfe has been free from temptation. The preacher notes that here is a man who is not tempted in the usual way ; he will recall this when next he preaches about Temptation. The psychologist observes that here is an inhibition, by a great purpose, of all unworthy ideas : it wiU flash into his mind when he discusses the Psychology of the Moral Life. The vocational adviser sets it down in his mind as an example of the value of Finding the Right Vocation; it will serve as illustration in his next lecture on that subject. A very effective way of recalling what is forgotten is to charge your brain to reproduce it, and then go on, thinking no more about it. The lost item may pop into your mind sooner than it would had you kept goading your memory to find it. Such is the power of subconscious cerebration. Mental set. — We have many mental files, so to speak, and can turn to any one of them at will. We can set our- selves to recall the facts of any branch we have studied, shutting out the facts of other branches, as a musician sets himself to play in a certain key, forgetful of all other keys. Set yourself to recollect your childhood and you will resurrect much from the buried past. It is wise to maintain the same mental set in recording that is likely to be present when recalUng. It is hard to give, in public, a speech memorized in private. Memorize in the presence of an imaginary audience. Intensity. — We are often exhorted to form as many associations as possible with that which we wish to re- member, and so make many brain paths to it. But these associations should be strong if they are to be useful. RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 155 One highway is worth many obscure and swampy roads. It aids both recording and recalHng if we fix our attention on the most striking features of our memory task. The most striking features are those which we experience most intensely : the nose of one face fixes it for us, the eyes of another, the chin of another, and so on. Frequency. — The art of remembering is the art of thinking, says James. The merchant remembers prices, the athlete, scores and records, the chemist, formulas, because each thinks so often over his pet subject that he weaves his facts into a perfect tissue of strong associations. Recency. — Sometimes, the best cue for recall lies in repeating our recent train of associations, " beginning over," as the child does in reciting. So, one may often find a mislaid article by going to the place where he last remembers having it, and trying to repeat his course, following up the most likely suggestions. 4. Efficient recognizing. — If you meet a man on the street, you may know it is Davis, Jones, or Smith, yet not know which name to use. You have recorded his name, retained it, and recalled it, but fail to recognize which, among others, it is. Again, you may accord recognition to some name or other item as that which you wish to re- call when it really is not. Some of the reasons for faulty recognition appear below. False remembering. — So far, we have spoken of ideas as if they were rather mechanically recorded, and repro- duced without change. But ideas are not mummies: they may grow and change, like your old acquaintances, almost beyond recognition. Memory is seldom a clear- cut record of the past, a photograph unfaded. Much is 156 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS lost, for it is impossible to cram the whole past into the present. Memory is more like those old manuscripts which, having been used over and over, show fragments and suggestions of the inscriptions made at various times. And in the case of memory, such a combination sometimes makes a record really false. Meumann ^ gives various types of false memory, of which the following are most important: (i) There are holes, blank places, in our memory. (2) These blanks are filled by what is commonly true in such cases, or by what we judge must have been true. " Rodenwaldt investigated the memories of a number of adults, employing as his material a picture of an infant in a cradle. The majority of his observers ' remembered ' that the color of the cradle was brown although it really was a conspicuous blue in the picture." ^ The cradles they had seen most were brown. (3) Ideas, especially similar ideas, such as similar pictures by two artists, fuse, grow together. (4) Our feelings cause certain ideas to stand out prominently, others to recede, so distorting the memory picture. As people proph- esy what they wish to come to pass, so they " remember " what they wish had come to pass. Forgetting. — There is a theory to the effect that nothing once learned is ever entirely forgotten : apparent forgetting is due to our inability to get at the right record in the brain. Fatigue often causes this. Cases are known where travelers, fatigued with the journey, have even " forgotten " a foreign language which they could speak well when fresh. Bota- nists, after a long tramp, sometimes find themselves unable ' E. Meumann, The Psychology of Learning (Baird's translation), pp. 8-11. ^ Meumann, op. cit., p. 8. RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 1 57 to recall the names of common plants. Teachers, when fatigued, may find it hard to call the names of their pupils for recitation. Certainly, our " forgotten " knowledge leaves us with a brain different from one which has never learned. Brain traces remain which change the course of future nerve currents, influence our judgment, and help to direct our future feeling, the course of our " common sense," and our conduct. One of the most practical truths for the teacher is that (putting it roughly) learning lasts in proportion to its thoroughness. If a Hst of nonsense syllables is learned so that it can just be repeated once, it is about half forgotten within the first half hour ; but if studied until two perfect recitations can be given, it is six days before the list is half unlearned. Retention is here measured by time saved in relearning. Material that has meaning is more easily learned and better retained than nonsense syllables. In either case, forgetting is more rapid at first, slower after- ward. It can be further slowed down by relearning — can be retarded, in fact, until it appears to cease altogether. In other words, one can learn and relearn matter so thor- oughly that, without further effort of any kind, it is his for life. CLASS EXERCISES I Let each of the following lists be pronounced to the class at the rate of about one per second, after which each will write as many syllables or words as he can recall. 1. mol, pof, lez, gir, reb, lam, zat, neb, tid, vib, kas, dov. 2. bat, man, top, dog, sweet, cup, dry, bag, dot, fleet. Jack, horse. 158 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS 3. if, you, would, make, all, men, your, friends, be, kind, to, them. Compute the average for the class in each case, and explain the results. Does this throw any light on school work? II Plan an experiment to find, in a class of school children, the char- acter and amoimt of individual differences in power to memorize. What do such differences have to do with teaching ? FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Crimes are sometimes re-enacted in the court room. What effect would this have on memory? Why? 2. Why is one ever compelled to say, " Did this really happen, or did I dream it ? " 3. Draw a figure, after the manner of Figure 26, to show that a repeated experience may be distinguished by its lack of the feeling of strangeness. 4. Write or tell of some of the adventures which you think would befall " A Man Without a Memory." 5. Authors sometimes feel that they themselves have done what they have made their characters do in books. Why is this ? 6. Why is the gum-chewing office girl, who drops her work at the door sOl, likely to be forgetful ? 7. What kind of memory do you expect from the pupil who rest- lessly watches the clock ? Why ? 8. Make a list of important rules for recording and recalling. 9. The student who records everything in his notebook, quite frequently has to go to his notebook for facts which he should re- member. Why is this ? 10. Why are outlines an aid to memory, as the outline of a chapter in psychology ? If a student disliked such outlines, should you ex- pect him to have a chronological or a logical memory? (See page 153.) 11. A station agent found that he could remember much better when in his office than when out of it, the hours when his trains came and went. Why should this be ? RECORDING AND REPRODUCING EXPERIENCE 159 Can a student take an examination as successfully in a strange place as in a familiar one ? Why? 12. Devise an experiment to show whether slow or fast repetitions are better in learning. 13. Why are similar things, as similar words (like o/fect and e/fect), so hard to remember distinctly? How can we aid children in such cases ? 14. If children commit to memory many gems of poetry, will this help them greatly in memorizing the multiplication table and the dates of history ? 15. Describe any tricks of memory which you have found to work well. 16. It is commonly said that history and literature strengthen "the memory." What do you think of the statement ? How could the question be decided experimentally ? 17. Make an outline of this chapter. REFERENCES Carpenter, William B., Principles of Menial Physiology, Chs. X, XIII. James, William, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, Ch. XVI. Kay, David, Memory : What It Is and How To Improve It. Ladd and Woodworth, Elements of Physiological Psychology, Part II, Ch. VIII. Meumann, E., The Psychology of Learning (Baird's translation), Ch. I. CHAPTER X ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING Exercise. — Turn to dictionary or encyclopedia and analyze the flags of several of the leading naitions. Note forms, colors, symbols, relation of parts. Which of these forms, colors, etc., are found most frequently? Now suppose that aU the nations of the earth have imited imder one government. Mentally construct, and then draw and color, a flag or other symbol which you regard as suitable for this vmion. Give reasons for your choice of form, color, etc. We have studied how experience is gathered, recorded, and reproduced. Now, as in a factory, the raw material is often cut into parts, so our mental materials may be taken apart, analyzed ; and as the factory fashions new forms, so the brain makes new combinations, synthesizes, associates. Let us study these processes of analyzing and associating. Adaptation to environment demands discrimination. — This world is full of things that are different from each other, and animals must act differently toward them or suffer serious consequences. The sheep that goes out in the springtime and eats green things indiscriminately, laurel leaves included, soon stops eating anything — at least till it recovers. Even the amoeba extrudes the bit of stone which it happens to incbse, but hugs its morsel of vegetable matter. The world of the young child must be somewhat like that of one who is just recovering consciousness after a 1 60 ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING l6l blow or an anaesthetic, or who wakes in totally strange sur- roundings ; or like the visual experience of one who has had " drops " in his eyes, or puts on glasses that blur every- thing. The stream of experience is one great drift of fog. But as the baby whacks his toes and his toys indiscrimi- nately, he feels a " shock of difference," as James calls it. Tennyson, in his In Memoriam, has expressed very beautifully the infant's gradual discrimination between the me and the not-me. " The baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast. Has never thought that ' this is I : ' But as he grows he gathers much. And learns the use of ' I,' and ' me,' And finds ' I am not what I see, And other than the things I touch.' " These shocks of difference between various experiences become more numerous as he pursues his career of getting what he wants, until at last the world is found to be " full of a number of things," all of which must be treated dif- ferently if he would work his will on them: for example, he no longer puts everything into his mouth. And before many years, if offered his choice between a five-dollar gold piece and a new penny that looks much like it, he will discriminate nicely between them. Discrimination and analysis. — These two words are closely related in meaning. To discriminate is to experience a difference, as when we see a difference between checkers and chess. To analyze anything is to discriminate (among) l62 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS all its parts, as when we discover that a checkerboard is composed of sixty-four squares, half one color, half an- other ; or take apart our idea of weather, or of man, to find what it necessarily contains. The relation of the parts is important, too. We must discriminate different orders of arrangement. The squares on the checkerboard must be arranged in a certain way, not any way. The letters a, t, and r may make art, rat, or tar. But this leads us from analysis into synthesis. Practical importance of discrimination and analysis. — Whether or not one discovers differences and acts on them is often a life-and-death matter. The electrician turns the wrong switch or touches the wrong wire; toadstools are gathered for mushrooms; the patient doses himself from the wrong bottle ; shiploads of " fool's gold " are mined and sent across sea ; the engineer fails to distinguish signals and his train is wrecked. Your pupils will long confuse to, too, and two, yellow and orange, blue and green, the plus and times signs in arith- metic, certain notes of the scale, the words aSect and effect, and a lengthy list of other similars. Every word misspelled or mispronounced, every problem mis-solved, every / written with its lower part tmsted back into a j, every subject and verb unequally yoked together, suggests a neglect of discrimination and analysis. Children may speak of a " violet man," meaning a violent man, and of the " smell of violents," or of " violence." Merchandise becomes " merchant dyes," or " merchant dies." A fourteen-year-old spoke repeatedly of a " signal man," meaning a single, unmarried man. A seven-year- old, on hearing some one say, " Poison will paralyze," re- ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING 163 marked, " That's heaven." Inquiry showed that he had failed to discriminate between paralyze and paradise. After I had demonstrated the Edlemann-Galton whistle before a psychology class, several students wrote " Alder- man Gal ton's whistle." I ought to have written the name on the board, at the same time calling their attention to the pronunciation. It is easy to find physicians who can administer medicine when the disease is recognized ; but the power to diagnose a case, to analyze symptoms, and discover what disease actually is present — that is rare. So everywhere : the lawyer must analyze cases ; the merchant, the wants of his customers ; the farmer is learning to analyze his soils, his markets, and the requirements of various kinds of plant life. " I know a hawk from a handsaw," says Hamlet. So Shakespeare reminds us that the power to discriminate common things is a frequent test of sanity and common sense. Education is largely a process of learning to analyze and discriminate. Every verb in the Turkish language is capable of taking twenty-five thousand different forms, and some other languages are almost as bad. All must be discriminated. Bacon's essay on " Gardens " mentions well toward a hundred different plants, classified according to the month in which they flower in England. And he was not primarily a botanist. How many colors there are depends on how well educated you are in color : some see four or five, some a hundred, and some see thousands. The law of analysis. — In the first place, notice that analysis and discrimination always go back to sensory dis- crimination, the shocks of difference we get as we use our 164 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS sense organs on the outside world ; as when we discriminate between an impression of yellow and one of orange. In faces, trees, houses, forms of government, etc., we can usually discover some large bulk of difference. One house has a tower which the other lacks. But " in the last analysis," we find that our power to analyze, to discover differences, goes back to sensory discrimination, our power to discriminate between impressions. The difference be- tween a red, white, and blue flag and a red, white, and green one of the same pattern, is just the difference between blue and green. Our pupils should have a wealth of practice in sensory discrimination. Now for the law : Whatever is analyzed out of a complex must he thrown up in relief. Some way must be provided to make it impress its separate pattern on the brain. We might almost state the< law : Whatever is analyzed out of a complex must have been experienced alone. But nothing is ever experienced absolutely alone: there is always some- thing in the background. " Alone " would have to mean " apart from, or contrasted with, that which we are now trying to analyze it away from." You could never find the face hidden in the tree of a puzzle picture if you had never seen a face apart from that picture. Such faces would have no meaning for you. " Sweet " and " lemon " would not be analyzed from lemonade if the analyzer had not tasted them elsewhere, or in varying proportions. Notes cannot be recognized in a chord unless they have been heard out of the chord, or accented in the chord. Hear the violin alone, and then you can follow it when the full orchestra is playing. If you want your pupils to sing the alto and soprano ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING 165 well in harmony, let them hear and sing these parts separately. When a complex, such as the taste of lemonade, or a chord of music, is experienced, a certain group of brain fibers is brought into play, as a unit. Now, let a part of the complex, such as the taste of lemon, or a single note, be separately sensed : almost certainly, a part only of the fibers previously used are thrUled this time, hence have been impressed more frequently, with a different mental set, and (since attention is centered on the isolated ex- perience) probably with greater intensity. Consequently, when the complex is again experienced, this part which has been isolated can again be isolated at will. The situa- tion is somewhat like learning to control a single finger, and later, to distinguish its action even when all the fingers are acting together. If we could watch the brain of one who keeps making discriminations, we should no doubt observe that it grew finer-grained, so to speak, as fibers that had formerly acted as a unit learned to function individually. The brain of the boor and the clodhopper never acquire this refinement of response even to ordinary and oft-repeated situations. Free images and free ideas. — If John Smith is found, from time to time, with many different groups of com- panions, we come to feel that he is free, and need not de- pend on any particular group to support his personahty. So, if we analyze an image or an idea out of different groups of associates, it becomes free, and has a name and nature of its own, as does the image of red or the idea of liberty. Such free units are of great value, serving the purpose of i66 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS portable blocks which can be used over and over in our mental structures. The loftier the intellect, the more use it is likely to make of such free ideas. But the average man does not ordinarily set himself to quarry out a stock of free ideas in any dehberate way. The process goes on almost accidentally. Let us see how a child gets his free image of red. He sees a red flower, a red book, a red sunset (see Fig. 27). At first he may re- gard the word red as the name of a flower ; but as he finds this word passed around to books, sunsets, cheeks, and so on, both the color and the word that goes with it are at length " stamped " into his brain cells and come to have an independ- ent, free existence of their own. Thinking, and so prog- ress, are often impeded by reluctance or inability to separate ideas long tied to- gether, and so make free ideas of them. Many find it hard to separate the ideas of smoker, soldier, voter, from the idea of man, and attach them to the idea of woman. Wings and bird are so commonly tied that it is difl&cult for some to believe that a bat is not a bird. Certain students can hardly separate warmth and impurity when thinking of air. Metal and heaviness were assumed inseparable until a Hght metal was discovered. We should probably hasten our progress considerably if we would tear our old ideas Fig. 27. ■ - Showing how the image of red becomes free. ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING 167 well to pieces, mentally construct what we want, and then set to work to build it objectively. No one knows as yet, — and we can find out by trial only, — how early in a child's life we should introduce regular exercises in discrimination and analysis, or how extensively they should be carried on, or the best practical use to make of the ideas that are set free. But there is good reason to believe that we are underworking in this direction. Here is a place where education can sharpen the wits much more effectively than ordinary contact with the environ- ment would whet them. If all red objects were round and all round objects were red, it would never enter the head of any ordinary person that redness and roundness could be separated. Yet (as appears above) the commonplace environment leaves many ideas joined together which ought to be put asunder. Even in the kindergarten, we can place before the children objects which vary much in shape, size, color, material, use, and so on, and have our playful discriminators group and regroup them so as to make first one idea and then an- other staiid out in relief. For example, let us first have all square objects piled together ; then all red ones ; all that are made of wood, or of cloth, or of metal ; all that are good to eat, or that can be cut with a knife, or that will roll. As these successive experiences crisscross each other, they cut the unessential, accidental ties that have held ideas together in mental clumps, and leave them as free objects of attention, ready to combine in ways that are new, interesting, and useful.'- The greater the variety and contrast among the different 1 See p. 120 of C. Lloyd Morgan's Psychology for Teachers. 1 68 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS situations in which any experience appears, the sooner will it disengage itself and become free. If we teach the noun by calling attention to subject nouns only, the pupil may fail to analyze out the noun in a new position, as in the predicate. Culture of discrimination and analysis. — Two facts stand out here with great importance. The first is that discrimination (and hence some power of analysis) can he cultivated. Classic cases are those of the blind Laura Bridgman, who recognized, by the " feel " of the hand, a person with whom she had shaken hands a year before; of the blind Julia Brace, whose sense of smell enabled her, it is said, to sort the clothing of the many inmates of the Hartford Asylum, as it came from the laundry ; of wine-tasters who can tell by taste alone which vineyard produced any choice wine, and in what year ; and of the artists, dyers, and temperers of metals, who know when they have produced exactly the desired one of a whole range of a thousand colors. The psychological laboratory tells the same story : for example, the power to discriminate two compass points as two, when touched to the skin at successively decreasing distances, has been known to improve, in a few hours, to twice the original. Secondly: To cultivate analysis, cultivate attention. Many of our failures to discriminate go back to the blunder- ous teaching of our early days. Let a child be confused in his first sensations from an object and ambiguous in his first reactions toward it, and he may live on to the end of his days with the feeling that there is something hope- lessly uncanny and unmanageable about it. A briUiant teacher of my acquaintance, confronted by the problem ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING 169 of two feet and two overshoes to put on them, has for years picked up an overshoe, started to put it on the wrong foot, and then corrected the movement. Of course, native brain set for the task attempted is always necessary. The teacher referred to is ambidextrous, and may be so ambipedrous by birth as to sense less dif- ference between his two feet than most of us experience with ours. We are all likely to remain poor discriminators in some department. One cannot tell the common colors apart; another can see no difference between similar sounds, or even words ; perhaps we get " mixed " easily in names and faces. To some, all foreigners look alike; and it is said that old bachelors can see so little difference in babies that they would as soon have one as another. But pretty certainly most of our failures to discriminate result from our laziness or indifference. The achievements of the blind, so often exploited, can be duplicated by any one who will work with as patient and prolonged attention as the accomplished blind have given. Focus your con- sciousness on point after point of any object, ph3^ical or mental, and its constituent parts will stand out. Herein Kes one great value of drawing, making, acting, translating, of all expressive work: success demands this very point- to-point concentration. Having considered the analysis of the contents of our minds, let us turn to their synthesis, to association. What is association ? — Association is the grouping of our mental materials. If we use the term very broadly, it includes all possible conibinations of mental elements. For example, when you perceive a rainbow, the perception consists of a number of impressions already grouped, or 1 70 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS associated. But they ^.re grouped in your mind because their stimuli are grouped in the outside world. The word association apphes more particularly to those collections or assemblages of mental material which did not enter the mind as such, but are grouped in the mind itself, by the brain itself, rather than by the arrangement of stimuli and the action of sense organs. Imagine a green moon in the sky. You never saw that : it is a brain-built association, composed of old materials, analyzed apart and then recombined. How associating goes on. — You can easily discover how the course of associations runs, by playing the part of psy- FiG. 28. — Showing association due to overlapping fields of experience. chological spy at any conversation. You discover that our experience Hes infields, more or less sharply separated, but often overlapping, or with the fences down, so we can ramble from one to another. So (as Fig. 28 shows), we may talk of early memories, including memories of books ; but " books " also lies in the field of favorite authors, which may suggest Shakespeare, and Shakespeare, perhaps, re- minds us of the theater, and so of the play to-night. So we start with the memory of our first day at school and end with the question of going to the theater to-night ! The law of association. — We often appear, as in the example above, to move our mental materials in bulk: we ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING 171 mingle whole landscapes of perceptions and flying squadrons of ideas in a moment. But these complexes are made of mental elements, sensations, and affections, which, lying in two overlapping fields of experience, connect the two. So, when I was introduced to Mr. Marti, I remembered his name by thinking of smarty (though he is not one, by any means). How is this? "Marti" and " marty " are al- most identical in sound. " Smarty " is a familiar yet novel word, easy to recall, and by its parts which are common to the two fields of experience, it enables me to pass to the desired name. Similarly, a strawberry may remind one of other red things, as a sunset, this of a sunrise, and • the sunrise of a boy getting up. A word often reminds you of some riming word — you can Fig. 29. easily understand why. But why should a strawberry suggest a sunset rather than a red nose, or any of many other things? Those ele- ments are associated whose records lie along the line of least resistance in the brain. From the time of Aristotle, it has been customary to explain association as due to (i) similarity, (2) contrast, and (3) contiguity (that is, occurrence together) in time or space. So, a tall man reminds us (i) of another tall man, or (2) the opposite, a very short man, or (3) something which occurred at the time when, or in the place where, we experienced the tall man. These three laws have practical value in everyday hfe. For a discussion of them, and the reasons for replacing them with a single compre- 172 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS hensive law, see Titchener's A Beginner's Psychology, Ch. VI. Two persons who look alike remind you of each other largely because they impress the same neighboring neurones. In one of my classes is a pair of twins so much alike that the only way I can tell Mary from Margaret is by dis- criminating their shades of hair, which differ slightly. Probably I shall never think of one without recalling the other also. Now, does the law stated above mean anything definite? Yes : for we do know something about the way records lie in the brain, and the probable paths of least resistance. Further, these paths are determined by the laws you al- ready know, which are here repeated. Laws of brain set, mental set, intensity, frequency, and recency. — Whether a record is made in any part of the brain depends on (i) the neurones in that part, and (2) the force that acts on them. (i) The born poet has a brain of such constitution that it favors poetic associations. He is Ukely to form them in overplus abundance, sending them up the chimney with the smoke, as Tennyson did. A favorable mental set, such as the poet's hour of inspiration, seems to charge these neurones and put them " at attention," so to speak, ready •for a certain kind of action. (2) An impressing force of any kind may vary in intensity, frequency of impact, and the recency with which it has cleared the neural channels. The subjects about which the poet versifies are chosen for him by the comparative in- tensity, frequency, and recency of his various experiences. His life lies in his poetry voluntarily or non-voluntarily. ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING 1 73 The course of our associations has well been likened to the spreading of a fire in a mass of fuel whose parts inflame with different degrees of difl&culty.i The brain with its graded resistances and preferred paths, is the fuel; the power of the associative flame is conditioned by the factors of intensity, frequency, and recency of the experiences now present. Value of association. — Association is the putting to- gether of our mental parts to make, at last, one whole mind. Without this process, a mind would be like a machine whose pieces are all present, perhaps, but not assembled in work- ing order. Consider the case of Jenny Morgan, a young woman who, blind from birth, received sight by an operation. Using the newly acquired sense of sight only, she could report correctly on the shape and color of any object, but could not say what the object actually was until she touched it. For example, if a pair of scissors was placed before her, she would describe, from sight alone, their shape, color, and metallic appearance ; but she was unable to name them until she had touched them, when the wanting name would spring immediately to her lips and she would laugh at what she called her stupidity in not having recognized them before. But such an educative experience as this, that is, associating the familiar perception by touch, the new perception by sight, and the name of the object, left her able thereafter always to recognize the object without touching it.^ The child, like many adults, lives largely in one field of ' See G. F. Stout, The Groundwork of Psychology, p. 117. 2 See William B. Carpenter's Principles of Mental Physiology, p. 189. 174 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS experience at a time. Were it not for association, these separate fields would remain almost as unconnected as if they were registered in different brains. When Franklin first associated lightning and electricity, the wisest of his time could see no wisdom in such thinking. How often the learner fails to find any connection between his school- room knowledge and the life outside ! In church, we may all accept and rejoice in important truths which seldom occur to us at any other time, and so are seldom applied. The student versed in psychology may so " forget it all " when he begins to teach that his psychology is never thought of as having anything to do with his schoolroom practice. One of the chief differences between the educated and the uneducated is that he of disciplined intellect has learned to weave all his threads o' knowledge into one systematic web. The world outside is of many parts, joined to make one: our many-parted mental world must be associated into a similar unity. Association gives meaning. — What does it mean to have a meaning? To have a meaning is to have associations. When some one speaks to you in an unknown tongue, his words have " no meaning " because they arouse in your mind no associations, or next to none. The sounds of his words stand alone. Without associations, nothing would have a meaning. On the other hand, a familiar word, when pronounced to you, at once becomes a nucleus round which are grouped many images and perhaps affections. Like a person in a community, it has significance in proportion to the kind and number of associates it can attract. ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING 1 75 Individual differences in association. — We observe in each other, and shall find among our pupils, great differ- ences in associative power. First, there is a difference in speed. In the Binet tests for intelligence (Stanford re- vision), one who is ten years of age mentally is expected to give sixty words in three minutes. Some subjects respond with a quick-flowing stream of many more than sixty, while the utterances of others are few and far be- tween. But the very fastest associators are not nec- essarily the very brightest. There is also a vast difference in range of association, one sticking to a narrow track of ideas, another rambhng world wide, as appears so strikingly in conversation. Then there are the tight and the loose associators, or as we may call them, the realistic and the imaginative. Some of the first cannot bear to read a book of fiction, and object to fairy stories in home or school; for such stories are " not real." The second, the imaginative kind, may see all life as a fairy story with highly romantic possibilities shining out every- where. And if he can not make these things actually come to pass in the outside world, he can make them rfeal enough to enjoy in the world of his mind, at least. Finally, associations differ greatly in value. A single idea that gives us control over some power of nature or human nature may be worth more than diamonds. In fact, ideas much resemble diamonds in that it is often difficult to tell the difference between the valuable and the valueless. It is especially hard for children to judge whether their ideas are worthy or worthless. Ordinarily, we must beware of inhibiting the flow, and tolerate abun- dance of whatever grade. 176 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Subconscious cerebration. — Cerebration means action of the cerebrum. Subconscious means not-conscious-but- like-conscious. No one knows the precise difference be- tween conscious cerebration and unconscious cerebration. The results are often much the same. Nearly every one knows of some case in which a problem has been solved, an invention made, or a piece of composition executed, during sleep, perhaps dreamless sleep. Also, many associations, once conscious but later forgotten, leave their records in the brain in such a way as to exercise a strong influence on conscious life. So, while it is well to be able to give " a reason of the hope that is in you," your hope may be well founded even when you can give no reason except " I feel." Herein lies the value of our forgotten knowledge : it is like the foundation of a building, unseen but supporting that which is visible. Here, too, is the basis of many preferences and prejudices. Subconscious cerebration explains, also, many ideas which arise in our minds, apparently unconnected with anything immediately preceding. Our brain currents seem to sink sometimes into the subconscious, like the rivers which pass underground, thence reappearing at a new point. CLASS EXERCISE The purpose of the exercise is to study the process of analyzing mental material and associating its parts in a new way. Let the instructor read a limited number (say three or four) se- lections from ^sop's Fables, Mother Goose, or other similar Utera- ture. After the reading of a selection, each will record the characters that appear in it, and make a brief analysis of each one, noting his chief characteristics. ANALYZING AND ASSOCIATING 1 77 Then make a new group of characters, selecting them from the hst ahready formed. If the course of the story seems to demand it, new characters also may be introduced. Construct a new story of the same general kind as those read, permitting the characters to behave " just as they want to " when they find themselves in each other's company. It is not necessary that the story have a moral. This may be followed by discussion, including introspective ex- planations of how the various results came about. FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. The definition, " A point denotes position without length, breadth, or thickness," was rendered by one child, after concert drill, " A point denotes a physician without strength, health, or sickness." How can we secure discrimination even in concert work ? 2. Compare, as best you can, the dog, horse, and other animals with man, considering the following points : (i) sense organs, (2) per- ceptions, (3) memory, (4) mental analysis, mental synthesis. Simi- larly, compare children with adults. 3. Marksmen are found to improve most rapidly when they are told where their missing shots strike. Why is this? 4. Trace the relation of analysis to the laws of brain set, mental set, intensity, frequency, and recency. 5. Tell what you would do to develop in a child's mind a free idea of " square " ; of " value " ; of " good." 6. Mature students are sometimes found to make no distinction between " perpendicular " and " vertical." Why do you thmk this is ? How would you correct it ? 7. If you wished to make sure that a boy had discriminated care- fully all parts of a kite, should you prefer to have him look at a kite, draw a kite, or make and fly a kite ? Why ? 8. What value is there in composition work, from the standpoint of discrimination and analysis ? 9. A pupil insisted that in the sentence, " Night Thoughts is a good book," the verb should be plural. What was his trouble? 10. Make a hst of important discriminations in arithmetic, geography, spelling, language, or grammar. 178 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS 11. What should you expect the word " case ' to call up in the mind of a lawyer ? of a physician ? of a watchmaker ? of a student in a co-educational school ? Why? 12. Show, by illustration, that the laws of similarity, contrast, and contiguity, all depend on the fact that there are identical elements which lie in two fields of experience and so enable us to pass from one to the other. 13. In teaching Laura Bridgman (a blind deaf-mute), the first experiments " were made by pasting upon several common articles, such as keys, spoons, knives, and the like, little paper labels on which the name of the article had been printed in raised letters." Show the value of this. Would you advise pasting on articles their names in order to teach a child the words of his own or a foreign tongue ? 14. A sixth-grade boy, on being asked where one could find a rectangle, said " In the arithmetic." When told to find one outside the arithmetic, he began to search among the clouds and trees, al- though he was sitting on a rectangular porch with his feet on a rectangular stone, near rectangular doors and windows. What was the matter ? How would you teach him ? 15. Start a conversation with a friend (or friends) . See if you can lead it from topic to topic by suggesting appropriate associations. Afterward, try to explain what happened. 16. A bright high-school boy, with normal sense organs, was work- ing on a railroad section, on which, he had been told, no trains were running that day. As he was walking along the track, a locomotive ran up behind him and killed him. What directions (that is, what mental set) could have been given him that would have prevented this? REFERENCES Gallon, Francis, Inquiries into Human Faculty. James, William, Tl e Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, Ch. XIV. Morgan, C. Lloyd, Psychology for Teachers, Ch. III. Thorndike, Edward L., The Elements of Psychology (2d ed.). Titchener, Edward Bradford, A Beginner's Psychology, Ch. VI. CHAPTER XI IMAGERY AND IMAGINING Exercise. — Print your name in capitals. Let the paper lie, but imagine you are holding it before a mirror, right side up. Locate mentally the reflection of the first letter of the name ; of the last letter. In imagination, trace some (perhaps all) the letters, movmg your hand if necessary. Now, print on paper the reflection of your name, as you imagine it. Test your drawing by comparing it with the actual reflection in a mirror. Write an introspective account of what passed through your mind during the whole process. We have seen how experience is gathered, recorded and reproduced, analyzed, synthesized. In this chapter and the next, we shall study two especially interesting and valuable kinds of analyzing and synthesizing, the kind called Imagining, and the kind called Thinking. To understand these, we must know more of images and how they behave : therefore, Imagery first. From impression to image. — As Titchener points out,^ " there is no department of sense in which sensation stops entirely when its stimulus is removed." Sensation may persist as a " positive after-image," that is, a continuation of the original impression, as when a look at the sun leaves its orb " in your eye " for a time ; or the persisting sensa- tion may take the form of a " negative after-image," as when a stare of fifteen seconds at red is followed by bluish green ; or the stimulus may persist in the brain rather than in the sense organ, resulting in a " memory after- '■ A Beginner's Psychology, p. 74. 179 l8o PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS image," such as some children have for several seconds when a word at which they have been looking hard, is suddenly erased from the blackboard, or when, after the teacher has ceased dictating a sentence, they stUl " hear " her voice and write accordingly. " Recurrent images " are such as those which, forming tunes, jingles, and the like, keep on recurring in spite of us, perhaps for a whole day. So we pass, by gradual steps, from the impression, which points us directly to the objective thing that started it, to the common type of image which composes our day dreams, and which seems to have been naturalized into purely subjective citizenship. Contrast of impression and image. — As an image is simply a revived impression, we should expect the original and its resurrected ghost to be as much alike as a sound and its echo. And so they are: These two forms of the same sensation are alike in quality: their chief difference is one of intensity. Because of this lack of intensity, an idea, which is composed of images, is less clear than a per- ception, which is composed of impressions. Observe that when an impression is produced, its brain tract is stimu- lated from without the brain ; but when the corresponding image appears, the same brain tract (probably) is stimu- lated by a current usually weaker from a neighboring neurone. Let our images become sufficiently intense, as they sometimes do, and we mistake them for impressions: we " see " snakes, " hear " our name called, or " feel " a hand on our shoulder : we have hallucinations. Further, impressions are stable, constant, as stubborn as the external world which arouses them; but images IMAGERY AND IMAGINING l8l frequently flicker and die away just when we are most anxious for their radiant presence. You can test this by trying to multiply, mentally, two numbers of two or three figures each. Because our images refuse to " stay put," the average person has to resort to maps, models, diagrams, and other objective aids. This explains the value of such apparatus in the schoolroom. Galton tells of a barbarous Eskimo who drew from memory a chart of the region over which he had at one time or another traveled in his canoe. It extended iioo miles straight, or six times as far when indentations of the coast were counted. This chart was found to agree remarkably with the government map. Galton states that he has never known of any traveler, " white or brown, civilized or uncivilized," who could equal the feat. (See Inquiries into Human Faculty, article on Mental Imagery.) Chess players who carry on several games at once, blind- fold, have an intense and stable brain photograph of their various boards, and call to mind the picture of each, with the position of the men on it, whenever necessary. Kinds of image. — Since an image is the brain's attempt to reproduce an impression, we should expect the kinds of image to be the same as the kinds of impression. And so, in general, they are, though in any individual mind, a given kind of image may be used so little as to make the owner declare it is wanting altogether. The images in which we teachers are most interested are the visual, auditory, and tactual-motor. We must remember, though, that a sense organ, — say the eye, — may be very keen and observant, without corresponding wealth and vividness of visual imagery l82 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS (Galton, loc. cit). And Stout states that " a special com- mand of certain kinds of imagery does not seem in general to be connected with any special fineness or vividness in the corresponding sensations [impressions]."^ The best way to study images is to experience and ob- serve them. Picture the following to yourself, conscien- tiously keeping your attention on each until it has time to grow as intense as your mind can make it. You may wish to keep an introspective record of your pictures, and to grade their intensity by at least three figures, indicating faint, moderate, strong.^ A. Light and color. — An evenly clouded sky (omitting all land- scape) , first bright, then gloomy. A thick surrounding haze, first white, then successively blue, yellow, green, and red. B. Sound. — The beat of rain against the window panes, the crack of a whip, a church bell, the hum of bees, the whistle of a railway train, the clinking of teaspoons and saucers, the slam of a door, a familiar melody played on a favorite instrument. C. Smells. — Tar, roses, an oil-lamp blown out, hay, violets, a fur coat, gas, tobacco. D. Tastes. — Salt, sugar, vinegar, lemon juice, a bitter dose of something, raisins, chocolate, currant jelly. E. Touches. — Velvet, silk, soap, gum, sand, dough, a crisp dead leaf, the prick of a pin. F. Tactual-motor experiences. — "FeeUng" your way through a dark room, winding a watch, passing from a walk to a run, writing, dancing, tying a tie, buttoning your coat, playing an instrument, swimming, holding a weight until fatigued. G. Other sensations. — Heat, hunger, cold, thirst, a headache, fever, drowsiness, a bad cold. ' Groundwork of Psychology, p. 113. 2 The list is substantially that of Galton (see Inquiries into Humm Facility, appendix E), but I have changed it and added to it somewhat. IMAGERY AND IMAGINING 1 83 What is the use of images? — Gulliver, in his travels, found a people who carried with them samples of what they conversed about, so they could point to each object as it came to mind. But we have learned to substitute ideas for objects. Each of us carries his world in his head. Your past experiences, as they come to you, have left their calhng cards in the form of images. What is your past, as you recall it, but a panorama of ideas? The present world, distant lands, the solar system, vast astro- nomical spaces — ^ these mean much to you and httle to your dog because you have intense and stable imagery and he has not. Your future, for you, now, all the way from here to heaven, is simply a mental picture ; inadequate as it may be, it is your only guide in preparing for that future. Here, again, you are much better off than your dog. Creative nature made a great step forward in passing from those animals which have little or no power of imagery to one whose whole mind is aglow with it. We have but one stock of images. — Whether we are remembering, or imagination is painting its strange, new pictures, or thought is copying reality, we are using the same old images in different combinations, somewhat as we use the same old twenty-six letters in different com- binations to write both good news and bad. The image of red is the image of red, whatever we do with it, just as is whether in love or loathe. We may liken our stock of images to the musician's hundred tones, combined and recombined into thousands of tunes ; or to the men on the chess board, combined into endless fighting forma- tions. Evidently, if one's stock of images is scanty, he lacks 184 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS some of the counters necessary in playing the mental game. This is especially true of children. Types of imagery. — We can see a landscape or hear vocal music better than we can hear the landscape or see the music. Just as we succeed best by using different senses on different kinds of material, so we succeed best by using various sorts of imagery for various purposes. Geometry makes no noise : you cannot hear it, nor can you easily solve its problems in terms of auditory images. Here, visual imagery is serviceable, although Galton found that even geometers can get along very well with but Httle of it. Visual imagery has proved to be best in such feats as spelling words backward; and he who attempted to visualize all his music without even hearing the notes in his mental ear, would make a poor vocalist. Assuming that each imager has his own preferred type of imagery, which he uses whenever possible, the attempt has been made to classify all into four groups, visual, auditory, tactual-motor, and mixed. But careful investi- gation shows, first, that it is often hard to tell just which kind of imagery is being used, especially if the subject is one who has not learned to introspect well; and sec- ondly, that types of imager are much less clearly marked than had been supposed. However, two groups have been distinguished, (i) the versatile, and (2) the non- versatile.^ (i) The versatile imager uses all the common forms of imagery with ease, changing from one to another according to his purpose. So, Titchener tells us he lectures, now by 1 See The Diagnosis of Mental Imagery, by Mabel Ruth Femald, Vol. XIV, No. L, of the Psychological Monographs. IMAGERY AND IMAGINING 185 visualizing his manuscript, now by following his own voice, which seems to sound ahead of him, now from kinsesthetic images connected with the vocal organs, using all three guides, perhaps, in the course of an hour. (2) The non-versatile group are characterized by what they lack, rather than by what they have ; for it seems safe to say that even among non-versatile imagers, the ma- jority have fair mastery of more than one kind of imagery, shifting according to the demands of the task. One may even perceive visually — say a page of music — but remem- ber it largely by tactual-motor imagery. And if he were a versatile imager he might then solve his musical problems, compose, perhaps, in auditory terms. So he uses different parts of his brain for different purposes. To sum up: each of us may be found to possess any kind of imagery, and in strength ranging from near zero to the vivid intensity that gives rise to hallucinations. For efficient mental work, it is probably best to use, in any task, that kind of imagery which, in the long run, forces itself to the front when we persistently set our minds on the achievement of that task. So we find, as in the oft-quoted case of the cooperating play writers, Scribe and Legouve, different workers doing the same kind of work with different kinds of imagery. Said Legouve to Scribe, " When I write a scene, I hear and you see. At each phrase which I write, the voice of the person speaking strikes my ear. The diverse intona- tions of the actors sound under my pen as the words appear on my paper. As for you, who are the theater itself, your actors walk, they bestir themselves under your eyes. I am auditor, you are spectator." " You are perfectly 1 86 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS right," said Scribe. " Do you know where I am when I write? In the middle of the stalls." Individual peculiarities of imagery. — Galton/ the classic investigator of this interesting subject, showed the " vast variety of mental constitution that exists in the world, and how impossible it is for one man to lay his mind strictly alongside that of another, except in the rare instances of close hereditary resemblance." So great were the differ- ences that some were " scandalized and almost angry " at the " heresy " of others. Some of the most striking peculiarities were : the common absence of imagery — at least visual imagery, among scientists; great differences in vividness; the abihty to visualize all round a solid by a kind of " touch-sight " ; or to see all the rooms of a house as if it were made of glass ; color associations ; visions ; number-forms. Thus, letters may be ideated in color. One reports that he has always associated certain colors with certain letters, and cannot change the color of a letter, so to speak, by any effort. Further, such letter-color is always clear in hue and definite in outHne. The word " red," strangely enough, takes on the color of light green. " Yellow " is light green in its first syllable and red in its second. So certainly do colors call up their corresponding letters that this person, when perplexed as to the spelling of a word, can decide the matter by recalling the color of the trouble- some word. Another striking case is that of a well-known authoress who, while somewhat " fidgeted," but not to the point of illness, saw the chief character of one of her books, in size ' See References at close of chapter. IMAGERY AND IMAGINING 187 like a large doll, enter her door, approach her closely, and then suddenly disappear. Many others hear voices or see visions. So common are these supposedly uncommon ex- periences as to lead Galton to comment on the frequency of the hallucinations of the insane among people of good health and social standing. Some of these peculiarities, especially the number forms, date back to early childhood. They take all kinds of fantastic shapes, one of which is here reproduced (Fig. 30) . The owner of it ex- plained that the figures from one to twelve were seen as on a clock face. Other pecuHar number forms are traced back to dominoes, cards, an abacus, the fingers, feet and inches, or the hills 1-12 ARE THE IMAGE OF THE CLOCK. THE CROSS LINES 60,- 70,-140,-150 ARE NEVER SEEN TOGETHER Fig. 30. — A visual number-form. (After Galton.) and dales about the childhood home. Children who have fantastic imagery may refrain from talking about it be- cause of the fear of ridicule. They should know that their case is just uncommon enough to be interesting. From picture to symbol in imagery. — When primitive man wanted to make a record of events, he often did so by means of picture language. Our own alphabet was orig- inally a series of pictures. But the accumulation and repe- tition of such pictures is too burdensome to bear. Fond as you may be of your friend's photograph, you would not attempt to reproduce it every time you refer to him : you prefer to write his name, using symbols which do not at all resemble him, but which mean him nevertheless. l88 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS As the race has passed from picture to symbol in its writing, so each developing mind passes from picture to symbols in some parts, at least, of its imagery. We may even distinguish a stage halfway between : when you draw a picture a thousand times, you may at length make it so carelessly, that it is rather a symbol than a picture ; and so an idea repeated a thousand times may become so vague, distorted, fragmentary, as to be s3nnbolic. Stout says that when he thinks of St. Paul's there floats before his mind a vague picture of something cup-shaped, but states that if this cup-shaped mental picture coxild be made over into objective form so all could look at it, it might not make anybody else think of St. Paul's. " I might have used the same image for representing a mosque in Constan- tinople, or even for representing Constantinople itself." ^ If you want examples of symbolic imagery, you can probably get them by observing what enters your mind at the call of each of the following : above; before; around; if; why? how? progress; long, long ago; millions and millions; exalted; polygon. These words show the reasons why we are compelled to resort to symbols : we cannot well picture (i) individuals in a large collection, as 10,000 men ; or (2) an abstraction, such as time, or folly, or polygon. As before indicated, Galton found that scientific men are weak in picture-imagery. He concluded that the use of very vivid pictorial images is unfavorable to the habits demanded by abstract, verbal thinking, and that vigorous abstract thinkers are likely to lose the power of " seeing the pictures." The highest type of mind, he thought, does not wholly lose the picture-seeing faculty, but keeps it ' G. F. Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, p. 106. IMAGERY AND IMAGINING 1 89 only for those special cases that demand it. Yet those who cannot make use of pictorial mental imagery, have other ways of representing things to themselves, perhaps a kind of imagery whose units are muscular rather than visual, but which serves them so well that they are experts in expressing their experiences, either in words or by paint- ing. In teaching, the common danger is that we shall use too many symbolic images and too few of the picturesque, concrete kind. Pretty certainly it is the highest level of the brain that we are calling into play when we use ab- stract imagery, and our pupils may still be living on the second, that is the sensory, level. It takes them off their feet when (for example) we pass from arithmetic to algebra, and instead of multiplying a number of doUars by a number of days, multiply x hy y; or when we speak of the flora and fauna of a country instead of its plants and animals. They feel that we are getting high flown and shooting over their heads. They " don't understand it." It is a good thing for us teachers to express in several varied forms that which we have to teach, taking pains to include many picturesque statements and many per- ceptive examples, that each pupil may embrace the truth in the dress that most appeals to him, somewhat as men of many countries all appreciate values best in terms of their own home coinage. What is imagination ? — Imagination, as the name im- plies, is an imaging process ; but so, also, are memory and thought. And, as already stated, we have but one set of images with which to remember, imagine, and think — igo PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS one set of counters with which to play three games. The difference is this : memory gives us the was-so ; imagina- tion, the might-be-so ; and thought, the must-be-so. There is a difference in the feehng that accompanies each. Memory, we found, carries with it a feeling of famiharity. Imagination is betokened by a feeUng of newness, strange- ness ; thought, by a feehng of rehabihty. Imagination, then, is analysis or association accompanied by a feeling of newness and strangeness. To remember is to retrace the old. To imagine is to explore the new. I remember the appearance of a horse and a cow; but if I combine the two into some sort of cow-horse or horse- cow, I am imagining. What is imagination good for ? — We are wrong if we think imagination is found nowhere except on the back of Pegasus. It is not only desirable, but demanded, by the most prosaic act of the most humdrum existence, if we would perform it efficiently. Plowman, smith, penman, carpenter, ditch digger, tailor, architect, mason, musician — each is a better artist if he can form a clear idea, before he attempts his task, of how it should look or sound when it is finished. He, too, who would be served, must have some vision of the service he desires. It is imagination which pictures the various kinds of haircut, dinner suit, gown, house, that you might have, and the effect of each, enabhng you to choose wisely. Combinations of colors that disagree to the fighting point, sickening mixtures of food, mismatched appoint- ments and events, the awkward, disgusting, and disorderly ever)rwhere in human arrangements, are usually so much IMAGERY AND IMAGINING I9I evidence of lack of imagination on the part of the plan- maker. Imagination is the father of order. Further, imagination precedes every carefully chosen word and every dehberate act. The fluent speaker seems to have a sort of moving-picture flight of ideas preceding the flow of his words and suggesting their choice. And the clearer the ideas, the more ready and apt the expression. One of the best ways to learn a new movement is by first picturing it with great clearness and then performing it. After much practice, the imagery which at first preceded the act, drops out, and the course of nerve action is direct from stimulus to performance. So, an expert, asked to tell how to perform a certain act, may be at a loss to do so, but will gladly " show you." The imagery which once directed his movements is no longer present to suggest descriptive words. Only by imagination can you picture all your possible futures, so as to choose the best. The same power which saddens the dream of what might have been, gladdens the vision of what may yet be. Our pupils can make no rapid advancement unless they can see things, that is, imagine the next step of progress before they take it. In writing, they should be able to picture clearly the letter they are striving to make. In arithmetic, perhaps the most frequent failure is the failure to imagine clearly the conditions of the problem. Subjects like history and geography are almost meaningless without this power of picturing. In the good-conduct class, it is useless to contrast the good way of life with the bad unless the pupil can send his mind ahead sufiiciently to see to what different ends the white way and the black one lead. 192 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Kinds of imagination. — We can easily distinguish two kinds of imagination, the imitative and the creative. Imitative imagination aims to copy something that al- ready exists either as object or process in the physical world or as idea in the mind of another. Creative imagination aims to produce something which, so far as the imaginer knows, never existed before. Imitative imagination finds its stimulus and its model outside itself, serves as inter- preter : for example, in reading, we try to rebuild, to imitate, in our own mind, the picture the author had in his. Creative imagination is originative, makes its own model, forms the first pattern idea for manifold imitation. Imitative imagi- nation adapts us to what is: creative imagination shows us how to change what is to what ought to be. Essentials of effective imagining. — First, here as every- where, stands purpose. The inventor succeeds by keeping his attention firmly on what he hopes to achieve, until means for its accomplishment suggest themselves. The artist, waiting for his picture to shine out in his mind before he can brush it on to the canvas ; the poet, who feels Ms poem as a whole before he can add line to line ; the prophet or statesman, trying to make clear his vision of a future state as a guide to the reforming of the present govern- ment, — all these feel themselves possessed of a purpose so strong that they sometimes beheve they are directed by superhuman powers. There is danger that we shall dissipate our creative energies on imitative imagination, as on too much fiction and too many moving pictures. These are good stunu- lators, which should challenge us to pass on to productive accompUshment of some kind. IMAGERY AND IMAGINING I93 Secondly, abundant material is necessary. Even creative imagination can not work up a world out of nothing. Creat- ing or imitating, we can use only such images as we have ; and we can get our free images in no other way than by abundant perceiving and careful analysis. We should take pains to gather material of the kind we are most likely to use. Scott, like so many others, took, as a basis for a projected work, some story already existing. To a friend whom he was visiting, he remarked, " You have often given me materials for romance : now I want a good robber's cave, and an old church of the right sort." On finding a smtable cave, he made note even of the wild flowers that grew about it, explaining that an author who tried to furnish natural surroundings out of his mind, so to speak, would come to show in his descriptions a monotonous repetition instead of the endless variety and fine fitness that nature displays in her settings. Granted persistence in concentrating on any purpose until suggestions, associated ideas, begin to play freely about it, the next essential consists in selecting and reject- ing the ideas that apply for recognition. We must treat them as we do candidates for a position. Many, perhaps most of them, can be dismissed at once as obviously unfit. Others, especially the new and strange, should be passed from a casual to a careful examination. None must in- fluence us unduly because of previous acquaintance. And finally, if we would have the best service, the best must be chosen to serve. ' All we can do is to follow the lead of our best ideas, re- tracing if necessary, until we strike the path that leads to our goal. 194 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS The schoolroom appHcation is obvious. If we want a pupil to imagine well, say in connection with a composition, linguistic, musical, pictorial, or in handicraft, we must (i) see that he has a subject which fires him with purpose, must (2) furnish him plenty of mental material to make his imaginative pictures of, and (3) encourage him to be self- critical, to pick and choose among his eager ideas until only the best stand forth unified into a final product that is altogether good. Limitations of imagination. — One who has not learned the laws of mind is liable to suppose that imagination is like the genius of Aladdin's lamp, capable of producing anything if only it is properly commanded. The teacher may assume that if he but does enough explaining, the ■ imitative imagination of his pupil can follow anywhere. But the " world " which the child carries in his head is a small one, and he can no more imagine without images than he can build a brick wall without bricks. Nor does creative imagination possess the divine power of making a world out of nothing. The creative genius, when he is called a genius, usually points to the toil — terrible to one who does not love it, which Hes back of his product. We must encourage the feehng of expectancy, for to expect the appearance of any mental product is to increase the chances of its appearing. But we should realize that the mind cannot create new images nor new laws of com- bination : it is hmited to the old stock of materials and the old ways of grouping them. The best we can do is to choose the finest ideas that present themselves as we persistently follow the lead of an alluring purpose. IMAGERY AND IMAGINING 1 95 CLASS EXERCISE The purpose of the exercise is to find out how the mind works when trying to imagine (invent) a new game. To furnish an abundance of concrete material, the instructor may bring before the class several games which involve a variety of ap- paratus (say dominoes, euchre, a dice game, and checkers), and briefly describe the method of playing each. Let the class analyze each game, noting sizes, shapes, colors, spots, designs, etc., of the playing apparatus ; methods of dealing out, choos- ing, or placing, cards, counters, etc. ; and rules of procedure. Create a new game, involving (i) a new kind or combination of apparatus (such as triangular faced dice), or (2) a new method of starting (as allowing each to draw cards as he does dominoes), or (3) new rules for playing, or all of these. Introspective reports and discussion. FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. A dog, a schoolboy, and an old soldier, are all looking at their country's flag. Describe and explain what you believe to be the state of mind of each. 2. Tell, in a general way, what experience is necessary before a child can picture to himself what he finds described in his history. 3. Try to imagine the following: A tall-short man passes east- west along the corridor, steps into an enormous little elevator, and goes both up and down at once. Describe and explain your imagery. 4. Make a Ust of the " common branches " and tell what part you think imagery and imagination have in each. Does mathematics require imagination ? 5. Discuss " Dangers in the Use of the Imagination." 6. Betts says {The Mind and Its Education, p. 134) : " What youth, taking his first drink of liquor, would continue if he could see a clear picture of himself in the gutter with bloated face and blood- shot eyes a decade hence? Or what boy, slyly smoking one of his 196 PSYCHOLOGY TOR TEACHERS early cigarettes, would proceed if he could see his haggard face and nerveless hand a few years farther along? " Discuss further the value of imagination in living the good life. 7. Hold your mouth open, and at the same time imagine in- tensely the sound of b and of p. What happens ? Why? 8. Do you think a hen, when she sits, imagines the chicks-to- be ? Should you not defer judgment on this tiU you have further evidence ? 9. Describe your imagery in connection with (i) a problem in mathematics, (2) a paragraph of history, (3) a scientific description, (4) a stanza of poetry, (5) an attempt to draw or construct from memory, (6) the words " Forward ! March ! " 10. Describe your imagery suggested by these words : What ? Run. Up. Calm. Of. Therefore. Bah! How? 11. Give examples of imitative imagination. Of creative imagina- tion. 12. Do you think imagination is subject to the laws of Brain Set, Mental Set, Intensity, Frequency, and Recency? Tell why or why not, and Ulustrate. 13. In performing the exercise at the opening of this chapter, how would your name appear if you turned your back to the (imaginary) mirror and looked into a second one in such a way that your name was reflected twice ? 14. In a stereopticon, all rays of light cross as they pass through the lens. If there is printing on a transparent slide placed between the light and the lens, how must this printing be placed so as not to be inverted or reversed when thrown on the screen? Draw a figure if necessary. IS- Fold a square paper along a diagonal, then bring the two acute angles together and flatten the triangle thus formed. Cut off the right angle. Before unfolding, draw the square as you imagine it will look when unfolded. Were you right ? 16. TeU how you would proceed to discover, among your pupils, individual traits of imagery that would prove of value in teaching them. 17. " We have but one stock of images." How can we make sure that our pupils have an abundant stock of them? IMAGERY AND IMAGINING 197 REFERENCES Betts, George Herbert, The Mind and its Education, Chs. VII and IX. Carpenter, William B., Principles of Mental Physiology, Ch. XII. Fernald, Mabel Ruth, The Diagnosis of Mental Imagery. Psycho- logical Monographs, Vol. XIV, No. i. Galton, Francis, Inquiries into Human Faculty ; articles on " Mental Imagery," " Number Forms," and " Color Associations." CHAPTER XII THINKING Exercise. — (i) Remember some of the events of yesterday. (2) Imagine what you would like to put into an ideal day. (3) Think out some things which you feel sure will happen to-morrow. What differences do you find among these three kinds of mental activity? If one could remember and imagine, but could not think, how would he be likely to act ? At the opening of the last chapter, it was stated that Imagining and Thinking are two especially valuable ways of analyzing and associating experience. We have studied the first. Thinking comes next. What is thinking ? — A young lady in a psychology class, performing an exercise in mental synthesis, placed a " fair maiden " up in a tree, which her lover, a shepherd swain, was unable to cUmb. But his trusty dog " ran playfully up the tree " and frightened the maiden so that she fell on the soft and woolly backs of the assembled sheep ! One can imagine this, but can hardly think it ; for thinking is imagination regarded as truthful, and so believed. Truthful means " picturing, or corresponding to, or har- monizing with, reahty." And reaUty is what actually was, is, or will be. However, we commonly extend the idea to what could or would be under certain conditions. " If wishes were horses, all beggars might ride." Wishes are not horses, and not all beggars ride. Yet this is a true statement, harmonizing with reality. 198 THINKING 199 The world is covered with a network of roads, all of which lead somewhere ; but one only, perhaps, will take me where I want to go. So, imagination is the great mental road-builder, filling our minds with a web of as- sociations which show how things might be ; but one only, perhaps, of all these pictured possibilities, is true. To think is to select the mental road that leads to reality. One of the teachers of my childhood days mystified us by sticking a bit of paper on the nail of each of two fingers, one on each hand. She then caused these papers to dis- appear and reappear by throwing her hands back over her shoulders and calhng, " Fly away. Jack ! " and " Come back. Jack ! " We imagined (i) that she might stick these papers on her shoulders and then snatch them again; (2) that she held them in her hands and deftly placed them on her fingers at will ; (3) that she left the papers in place, but showed different fingers at call. We finally found, by close watching, that this last guess was the true one, that it gave us what " really was so." The most thoughtful scientist proceeds in a similar way to find the truth. The general, sitting at headquarters, gets news by tele- phone from all his fighting units at the front. On a map, he has a marker to represent each company. This he moves as the company advances or retreats, removing it if the company is captured or destroyed. Thinking is similar. The mind is the map ; images are the markers ; reality, especially the big objective world in which we live, is the actual battle field. Not that the mind is unreal : the map is just as real as the battle field. But the heart and soul of our effort is to represent correctly something 200 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS real but not present and perceived. As we get news through our sense organs, we arrange our mental markers accordingly. Thinking is setting our images in order. In what order? In what we beheve to be a truthful order, the order of reality. The belief which marks the truthful association and distinguishes it from the merely imaginative, is a feeling of reliability. You can imagine your favorite team winning the next game ; but do you think it will ? Would you rely on that outcome, back it up with action ? Unfortunately, the feeling of rehability is often induced too easily, before all the possibihties have been thoroughly explored. " Talk is cheap," if we talk merely what might be, what we im- agine. But when some one challenges us, asking " What will you bet? " he is getting a price on our talk, and so finding the measure of our feeling of reliability. Thinking is mental analysis or synthesis characterized by the feeling of reliability. The value of thinking. — The animal that has suc- ceeded best in his environment is man. The animal that thinks best is man. Thinking enables us to predict, to control, to succeed. Just how ? If a traveler sees many roads before him, but has no idea as to which to follow, it is a mere accident if he takes the right one. So, if we could imagine numerous possibilities, but were thoughtless, had no feeUng of re- hability in this direction or that, we might as well follow any whim or impulse, as thoughtless people do. But many of the so-called thoughtless are really imagination- less. They have few free images, and can not imagine any course of action clearly from beginning to end. Like THINKING 20I the lower animals, they follow the feeling of the moment. By careful thinking, we are enabled to deal with things absent as if they were here, with things past or future as if present, and with things involved and mysterious as if open and evident. For example, you may have a triangle here and now before you, and yet not know that the sum of its interior angles is i8o degrees, until you think the matter out. The perfect thinker would be one who had in his mind an image for everything in the universe, who could combine these images freely, and who always knew when his mental pattern was repeating that of reality. How thinking goes on. — A child, on scanning the sky some starry night, wonders why one star appears so much bigger and brighter than all the rest. He recalls a few other such giant stars. Perhaps they are older than the others, and so have grown bigger, as his big brother is older than he. But when he suggests this, people laugh : probably it is not true. Perhaps there are holes of different size cut through the sky. Then the moon must be a very big hole. But how could a hole look like a man, and how could it rise and set? Besides, he has heard some one say that the moon is really quite small, but looks large because it is so close. Headlights and lanterns look larger as they come closer. The big stars look big because they are closer. And the sun, being so very big and bright and hot, must be very close. What are the steps in this process? (i) A wonder- situation. The interrogation point is the thinker's trade mark. (2) Imagination suggests one or more solutions which must make their way if they can, or (3) be inhibited, 202 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS overpowered, thrust aside by opposing ideas. So, the suggestion that stars are sky holes was inhibited by what was observed and reported of the moon. Among ideas, might makes right, and the fittest survive. (4) At length, an answer may arrive which seems to harmonize with every- thing the thinker knows. Behef follows — and reUef , too, usually: his feeling of reUabiUty is proportional to his success in securing harmony among his ideas. If there is something strong and positive to inhibit every doubt, he is sure. (5) This estabhshed truth becomes influential, in the community of ideas, in determining whether any new idea shall receive recognition. If stars look big be- cause they are near, no doubt the sun does, too. Naive and reflective thought. — Most children, and many grown people, think in the naive, uncritical, imre- flective way illustrated above. But suppose the child, in later life, becomes an astronomer. How now does he attack such a problem ? (i) He begins by stating his question with the greatest care. He does not assume that the big " stars " are stars at all, but keeps his mind open on that point. They may be moons. His problem is to find what makes the dif- ference between the larger and the lesser lights of starHke appearance. (2) Experience has taught him that it is best to em- phasize facts first and theories afterward, and so avoid the danger of becoming biased, tied to this theory or prejudiced against that. As I have said elsewhere,^ the common tendency is to jump at conclusions and dodge the facts, 1 In The Science and the Art of Teaching, Ch. XIV, on "The Lesson for Thought." See also Chapters I and X of that book. THINKING 203 whereas we must learn to jump at the facts and dodge con- clusions. Accordingly, our astronomer goes on observing. He notices, among other facts, that these larger lights do not twinkle as stars do, and that they wander slowly about among the fixed stars. (3) He is more persistent in imagining every possible theory and in subjecting each plausible solution to the most thorough tests. If these wanderers are larger merely because closer, then how explain the wandering, the lack of twinkle, and their peculiar color ? (4) The solution which he feels forced to accept, which gives him the greatest feeling of reliability, is permitted only gradually to take standing as an estabhshed piece of knowledge. It is first a " hypothesis," a well-considered guess, then a " theory," and finally, if it can run the gant- let of a long array of critical fellow scientists, it becomes a scientific fixture, perhaps a " principle " or " law." No astronomer can now doubt that these wanderers are planets (from planes, wanderer), or that they move about the sun and shine by its reflected light, and so are more like moons than stars. (s) The critical thinker is more careful in drawing con- clusions from accepted knowledge. The child was right in thinking that the " big stars " look big because they are closer, but wrong in thinking that the sun, since it looks so very big, must be very close. Our greatest thinkers show wonderful application and persistence in seeking the right conclusion. Newton, when asked how he achieved his marvelous results, re- pKed, " By always thinking about them." It is told of him that he would pause in his dressing and sit for an 204 PSYCHOLOGY POR TEACHERS hour with toilet incomplete, lost in some problem. Darwin used to sit, apparently staring at a flower bed but actually deep in thought, for hours at a stretch. How psychology passes into logic. — As appears above, the general course of critical, reflective thinking is the same, point for point, as that of naive, uncritical thought ; but the critical thinker is more cautious, vigilant, thorough- going, and deliberate at every point than the child. He began as a naive thinker himself, and has gone wrong many times ; but he has noted the danger points and is determined not to be fooled again. The whole situation is like that of navigating diffi- cult seas, full of shoals, rocks, and quick currents. The untried sailor reaches port by luck, if at all. There are many wrecks. But gradually, lighthouses are built, buoys are placed, the seas are charted, the art of naviga- tion is perfected. Thenceforth, the expert sailor is practi- cally safe. The naive thinker is the unskilled mariner on the rocky sea of reality. There have been many blunderous wrecks. But gradually, the danger points have been marked, the course charted. The scientific art of thought-steering now makes the expert thinker reasonably safe. This scientific art is Logic. It is to be wished that every teacher could master it, especially its more practical side. But here we can only call attention to a few psychological essentials. Why naive thinking persists. — We teachers, anxious to reform the world, could do it if we could teach every one to think straight, and then to act as he thinks. Back of all bad conduct is a faulty idea of some sort. If we are to THINKING 205 correct naive thinking, we should know what causes it, and remove the cause. Now, we have found that minds work, in general, accord- ing to a few familiar laws. Let us look to them for help. Brain set. — One disheartening difficulty is that so many- imperfect brains are born into the world. Judging from the way many of them respond, or fail to respond, to their environment, certain neurones must be either lacking or not functioning. Inborn ability grades from idiocy and folly up to wisdom and genius. No teaching can correct hereditary brain weakness ; but eugenics holds out a hope for brains better born. One great curse resulting from brain set is tradition. You can easily see how every one outside your own church is biased by it. Nor is it found in religion only: it sways society, keeps tyrannous governments alive, preserves " red tape " even in a democracy, supports the quack, enslaves the farmer. Many farmers still watch the moon for signs to tell them when to plant beans and potatoes, kill pigs, set fence posts, etc. Cucumbers grow longest, they think, if planted on the longest day of the year ! The weather on the second of February tells whether to sell or keep the hay, etc. Tradition inoculates the child as he comes from the cradle, and cramps and shackles his mind — a fate much worse than cramping and shackling his body. We must compel this muttering and jabbering in the dark to come out into the daylight and prove itself. Each must reform his own mind until he no longer fears to break a mirror or sit with twelve others at table. Then let us challenge tradition wherever we find it, and insist, so far as we can, that the minds of children shall be left/ree. 206 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Mental set. — The chief danger here is from our feelings, which would lead us to take sides first and find the reasons afterward. But as a judge, watching two unknown parties contending, cares not which wins, but is determined on a fair trial, so every thinker should be unprejudiced as to the issue of his thought, but see to it that the contest is well conducted. Suggestions also work powerfully, even when self-ad- ministered. Sir Francis Galton cut out a comic picture from Puck, set it up, and made beheve that it had divine powers. He soon began to feel that this ridiculous creature had considerable influence over him. This explains the halo of awfulness which some contrive to throw about themselves. We respond to these sugges- tions of superiority and permit such people to " get away with it." We should respect real ability, but assumption and pretension need treatment of some kind, perhaps by ridicule or a policy of non-intercourse. Ignorance is one very common cause of prejudice. The individual who is ignorant of anything, such as a proposed reform, is likely to feel " cheap " if not ready to act on it when others do, yet he runs a risk if he accepts the un- known; and further, because he is humiliated if found ignorant of a good thing, he is likely to pronounce the new thing had. Intensity. — Unfortunately, events are so strung together in this world that we are often impressed with connections of no importance. It is said that war follows the appear- ance of the " northern lights " (aurora borealis). Probably it did once, and in a striking way ; but one fact does not prove such a case, any more than one bird makes spring. THINKING 207 Then there is often a lack of intense, impressive facts to support the truth. This is why the expert thinker so often relies on experiment. The old-fashioned farmer, seeing the success of his scientific neighbor, begins to look with open eyes and mind on the " new-fangled." Further, even logical minds are in danger of being too much impressed by statements printed in colored ink or large type, or which are made with loud voice and em- phatic manner. The sunrise gun or the crow of a rooster may attract our attention more than the sunrise itself. Unfortunately, the less certain some men are of a state- ment, the more loudly they roar it abroad, as if to puff up their failing confidence with noise. ^ Frequency. — The liar, by repeating his tales, may arouse in himself the feeling of familiarity and come to believe his own yarns. Similarly, any statement, true or false, repeated many times without question, induces the feeHng of reliability and comes to be " so " whether it is true or not. " I believe. ..." Write after these words anything you please that is not constantly refuted by your experience, say it over frequently and seriously, and you will probably wonder, in time, why any one should ever doubt it. " There is luck in odd numbers ! " Yes, half the time : for just half the numbers are odd. " There is luck in even numbers," and to the same degree. But this arouses less belief because we have heard it less often. 1 The old doggerel gives popular expression to this psychological fact : "It isn't always the wisest man Who has the most to say : The base drum makes the biggest noise, But is easiest to play." 2o8 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Here is one reason for the election cry, the motto, the slogan, the ceaseless repetition of certain advertisements. What everybody is saying, or what meets us at every angle, is likely to overpower us at length by its mental mass and momentum, to induce the feeling of reliability, and so to get itself established as true. Recency. — Every brain seems to have a little putty in it, and to hold best that which impressed it last. The last lawyer before the jury, the last debater to get the ear of the judges, the last salesman to appear before the pur- chasing committee, — in short, the one who, in any situa- tion, can get the last word before action, has an advantage. To some minds, the latest is the truest, and the most recent rumor arouses more belief than the most fixed and ancient facts. Essentials of good thinking. — As stated above, the perfect thinker would be one who (i) had images to represent everything in the omiverse, (2) who could form freely all probable combinations of these images, that is, imagine all possible or probable hypotheses, and (3) whose belief, or feehng of reliability, always clung finally to the correct hypothesis. Very likely this is an unattainable ideal ; but it is worth while to struggle constantly for (i) ideas which are abundant and accurate, (2) freedom of imagination in combining and recombining our images, and (3) improved means of knowing when the truthful combination is found. Let us consider each of these. (i) Storing the mind with images and ideas. — We can secure an abundance of ideas by wide experience and care- ful observation, supplemented by penetrative conversation THINKING 209 and reading. Our minds are naturally hungry for ideas. We go eagerly to see moving pictures, and listen with pleasure to him who tells us of foreign lands. We can give accuracy and edge to our ideas by persistently trying them out on the stubborn world of fact, attempting to predict and to control, analyzing and re-synthesLzing each until it just fits the fact it stands for. So the child is likely to regard poetry as " stuff that rimes." Later, he finds that he must take down and re- build this idea, that there may even be poetry without rime. Appendicitis was long called "bowel complaint," or other similar name. The vague idea of " something wrong among the intestines " has now been rendered more exact by further information and careful discrimination. We may even find an idea with nothing corresponding to it. Such is the idea of phlogiston, a substance which, as the older chemists believed, flows out of a body when it burns. Further, two ideas, supposed to have no relation, may be found to refer to the same fact, as the English word horse and the Latin equus refer to the same animal. (2) Securing variety of h3rpotheses. — A fertile imagina- tion is one of the first requisites of successful thinking ; for we cannot consider the ideas which never enter our heads. Nor is there any known way of going out and capturing the right hypothesis and compeUing it to serve us. But we can and should steer away from the paths of prosy platitude and encourage our associations to loosen up and joggle themselves together in patterns that are new, even if bizarre and fantastic sometimes. Here is one of the serious uses of wit. These, however, are only our setting-up exercises. If 2IO PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS we are ready for the serious labor of truth-finding, we must work our way thoroughly through the whole list of facts. If any seem to be of key-importance, we can imagine them removed — what would happen? Those that are minute can be magnified by the microscope of exaggeration, and the more bold and imposing ones looked at through a re- ducing glass. We can even import events : " How would this situation be changed if so and so were brought to bear on it?" If now, all these devices are backed up by perfect fa- miliarity with the series of facts we are dealing with, we may hope to find our way into the room where sit the gold, silver, and iron chests, and make ready to choose the one that contains the treasure. (3) Recognizing the true h3rpothesis. — The critical and patient thinker is likely to accept, in the end, that solution which harmonizes best with all the knowledge he has. But as he runs through his stock of knowledge, he finds that its various items arouse different degrees of belief, strong or weak feelings of reUability, depending largely on how these items were acquired. Now, aU our knowledge is gained in one of the four following ways : (i) Observation not followed hy inference; as when a boy observes his mother doing housework, but makes no in- ference as to the order in which the work is done. (2) Observation followed by inference; as when the boy, having observed his mother for weeks, infers that she follows a certain order, washing on Monday, ironing on Tuesday, etc. (3) Inference followed by observation; " Mother always bakes on Friday, sd she will bake next Friday." Friday THINKING 211 comes and observation proves the truth of the inference, strengthening the boy's behef that he has found the order of his mother's housekeeping. (4) Inference not followed by observation; " Mother must have gone through all this when I was a baby." So, man observes his mother nature, the difference being that she cannot talk. The only way to question her is by experiment. We feel sure of what we observe, less sure of our inferences, reassured when inference is borne out by further observation, less secure when we extend an in- ference without being able to support it by direct obser- vation. But in the mind of the critical thinker, that hypothesis survives which appears to have the best founda- tion, directly or indirectly, in observed facts. Induction and deduction. — The basing of truth (i) di- rectly or (2) indirectly on observed facts, gives rise to two kinds of truth and two methods of getting at it. The two kinds of truth are the inductions and the deductions ; the two methods are the inductive and the deductive. When a wonder comes, say as to whether one should eat heartily when he has a cold, there are two general ways of getting an answer, (i) We may fly straight for the facts, observe people with colds, some of whom eat heartily and others sparingly. We may even experiment on the matter. Or (2) we may think the thing out on the basis of what is regarded as already known, taking our stand on certain principles of physiology which appear to apply to the case, or even on such popular statements as " Stuff a cold and starve a fever." The first method is inductive, the second deductive. An induction, then, is a statement (usually a general state- 212 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS ment) based on observation of the facts. Suppose the wonder question is, Why do some " stars " twinkle while others do not? We observe the heavenly bodies at night and find that " the planets do not twinkle." They shine with steady glow. We examine the true stars : Star A twinkles, star B twinkles, star C twinkles, etc. If we find none that does not twinkle, we may venture the inductive inference, " All stars twinkle." Now, we can observe all the important planets, but not all the stars : there are too many. And we must remember that every inference made without examining all the objects included, involves a risk. We can not well hunt the whole universe through ; consequently, after we have made our inference, exceptions may be found. This compels us to go on thinking, and so increasing in wisdom. Naive, reckless thinkers, especially children, are likely to rush into inference by the short cut of a few facts, forgetting that the longest way round is here the surest way home. Deduction is constructing the answer to a wonder ques- tion by using the knowledge we find in our mental factory and not collecting any new facts. Induction, as we have seen, must have fresh facts. Deduction is pure brain work, and can proceed (once the mind has gained some little capital stock of truth) without the exercise of the observing organs. Suppose the question arises as to whether women are more savage fighters than men. " Yes," some one answers, " they are : for Kipling says ' the female of the species is more deadly than the male ! ' " Granted that "deadly" includes "savage in fight," and that "the species " includes the human species, then the question is decided. THINKING 213 But is it decided? No : it is simply referred to Kipling. And what right has he to make such a startling statement about females? None, unless (as the poem indicates) he has numerous observations (his own or others') of facts to back him up. The point is this : truth always rests on observed facts — directly in case of induction and indi- rectly in case of deduction. Deduction, it appears, is simply an extension of induction, the erecting of an ad- ditional story over the inductive foundation; but the foundation of fact must always be there. Deduction, then, is not necessarily proceeding from a general statement to a particular fact, as it is so often said to be. It is simply the working over of old truth till we bring some new truth out of it. Every theorem in geometry is a general truth, yet nearly all are proved by deduction. The great danger in induction, as already stated, lies in passing to our general " truth " too hastily ; the great danger in deduction consists in relying on some general " truth " too carelessly. The world is overflowing with examples. Evidently, the most common trouble in thinking is with our general statements : particular facts in the outside world we can examine at our pleasure ; but the proverbs, laws, principles which are urged upon us, and which may have their home chiefly in somebody's brain cells, these we must always regard with caution. Judgment and reasoning. — The nice discrimination of the many technical terms used in what we may call pro- fessional thinking, we must leave to the study of Logic. But the words judgment and reasoning are in such common use that we should know their general meaning. 214 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS Thinking is finding relations. Judgment is the direct discovery of a relation. Reasoning is the indirect dis- covery of a relation. " Our baseball team is better than the X team." This is a direct comparison, a judgment. " We can beat the Y team, for X beat Y and we beat X." Here is a more complex, indirect comparison, a sample of reasoning. Since two or more simple judgments are al- ways necessary, we may say reasoning is a (logical) com- bination of judgments. But whether the judgments are all true and all truthfully combined — " there's the rub." Common sense. — As we found in studying memory, forgotten knowledge may have so set the brain as to in- fluence its future action. It is not surprising then, to find that many who have good common sense, or practical judg- ment, can not always give reasons for their decisions. Like certain good, old-fashioned cooks who are only embarrassed by measures and scales, they have " learned by experience " until they seem to be guided by " intuition." Subconscious cerebration has its value in thinking. Just as we often find it best to stop forcing our memory, and let it alone till it produces what we seek, so it is often best, having gathered the evidence in a case, to stop wrestling with the problem, and expectantly wait until the satisfy- ing decision, apparently of its own accord, issues in con- sciousness. Teaching children to think. — Children apparently do a great deal of their " thinking " subconsciously. At any rate, they have many wise intuitions for which they can not give the underlying reasons. We should not attempt to teach them the conscious science of thinking, but only the practical art, largely by practicing it with them in THINKING 215 conversational teaching, by bringing them into contact with good examples of it, and by showing them, from the daily affairs of life, how dangerous it is to take sides first and do our thinking afterwards. Probably the greatest thing we can teach them is the proper attitude toward truth. One must set his mind, not on having his own way, but the way of the facts. He must be prepared to accept the election returns, so to speak, whether he likes the elected candidate or not. The key to the right attitude is found by forming the habit of applying to every important statement these three test questions : i. Just what does this mean ? 2. Is it true? 3. How do I know? For example, what is the meaning of " Stuff a cold and starve a fever " ? Careful examination reveals that an " if " is omitted. The mean- ing is, " If one eats very heartily when he has a cold, he wiU bring on a fever that will require him to go on limited diet." The questions, " Is it true," and" How do I know," re- quire that the pupil dig until he finds the foundation of fact for his statements. It makes Httle difference whether he digs inductively or deductively so long as he works in- telHgently. The essential points are that he shall (i) see clearly the question at issue, (2) get an abundance of information about it, (3) let his imagination picture freely the various ways that might be so, and (4) finally follow the facts into the one way that is so. Individual variations in thought power. — We must be prepared for all kinds and grades of thinking among our pupils. No single test is sufficient to determine whether 2l6 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS or not a child carries a good thinking machine in his head. There is a persistent but outworn behef that he who can think mathematics can think anything, and he who fails in mathematics can not think much of anything. But each has by birth a different brain set, an inborh tendency that turns him to one subject and averts him from others. Where we love, we think. But there are grades, degrees of thinking ability, too. Dr. Bonser, in testing 657 children in reasoning, found that 90 per cent of the pupils in the 6A grade were below the best pupils of the 4A, that 4 per cent of the 6A pupils were below the middle group of pupils in grade 4A, and that the score of the best of the 4A pupils was three times as high as that of the poorest pupils of 6A. The rate of progress varies just as much : some children can go several times as fast as others and at the same time do better work. And all this among children of the same class. In time, all schools, by their method of grading, will make allowance for these differences, and all teachers, in their methods of teaching, can do so immediately. CLASS EXPERIMENT Purpose. — To study induction and deduction. Materials. — A pack of ordinary playing cards. (Larger cards, suitably numbered or lettered, may be substituted if the playing cards are too small to be seen plainly.) Procedure. — The instructor may select the kings and queens and show them in pairs, as follows. (Let K equal kmg ; Q, queen ; E, hearts; £>, diamonds; C, clubs ; 5, spades; +, with.) KH+QH, KD+QD, KC+QC, KS+QS. KH+QD, KD+QH, KC+QS, KS+QC. A new order, or further complexity, may be introduced at pleasure. For example, there may be added to the above: THINKING 217 K H +QC, KC +Q H, KD +QS, KS +QD, etc. Or a simple problem may be solved first, a more complex one later. The students may be told, definitely, that their problem is to learn to predict the order m which the cards will be shown, or simply asked to observe what happens and report any notable discovery. Repeat the showing of the cards until the " law " of their appearance is dis- covered by one, many, or cdl, as desired. Deduction may be practiced by showing any pair of cards in the series and asking which pair wiU follow. "Are you sure?" "Why?" Now show, with QH,a. card not used before, as an ace or the joker. " What wlU follow? " " Are you as sure as before ? " "Why?" Introspection and discussion. What Ukeness and differences be- tween this situation and the working out of the key to nature's mys- teries ? FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. What is the difference between thinking and daydreaming? 2. Suppose you believe fiilly that fire wUl not burn you : will your belief make any difference? Suppose you believe fully that although you have heretofore been afraid of dogs, you are going to be so no longer : wiU your belief make any difference ? In what kind of affairs is faith most valuable ? 3. Give some celebrated examples of prediction or control due to thinking. What do you believe would have been the situation had the thinking not occurred ? 4. Write out in some detail a case of your own thinking. Out- line the successive steps, or stages. 5. State something that you " know," — something not too obvious. Introspect your feeling of certainty, and trace its source or sources. 6. A movement has been started to have inventors work in groups. Do you think they are more or less likely to produce great results than if each worked alone ? Why ? 7. Collect as many samples of nai've thought as you can, es- pecially " signs," old sayings, and beliefs. Do you find any that seem 2l8 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS to be based on critical thought? Can you find in your experience anything that helps to explain the origin of belief in signs ? 8. " I know it is bad for me and still I do it." What may be the trouble in a case like this ? 9. If one makes a statement with loud eloquence, with confident air, glowing eye, and emphatic gesture, and another quietly tells you the opposite, which are you more likely to believe? Why? Is his statement any more likely to be true? 10. One student, on receiving a thought problem, sets to work with his pencil at once to answer it ; a second sits with eyes fixed for a time and then writes deliberately. Other things being equal, which answer do you expect to be better? Why? 11. (A group may be assigned to work this out during a class period.) a. Observation: Toss a penny 100 times. How many heads ? Tails? b. Inference : Try to state the " law " of its falling. c. Inference tested by observation : Forecast the result from tossing it 100 times more. Try it. . d. Inference not followed by observation : If you could toss it a mUlion times, how many heads ? Tails ? 12. Tell the nature of each of the following statements (that is, whether it rests on observation only, or observation followed by in- ference, etc.), what degree of certainty attaches to each, and why: I. The moon sometimes shines at night. 2. The moon is much like the earth, but has practically no water, air, or life on it. 3. The almanac says the moon wiU rise at nine o'clock to-night ; we shall see. 4. The inside of the moon is solid and cold. 13. Give original examples of the four kinds of knowledge, viz. : a. Observation not followed by inference, b. Observation followed by inference, c. Inference followed by observation, d. Inference not followed by observation. 14. Illustrate induction : deduction. 15. There are three fundamental reasons for faulty thinking: (i) lack of images (and ideas), failure to get the facts, ignorance, (2) lack of freedom in combining images so as to try out all probable THINKING 219 hypotheses, and (3) failure to detect and accept the true hypothesis. Which of these do you think is responsible for most errors ? 16. One who has known a few frivolous girls and a few brave men, states that " Most girls are frivolous " and " All men are brave." How does he violate his rights as a thinker ? 17. Can you remember the future ? the present? Can you imagine or think about things past ? things present ? things to come ? 18. Write on the topic, " How I can teach my pupils to be critical (and not mere naive) thinkers." 19. Run through the various branches of study and discuss the amount and kind of thinking required by each. For example, what value has spelling as a thought study ? 20. " Where we love, we think." Do you believe pupils do more thinking out of school or in? Along what lines ? Why? REFERENCES Dewey, John, How we Think. Galton, Francis, Inquiries into Human Faculty. Article on " Ante- chamber of Consciousness." La Rue, Daniel Wolford, The Science and the Art of Teaching. Pillsbury, W. B., The Psychology of Reasoning. Schaeffer, Nathan C, Thinking and Learning to Think. CHAPTER XIII AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE: "tHE FEELINGS" Exercise. — Look at the picture below. How does it make you feel? Report what comes into your mind as you gaze on it. We have finished our study of that kind of experience which is gathered from the outside world, and which, in the Fig. 31. — What feeling does it give you? form of memories, imaginings, and thoughts, helps us to deal with the environment, and to control or predict its operations. We turn now to that kind of experience which is not gathered from without — at least, not so directly. One person likes a picture which his neighbor dislikes: now, the two perceptions of the picture must be quite similar. AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE : " THE FEELINGS " 221 but the two feelings that follow are opposite. We must look into this mystery of affective experience, the likes and the dislikes, joy and sorrow, grouchiness and amia- bility, attachment and aversion. The popular term is " feeling," or " the feelings." In place of these expressions, the psychologist prefers " af- fective experience," or the " affective complexes." We can use the popular terms if we keep clear on the fact that a feeling, properly so called, is only one, a special kind, of " the feelings." Has affective experience much importance ? — Yes : so much, in fact, that it fixes the value, for us, of everything else. Salt, flour, silver, gold, and all other " goods," have value because somebody finds them good, likes them, wants them, will give time and effort to get them. What nobody wants has no value. Take all feeling out of life and hfe itself would be worthless. As we should expect, then, affective experience is the great motivater, the great mover of man and beast. Jacob works seven years plus seven more for Rachel. See any creature persistently active and you may know that it persistently wants something. If nature would preserve her creatures, she must see to it that certain momentous ideas such as those of food-taking, love-making, and saving one's self when in danger, are carried into action. Accord- ingly, she electrifies these ideas with a glow of feeling. Our feelings, then, stand between our sensations and our acts, determining which perception or idea shall be followed. Given a purely intellectual idea, pale and perfect, opposed by one that is uncouth but full of the red blood of emotion, and we can usually foretell which will get control of the 222 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS sinews of action. Even the intellect, the thinking process, is but the servant of the " soul," that is, the feelings. Review of sensation and affection. — As a means of understanding the affective complexes, let us review ele- ments. We have found (Chapter VI) that mind is com- posed of but two kinds of element, sensation and affection. Affection i& the simplest bit of like or dislike, of agreeable- ness or disagreeableness, such as the like or dislike that accompanies a sensation, say that of a color, a tone, a taste. We may summarize our contrast of sensation and affec- tion as follows : Sensation Affection 1. Referred to a particular i. More of a general thrill, bodily organ, as color to the eye. 2. Definite and clear under 2. Less clear, introspection. 3. Follows its stimulus, pre- 3. Is aroused by sensation, cedes affection. and follows it. 4. Stands for something not it- 4. No direct objective refer- self, usually something objective, ence. As we should expect, the affective complexes, that is, those mental states in which affection is most prominent, are more vague and fluid than sense complexes, such as perceptions and ideas. It is difficult to predict or control the feelings. We can often tell what thought a thinker will think next ; but it is hard to say what feeling a feeler will feel next. Organic sensations and sense-feelings. — Here are further confusing currents to puzzle our analysis. In all our more stirring affective experience, such as strong fear AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE: THE FEELINGS" 223 or anger, there usually appear massive sensations, indefi- nitely localized, from the maintenance systems : the heart throbs, the breath catches, the whole inner body may beat and flutter and heave. Affections, uniting with organic and kinaesthetic sensa- tions, form sense-feelings, as Titchener well calls them, which seem to be a kind of intermediate, half-breed class between sense complexes and affective complexes. It is his view that every stimulus, such as a tone, even, starts a considerable organic disturbance, and organic sensations, plus those of a kinaesthetic kind, make up the body of a sense-feeling. He distinguishes six classes of sense-feelings, the agreeable and the disagreeable, the exciting and the subduing {calming), and the straining and the relaxing. The paired terms are opposites. Some of Titchener's classified examples of sense-feelings are as follows : Tastes and smells are very agreeable or disagreeable ; deep tones are solemn, serious, and subduing, whereas high ones are cheerful, playful, and exciting; " warm" colors, such as red and yellow, are exciting; " cold " blues, subduing. " If you follow the strokes of a slow- beating metronome you get an alternation of straining and relaxing." ^ Since it is in the affective complexes that both affections and sense-feelings appear in their, greatest range of intensity and most tangled webs of combination, the feelings are the most complex of all human experience. Let us try to simplify them by stating their law : The law of the agreeable and the disagreeable. — We can not separate the objects and events of our environment 1 Edward Bradford Titchener, A Beginner's Psychology, p. 81. ■ 224 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS into the always-agreeable and the always-disagreeable. Probably nothing we can mention could be placed in either class. Darwin, recounting a South American trip, says: " We saw also a spectacle, which my guides viewed with high satisfaction; it was the skeleton of an Indian with the dried skin hanging on the bones, suspended to the branch of a tree." Such a sight would seem to be always disagreeable if anything can be; but the Indian guides recognized the body as that of an enemy. Confluence of mental {and perhaps neural) currents is agreeable; diffluence, disagreeable. — That which appears to fulfill a person's purpose, to get him what he wants, is pleasing ; the opposite, displeasing. Observe at length what a man sincerely applauds, what he laughs at, what puts the glow of exultation in his eye, and you know your man, for you have learned the trend of his naind. " Re- prove not a scorner, lest he hate thee : rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee." Grandparents abhor a racket, while grandchildren approve it. Their mental currents are flowing in opposite directions. As in the case of attention (see Ch. V), we must consider the force, as well as the direction, of consciousness. When mental energy runs high, aU opposition may be swept away easily. When the dancing dervishes are roused to frenzy, pain only brings signs of elation. If the mental tide is at low ebb, as in extreme fatigue or old age, even " the grass- hopper shall be a burden," and no keen affective experience is possible. Peary states that, on reaching the north pole, the object of long years of desire, he experienced no tri- umphal emotion, but wanted chiefly to get home. In making clear the course of one's mental currents, and AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE: "THE FEELINGS" 225 hence what will please or displease him, our five familiar laws will help. But we can do httle more at this point than to mention them. Brain set. — Most important here are instinct and temperament. As stated before, nature has cast a halo of feeUng about certain types of behavior which are (or were) necessary to competitive survival and successful adaptation to environment. Examples are the tendency to find food, to fight, to ramble, to go in groups. Such types of behavior, with their accompanying consciousness, are called instincts. Now, instincts have inherited nerve ^aths, usually strongly marked. And although an in- stinct is commonly thought of as a racial trait, each of us is likely to have some instincts strong and others weak. If we know which instincts are strongest in any individual, whether he is first of all an eater, a fighter, a rambler, a lover, a property-getter, or what not, we know a great deal as to what his dominant feelings must be. Temperament also means much, and it, too, is a matter of hereditary brain set. Some are by birth morose and irascible, others cheerful and affable.^ When Sarah Pierr- pont was thirteen years old, Jonathan Edwards, whom she afterward married, wrote of her : " She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place singing sweetly ; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure ; and no one knows for what." Mental set. — Health is of high importance here. Whether we are sweet and smiling or sour and snarUng 1 Instinct is further discussed in Chapter XIV, Temperament in Chap- ter XV. 226 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS at any hour depends greatly on whether we Jiave been eating, sleeping, breathing, exercising, working, and playing properly. The hver is well named ; for it determines, in many cases, how we are living, so far as our feelings are concerned. The more purely mental side of " mental set " is found in present purpose. Such purpose determines very largely what we can brook and what we can not abide. Lovers, desirous of being alone, find the conversation of the group stale and unprofitable, perhaps even unbearable. He whose sincere purpose is to find the truth is unruffled when his argument fails, for he is attached, not to any particular argument, nor to victory in debate, but to what actually is so. Says Thomas Browne, in the Religio Medici, " I cannot fall out or contemn a man for an error, or conceive why a difference in Opinion should divide an affection [friendship] ; for Controversies, Disputes, and Argumenta- tions, ... if they meet with discreet and peaceable na- tures, do not infringe the Laws of Charity. In all disputes, so much as there is of passion, so much there is of nothing to the purpose ; for then Reason, like a bad Hound, spends upon a false Scent, and forsakes the question first started." Here is the test between the partisan and the truthseeker. In games, also, we can usually distinguish, by the feeling shown, between the true sport and the mere game-winner who feels that he must get the game by any means. Intensity. — The more intense the sensations, the more intense the affections that follow them. For this reason, a perception usually arouses more feeling than an idea. The object lesson strikes home. A shivering kitten on your door- step may affect you more than a hundred deaths in China. AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE: THE FEELINGS 227 Frequency. — Other things being equal, any stimulus arouses the feeling most frequently felt in connection with it. Consider your attitude toward the church, toward your family, friends, and foreign nations. Study your most repulsive branch when you are happiest and freshest, and you may grow to like it. Recency. — The recently experienced feeling is readily repeated. The mourning band reminds us that we must not speak of death, although when we are all some time removed from it, we joke about it freely. " I know how to sympathize with you," we say to one found in the evil phght which we have just passed through. The channels are open for the former feeling, so that some measure of it, sufi&cient for sympathy, is quickly reinstated. Influence of affective experience on the body. — We have noted above the general effect of bodily conditions on the feelings. Now, what influence has feeling on the body? 1. Feeling sets the body to seek or shun. This may not always mean agitated action. The dog dozing off in the sunshine, the lady who, though in her parlor, is not " at home " to callers, the listener lost in the opera, all are seeking or shunning. The organism is bent on getting more of a given kind of experience or getting less of it. (i) Sensations, that is, perception or idea, (2) feeling, (3) behavior ; (10) more perceptions or ideas resulting, (2 a) more feehngs, (3 a) more behavior : this is the un- ending spiral, enlarging as experience increases. 2. Mild, agreeable feelings generally lead to the building up of the body. " Mild " means calming and relaxing. (Re- call the sense-feelings listed above.) We are compelled 228 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS to say " generally," for what with nature's rough method of inducing her animals to seek or shun, and what with pathological human feelings, there may be many excep- tions. But it is true that mild and agreeable feehngs tend to keep the body on a " peace footing " (see below), in a prosperous and constructive condition. Thus the wel- come sight, or even thought, of food, may start the saliva and the gastric juice and keep them flowing for twenty minutes. 3. All intense and all disagreeable feelings consume energy and set the body for action. In the great struggle for exist- ence, nature has used the more intense feelings, such as fear and rage, to set off the most violent seeking or shunning, as in the attack to kill or the flight for safety. All the constructive processes are at once inhibited or turned in the direction of immediate action. Digestion is stopped both as to secretion and movement of organs. The sugar stored in the liver is poured into the blood, the heart speeds up and strengthens its beat, the lungs quicken their action, the muscles respond more readily to stimuli, blood surges to the brain. The body is on a war basis, spending its stored energy. Professor Cannon likens the body, in peace and in stress, to a nation in peace and in war. In time of peace, both the body and the nation are built up and reserve forces accumulated ; but in time of stress or war, all constructive activity must cease and all available energy must be poured out lavishly, perhaps even wastefully. " One who permits fears, worries, and anxieties to disturb the digestive pro- cesses when there is nothing to be done, is evidently allow- ing the body to go on to what we may regard as a ' war ArFECTivE experience: the feelings 229 footing ' when there is no ' war ' to be waged, no fighting or struggle to be engaged in." ^ The flutter and tremor that accompany all this, con- stitute a considerable part of the affective complex. General course of affective experience. — As we dis- covered (in the last chapter) how thought goes on, by- analyzing a simple case of it, so let us try to learn the general course of affective experience by studying a naive sample. A baby sees a cat. Being naturally curious about living, moving creatures, he finds the sight agreeable. There is aroused in him a tendency to seek for more of this cat- experience. He creeps up and seizes the animal by the tail. The cat, finding it avails nothing to cling to the rug and pull, turns and scratches. Hereupon the baby cries and relaxes his grip on the tail. Pussy escapes. Next day, the child, having a cup of milk, hears the cat mew at the door, has an idea of the animal coming, sets down the cup and makes away. The cat eats the milk. In both cases, whether we look from the standpoint of the cat or of the child, three features stand out : 1. An inciting perception or idea, agreeable or disa- greeable. 2. A tendency to seek or shun. 3. Success or failure in seeking or shunning. Romance and reflection. — This Httle story is really a romance, for the essence of romance lies in following feeling blindly, be the outcome what it will. The end is quite usually tragedy — or comedy. If there is luck it is " dumb luck." All babies and many grown people are romantic. ' Walter B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage, p. 269. 230 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS There is much the same difference between a naive and a reflective feeler as there is between a naive and a re- flective thinker. Here, again, the large steps in the process are the same, but the more stable and well-ordered mind takes each step less precipitately, with more circumspection. In the first place, the earnest soul does not go gawking and meandering through the world, waiting for inciting perceptions and ideas, but is seeking something, pursuing a purpose. Secondly, the tendency to seek or shun is held in leash until associated ideas are aroused, pro and con, and the probable outcome pictured. And thirdly, while the short-span mind may seem to succeed better in a short run, the long-span mind seeks and shuns more suc- cessfully in the long run. All feeling has to do with seeking or shunning. — Man is a born striver. When he no longer wants anything, it is time for him to die. In fact, he shuns death and other disagreeables for the very purpose of winning what he wants. AH our music, painting, sculpture, architecture, litera- ture, pleases and inspires us by its presentation, or sug- gestion, of successful seeking or shunning. We hang pictures of good cheer on the walls of the dining room, where the tendency to eat is gratified. No one would hang in such a place the picture of a man perishing by drown- ing. And if we do sometimes contemplate the tragedy of the unsuccessful, as in the Laocoon group or the death of a hero, it is either because the characters are so far re- moved from us that we cease to sympathize and struggle with them, and so come to enjoy them somewhat as we enjoy eating an oyster; or because the picture of the AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE: "XHE FEELINGS" 23 1 present partial defeat suggests a larger and more lasting victory. Kinds of affective complex. — Four kinds of affective complex are quite commonly distinguished, feeling, emotion, mood, and sentiment. A feeling is a like or dislike of moderate strength and complexity. A perception or an idea may start so much affection and sense-feeling as to be overflowed by it. Your pupils are studying a flag, either in its presence or from memory (that is, as perception or as idea), the number and arrangement of the stars and the stripes, the colors, and so on. Here is a sense complex. But now all repeat : " When freedom, from her mountain height, Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there." The arithmetic and geometry of the flag are forgotten. The perception or the idea has started a flow of affection. A feeling has come. Feeling and emotion are alike, and we cannot say just where one passes into the other. As a mountain is a great hill, so an emotion is a strong and complex feeling. Further, the emotion arouses a much stronger tendency to seek or avoid. Complete the recital of the poem, follow it with a patriotic speech and a flag raising, and all may be " Ready to fight, ready to die, For Fatherland." Mood is affective mental set ; that is, mental set con- sidered with regard to affection rather than sensation. It may come as the after-effect of an emotion, as when one 232 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS who had' been angry feels like " slamming " something for a time ; or may result from the summation of sundry agreeable or disagreeable little stimuli, as when a few compliments, coming in succession, charm one into his best mood for a whole day. Sentiment is a kind of feeling based on affective brain set. It is the most lasting of the affective complexes^, be- ing, like moods, long-lived as compared with feehngs and emotions, which are usually of shorter duration. If emo- tions are the high and foaming waves on the mental sea, sentiments are its slower-moving but powerful tides. Usually a sentiment results from long experience with the object of it. From long experience with the home and the saloon, we may form an attachment for one and an aversion toward the other. A sentiment is not so much a continu- ous thrill of feeling as a constant possibiUty of feehng. You love your home, but you never feel this love continu- ously throughout every hour of the day. Since these long-lived attachments and aversions have so much to do with shaping our fate, it is worth while to note that they are of two kinds, naive"a,nd reflective. The naive sentiment grows from long associations, but with- out serious reflection. An example is the patriotism of the peasant who loves his country simply because he happened to be born and brought up in it, or a swain's love for his neighbor's daughter because of propinquity merely. The reflective sentiment is thoughtful, exemplified in rational attachment to country, and the satisfaction of head as well as heart in choosing a mate. Control of feeling. — To control feeling, we must con- trol the amount and the direction of consciousness. Much AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE: "tHE FEELINGS " 233 can be accomplished by securing favorable bodily con- ditions. Those who are given to passion can sometimes avoid it by working off excess energy in exercise. From our findings, there appear to be three points whereat we can apply control-power more directly : (i) the inciting sensations, (2) the tendency to seek or shun, and (3) the success or failure of the seeking or shunning. (i) In the case of children and weak adults, those in- citements to which we do not wish them to respond, as candy, alcohol, or lewd pictures, must not be perceived. And if we can keep the mind fully occupied with good, even ideas of an objectionable kind can not enter. (2) As one develops, he is no longer subject to whatever happens to appear in the environment. Power of control, and so the kingdom of happiness, lies within : by encourag- ing or suppressing the tendency to seek or to avoid, the feeling can be strangled at birth or fostered into maturity. (3) All our rewards and punishments are designed to make one line of conduct successful and another unsuc- cessful, and so to render the idea of such conduct disagree- able in the future, to make it arouse a tendency to avoid. A school in which a pupil can break rules continuously and successfully, should give a diploma for immoraUty. What would perfect feeling require ? — We wish to suc- ceed in our surroundings. Success depends on how we act. And how we act depends on how we feel toward the persons, objects, and events in our environment. What each of us should try to do, then, is to make clear his highest purpose in Hfe, determine what things are necessary to its achievement, and cultivate attachments for these things. But perhaps there is an even larger view. In the last 234 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS chapter, it was stated that the perfect thinker would have an image for everything in the universe and would set his mind on the whole of things. Now, the noblest souls among us seem to set their hearts on the whole of things, their supreme seeking includes the race, humanity, the world, what one may call the will of the universe. The great trouble with our feelings is their pettiness. We must stop worrying over the weeds in our garden and look away to the eternal hills, contemplate the good, the beautiful, the true. SUGGESTED CLASS EXERCISES 1. Each member of the class may attend a moving-picture show and note especially (a) what in the picture aroused his feelings most, (6) how these feelings tended to express themselves, (c) expressions of feeling observed in the audience, {d) means used by the actors to suggest or express feeling, and (e) the successful or unsuccessful seek- ing or avoiding foxmd in the plot. Report and discussion. 2. The instructor may read passages from emotional literature of various kinds, the pathetic, funny, joyous, etc. Introspection and discussion. 3. A skillful actor (perhaps a member of the class) may express various emotions by attitude and gesture, with or without words. Observation, introspection, and discussion. 4. Pictures large enough to be seen well from any point in the classroom may be compared in pairs as the colors were in the class experiment at the close of Chapter VI. The subjects may include landscapes, live animals, human faces and figures, and various scenes from human life. (Large copies of celebrated pictures may be ob- tained cheaply from the Perry Pictures Company, Maiden, Mass.) Pictures may be judged on the strength of their appeal to the feel- ings. Try to generalize with regard to the most popular and the least popular pictures. AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE: "tHE FEELINGS' 235 FOR FURTHER STUDY I. Study the picture in Fig. 32 as you did that at the opening of this chapter. Is there any difference in the effect on you? If so, what causes it ? «r'Sw/