LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. %tp-YL._ iojnjrig^i !$a— ... ... Shelf jSk UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. / Gbe IReaoino Circle %ibran>. "MO. 6. Talks on Psychology APPLIED TO TEACHING. FOR TEACHERS AND NORMAL INSTITUTES. By A: ST WELCH, LL.D., CYPRES. IOWA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, AMES, IOWA. u- U New York and Chicago: E. L KELLOGG & CO. Copyright, 1888, E. L. KELLOGG & CO., New York. LC Control Number tmp96 025776 PREFACE. This little book on the elements of applied Psychol- ogy has been written for the sole purpose of helpiDg the teacher in preparing for more effective work in the school-room. Many instructors in our common and graded schools are familiar with the branches they teach, but deficient in knowledge of the mental powers whose development they seek to promote. But no pro- ficiency in science or art that does not include the study of mind, can ever qualify the student for the work of the teacher. He must comprehend fully not only the objects studied by the learner, but the efforts put forth in studying them, the effect of these efforts on the faculty exerted, and their results in the form of accurate knowledge. How can the teacher deal successfully with these fundamental facts of Psychology, without having first mastered them himself? Indeed, it is urged by eminent educators everywhere that a knowledge of the branches to be taught, and a knowledge of the mind to be trained thereby, are equally essential to successful teaching. Permit me to add a few suggestions as to the method you pursue in studying the subjects presented in this small volume. From the beginning to the end, master PREFACE. completely every topic before you proceed to the next one. Strive earnestly to realize, again and again, in your own thought, every mental operation described. Ponder, long and frequently at first, upon every process by which the juvenile intellect is incited to the strenuous action that results in discipline ; and believe me, if you follow these few directions minutely, it will not be long before what is begun perhaps as an irksome task will become the most fascinating study you have ever pur- sued. A larger and more complete work on Psychology for the teacher, is ready for the press and will soon follow this volume. A. S. Welch. Ames, Iowa. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. MIND- GROWTH AND ITS HELPS. PAGE Introduction 13 Two Kinds of Knowledge 13 Faculty Denned and Illustrated 13 Knowledge of the Faculties : How Gained 15 Synopsis 15 The Human Intellect 15 Thinking 16 CHAPTER II. THE FEELINGS. Pleasure and Pain 17 Feeling Defined 18 Classes of Feelings 18 The Sensibility 19 The Sensations : How Produced 19 Perception Follows Sensation 19 Other Feelings Follow Knowledge 19 Desire : What is ? \ 20 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THE WILL AND THE SPONTANEITIES. PAGE Will, the Power of Choice 21 The Will, the Mind's Propelling Power 22 The Spontaneities. 22 Spontaneity in Education ... 23 Feelings Spontaneous Throughout 24 The Will has Indirect Control of Feeling 24 CHAPTER IV. SENSATION. Sensation Precedes Perception 25 Sensation of Smell 25 Sensation of Taste 25 The Sensation of Feeling or Touch 26 The Sensation of Sight 27 Sensation of Hearing 28 Summary of the Facts Gathered respecting Sensations 29 Sensations of Seeing and Hearing Slight 29 CHAPTER V. SENSE PERCEPTION. GATHERING CONCEPTS. The Animal Senses do not Gather Ideas 31 Perception through Touch as Affecting the Nerves of Motion Perception of Shape, etc 32 Size and Weight 32 Touch, a Double Sense 33 Perceptive Touch, an Instrument of Expression 34 Manual Training 34 Perception through the Sense of Sight 35 Sight : How Trained 36 CONTENTS. PAGE What is it We See? 36 How do We see Solids? 36 No Sight Perception of Colorless Objects 37 Effect of Long Experience 38 Rapidity and Range of the Sense of Sight 38 Value of Eye Training 39 Means of Training the Eye 39 Perception of Sound through the Sense of Hearing 40 Sense of Hearing . , 41 Triple Effect of a Significant Word 41 Hearing an Intellectual Sense 41 The Ear : How Trained 42 The Percept 42 CHAPTER VI. MEMORY AND CONCEPTION. Memory — Acquiring the Concept 46 The Three Acts of Memory Spontaneous and Unconscious. . 47 Concept Retained by Association 47 Sign and Thing Signified 48 Whole and Parts 48 Time and Place 49 Resemblance 49 Other Associations 49 Principles in the Science of Education 50 Conception 51 All Acts begin as Spontaneities. 51 Attention the Application of Will Force 52 Ratio of Will Force to Spontaneity 52 Conception : What is It ? 53 Interest and Reiteration Produce Distinct Concepts 53 Memory and Conception Depend on Sense Perception 54 Synopsis 54 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. ANALYSIS AND ABSTRACTION. PAGE The Concrete Concept. Its Origin Reviewed 56 The Concept Duplicates the Percept 56 Analysis of the Concrete Concept 57 Analysis either Spontaneous or Strenuous 57 Analysis of the Concept a Repetition 58 The Object Lesson Preparatory 58 Analysis: How Trained as a Faculty 58 Value of the Power ._ JL . . 59 Abstraction 59 The Objects of Abstraction 60 Notions of Roundness : How Gained . . 60 Adjectives and Abstract Nouns . 60 Number and Form 61 Concrete Arithmetic 61 The Concrete before the Abstract 62 Synopsis 62 CHAPTER VIII. IMAGINATION AND CLASSIFICATION. Faculties that proceed by Synthesis ; the One to build up new Concepts; the Other to arrange Concepts in Classes. Imagin- ation the Concept-builder. The Faculty that Constructs 64 Its Materials 64 Constituents of the Image-Concepts 65 Example of the Process in Child Mind 65 Image-Concepts of the Child and the Man Contrasted. ...... 66 The Concept of the Image-Concept Inspected 66 Image-Concepts : How Expressed 67 Imagination : its Culture. 68 CONTENTS. PAGE Classification : the Faculty that arranges Concrete Con- cepts into Classes 69 The Preceding Series yields Single Concepts only 69 Class-Concepts : How Formed 70 Characteristics 70 The Materials for Classifying 71 Actual Classification contains Groups within Groups 71 Definition : What is it ? 73 Proper and Common Nouns: Adjectives aDd Abstract Nouns 74 Early Classification turns Proper Names into Class Names. . 74 Classifying Faculty ; How Educated 75 Sciences that Supply Objects for Classification 76 CHAPTER IX. JUDGMENT AND KEASONING : THE THINKING FACULTIES. TJie First connecting two Class- Concepts together ; the Second comparing them with each other in Triplets. What is Judgment ? 78 We think in Judgments 80 The Proposition 81 The Power to Think : How Disciplined 82 Deductive Reasoning. Deducing Concepts 82 Materials for the Reasoning Process 82 The Reasoning Process 83 The Syllogism 84 Imperfect Induction 86 Culture of the Reasoning Faculty 86 Principles in the Science of Education Derived from the In- variable Order in Mind-growth 86 Tabular View of the Succession of Powers, Objects, Acts, and Products in Mind-growth 87 IO CONTENTS. PART II. HELPS FOB MIND- GROWTH. CHAPTER L EDUCATION AND THE MEANS OP ATTAINING IT. PAGE Education : What is it? 91 Physical Education 92 Mental Education tt. . . 92 Intellectual Education , 92 Moral Education 93 Order of the Processes of Education 94 Contrast of an Ignorant and an Educated Person 94 The Means of Education 96 The Environment 96 Stimulation 97 Selection and Arrangement of Objects the Teacher's Pro- vince 97 Reiteration of Efforts Essential to Education 97 Two Conditions in Reiteration 98 Imitation v 99 CHAPTER II. TRAINING OF THE SENSES. General Principles 100 The Animal Senses 1 00 Perceptive Touch : Trained by what Means ? 101 The Primary School Period — The Formal Training of Sight and Touch in Concert 104 Identical Exercises for Manual and Visual Training 105 Primary Drawing 105 CONTENTS. 1 1 PAGE Arrangement of Progressive Lessons 106 Drawing the Alphabet 107 The Ear : Its Primary Training 108 Child Singing 108 Phonic Drill as a Correction of Actual Defects in Vocal Utterance 109 Phonic Drill for Primary Classes 110 Primary Counting Ill The Faculties exercised in Concrete Reckoning 112 CHAPTER HI. HEADING, WRITING, SPELLING. The Eye, Ear, Tongue, and Hand trained in Primary Read- ing 114 Nature's Method applied in Learning to Read 115 Reading with the Objects Present 115 First Reading and Writing Combined 116 First Reading of the Sentence 117 Formal Practice in Writing 118 Spelling Learned by Writing. 118 Spelling Follows the same Series as Reading 119 What Faculties are Effectively Trained by the Natural Methods of Learning to Read, to Write, and to Spell. . . 120 Early Exercise in Writing 121 Disciplinary Effect of Primary Spelling 122 CHAPTER IV. COMPOSITION, ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR, ABSTRACT ARITHMETIC. What Faculties do they Stimulate and Train ? 124 The Place of Early Composition in the Series 124 Exercises in Composition : How Arranged 125 12 CONTENTS. PAGE Compositions that Train the Memory 127 Observation and Memory 127 Narrative 128 Style , 128 Home Topics 129 Rudimentary Invention 129 The Faculties Trained by Composition Writing 130 Abstract Arithmetic 131 Arithmetic as a Study: What Faculties does it Exercise?. . . 132 Abstraction 132 Classification Incited by Pure Numbers , 132 Arithmetic Disciplines chiefly the Reasoning Faculty. .77. . . 133 English Grammar : Its Nature 133 The Preparation Required 134 Grammar as a Gymnastic Exercise 136 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. Chapter JL INTRODUCTION. Two Kinds of Knowledge. — Two kinds of knowledge are indispensable to the teacher for the successful prose- cution of his work. The first is a knowledge, clear and complete, of the branches taught. The second is a knowledge, equally exhaustive, of the faculties of the child, which the act of teaching it calls into exercise. A knowledge of the intellectual faculties includes a clear insight into the nature and purpose of each faculty, its mode of action, the objects on which it acts, and the place it holds in the order of growth during infancy, childhood, and youth. Faculty Defined and Illustrated. — A faculty may be defined as the power the mind has of attending ex- clusively to a specific class of objects; and the purpose of such faculty is to gain for the mind a knowledge of the objects to which it attends. For example, in exer- cising the faculty of hearing, the mind attends to one or more sounds within its range, for the purpose of gaining a knowledge of their nature. The faculty of gaining 14 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. knowledge through the ear is called the Sense of Hearing. Its action, which we term listening, is in- cited by the presence of its objects, which are indeed the entire catalogue of audible sounds. This faculty of mind, I repeat, is the sense of hearing ; its organ is the ear, its action is listening, its objects are the audible sounds, and its purpose is to gain knowledge of these sounds. In like manner we may cite, as another example, the faculty by which the mind perceives external visible ob- jects. This faculty is called the Sense of Sight. Its action is termed seeing, its objects are outside things which have form and color, and its purpose is to store the mind with ideas of the visible world around us. A still further example to be noted is the power by which the mind attains knowledge of things that pre- sent resisting surfaces; namely, the faculty of touch. It is through the faculty of touch that we obtain knowl- edge of those outside objects whose surfaces obstruct the free motion of the hand. Now the faculty of mind, which enables it to perceive external resisting objects, is named the Sense of Touch, while the action or opera- tion of this sense is expressed by the participle touching or feeling, and the objects perceived thereby are the things within reach whose solidity and hardness resist pressure. We need not add that the purpose of the faculty or sense of touch is to furnish the mind with ideas of the innumerable solids which its organ, the hand, is able to grasp. Thus we see from the above examples that an intel- lectual faculty is a power which the mind possesses, of IN TROD UCTION. I 5 acting in a specific direction on a single class of objects, in order to understand their nature. Knowledge of the Faculties : How Gained — It is mani- fest, moreover, that a competent knowledge of the in- tellectual faculties can be acquired only by studying (1) the nature of each faculty, (2) its methods and con- ditions of acting, (3) the exclusive objects on which it acts, and (4) the peculiar character of the ideas gained thereby. For let us keep in mind, respecting this last item, that the main purpose of a faculty is to acquire new ideas by scrutinizing its legitimate objects. These ideas may, moreover, be called the products of the faculty from whoso action upon its objects they are the result. Synopsis. — Let us gather, finally, into a synopsis for convenient memorizing, the subjects for study which the faculties cited above present in consecutive order. SYNOPSIS. Faculty. Object. Action. Product. Sense of Touch. Tangible Things. Touching or Feel- Ideas of Tan- ing. gible Things. Sense of Sight. Visible Things. Seeing. Ideas of Vis- ible Things. Sense of Hearing. Sounds. Hearing, Listen- Ideas of ing. Sounds. The Human Intellect. — We will close this division of our subject by saying that the faculties or powers by whose action the mind gains ideas or knowledge of things around and within us, constitute together the Human Intellect. In other words, the intellect is the mental force, which, when exerted through any of its specific faculties, gains knowledge of the objects to which the mind directs its attention. 1 6 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. Thinking. — Now the common process or mode of ac- tion by which the intellect acquires, through any of its faculties, a knowledge of its objects, is called thinking. Thinking is the uniform method of procedure by which the mind, in the exercise of any intellectual faculty, attains or modifies a knowledge of the object on which it acts. We shall attend minutely and carefully to the operation of thinking, in its proper place. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER I. What are the two kinds of knowledge necessary to the teacher? Define a faculty. Give the name of the organ, action, objects, and purpose of the sense of hearing. Give the words designating the same elements in the sense of sight: also in the sense of touch. What four things must we study in order to gain a knowledge of any faculty ? Write from memory the synopsis showing the order of faculty, object, action, and product in touch, sight, and hearing. What is the human intellect ? What is thinking ? THE FEELINGS, *7 <&l)apttt M. THE FEELINGS. The Mind, a Unit. — Let us clearly comprehend the fact that an individual mind is an indivisible unit, that it cannot be separated into parts, and that the faculties of the intellect are simply its different modes of acting upon their objects for the attainment of knowledge. These faculties are only the manifestations of intellect- ual power. Pleasure and Pain. — But the indivisible mind has other manifestations than those of intellect. It has the capacity to feel as well as to think. Touch a hot stove, for example, and there follows instantly a feeling of pain, which the mind refers to the fingers brought into contact with the heated surface. But spread the hands, when benumbed with cold, before a fire, and you have a feeling of pleasure. Place a morsel of capsicum on the tongue, and a feeling results that is painful. A bit of wholesome food, instead, would have produced a feel- ing of pleasure. But the mind is susceptible of many other feelings than those that spring from bodily contact. Threaten- ing danger begets a feeling of fear ; personal outrage, a feeling of anger. In like manner, an object of suffer- ing begets pity. Beauty excites admiration ; deformity, 1 8 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. aversion. These and many other feelings are awakened in the mind, each by its peculiar cause. All feelings are either pleasant or painful. Feeling Defined. — A feeling, then, is a state of mind, pleasant or painful, which is produced by the presence of its appropriate cause. It is evident that while the faculties of mind are active, the feelings are passive ; and it will be seen hereafter that, while the faculties are directed by the will, the feelings are not under its immediate control. Classes of Feelings.— Finally, the feelings are ctivided into several classes according to the sources from which they spring. 1. The feelings that arise from bodily contact, are called Sensations; such are the sensations of smell, taste, and touch. 2. Feelings that are identical with our bodily desires are called Appetites ; such are the appetites of hunger, thirst, etc. 3. The more violent feelings to which we are liable, in common with the lower animals, are termed the Pas- sions ; such are anger, fear, etc. 4. The sentiments of sympathy and love for others are the Affections. 5. The feelings that are produced by objects of a more elevated character, are named the Emotions ; such are the emotions of beauty, grandeur, duty, right, devo- tion, etc. 6. The longings for gratification which frequently at- tend the feelings of whatever class are termed, in gen- eral, the Desires. THE FEELINGS. 1 9 The Sensibility. — Just as the various faculties by whose exercise the mind gains knowledge, constitute the intellect, so the sum total of the feelings of which the mind is capable, constitute the sensibility. The Sensations: How Produced, — The sensations are produced by contact of the bodily organs with their ap- propriate external media. Thus, the first effect of light on the eye, is a sensation. A sound that reaches the ear causes a slight sensation. The hand brought into contact with snow feels a sensation of cold. A bit of food on the tongue begets the sensation of taste. An odor that affects the olfactory nerves induces a sensa- tion of smell. Perception Follows Sensation. — ISTow a sensation is al- ways followed by an effort of the intellect to perceive its cause. Place, for instance, your hand, in the dark, on a fragment of rock and you experience first a sensa- tion of roughness. Then you perceive through its re- sistance that the object causing this sensation is a rock having shape, size, etc. Next follows the idea of this particular piece of rock, which may be stored in the memory. Sensation, perception, ideas ; this, though it all takes place in an instant, is the invariable order of out mental experiences. The appetites arising from the conditions and wants of the body have no fixed relation, in the order of time, to intellectual action. Other Feelings Follow Knowledge. — The passions, af- fections, and higher emotions, however, are always awakened by a previous knowledge of the things that cause them. Thus, a strain of music strikes my ear and 20 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. excites a simple sensation of sound. At once I perceive and gain a notion of its melody, and an emotion of beauty instantly follows. Here, as in all such cases, the mental succession is (1) sensation, (2) perception, (3) idea or knowledge, (4) emotion. In like manner, the passion of fear follows the perception and knowledge of danger. Desire: What is. — A desire is a feeling which follows a sensation, an appetite, an affection, a passion, or an emotion. In other words, our desires are produced by the feelings, of whatever class, that precede them.~Thus the roar of an approaching tornado causes first a sensa- tion ; next a perception of the coming whirlwind ; then a fear of bodily harm ; and finally, a desire to avoid it. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER II. Is the mind a unit ? Give the two general characteristics of the feelings. Define a feeling. Give the different classes of feelings. Define the word " sensibility." How are the sensations produced ? Explain how perception follows sensation. Explain and illus- trate the order of sequence in knowledge and feelings. Define and illustrate desire. THE WILL AND THE SPONTANEITIES. 21 THE WILL AND THE SPONTANEITIES. Will Power, — Having considered the intellect and the sensibility, we now come to the third great manifestation of mind, namely, the will. Will, the Power of Choice. — The will is the free power which the mind has, of choosing from among its desires, the desire which it will strive to gratify. This desire is called its motive. Thus my appetite excites a desire to eat mince pie; but experience of its harmful effect on digestion, begets a desire to refrain from eating it. Considering the gratification of an appetite on the one hand, and the desire to preserve health on the other, the will decides that the latter shall be its motive for denying the former. In this way, the mind, in the exercise of will, is frequently engaged in deliberating which one of the desires it feels shall be the motive for its action. I wish, for instance, to visit a sick friend; to attend a social gathering; and to write urgent letters at home. I can do, let us say, but one of these; which shall it be? The first is a desire prompted by sympathy; the second is a desire for social enjoyment; the third a desire to fulfil a business obligation. I consider the claims which each of these lines of action has upon me, and by the free exercise of my will, determine which I 22 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. shall follow. I thus decide which of the three desires shall become the prevailing motive. The Will, the Mind's Propelling Power. — The will is, moreover, the mind's propelling power. Not only does the will decide upon the line of action which the mind shall pursue, bat it directs, controls, and impels to its allotted purpose, every faculty employed therein. The ball-player decides to engage in the game by an act of the will, and it is the will that directs and impels every motion of his hand and eye and muscle which the^game calls into exercise. In all the processes of earnest think- ing, the will tabes command of every intellectual faculty engaged therein, and directs it strenuously and per- sistently to its proper object. The words decision, en- deavor, exertion, effort, aresynonymes which express the impulses of the will. Education and culture are the final products of sustained and oft-repeated voluntary efforts. The Spontaneities. — Any mental movement or act which takes place without effort of the will, is called a spontaneity, or a spontaneous action ol any facult}\ The spontaneous action of any faculty is, in every case, occasioned by the presence of its object only. If, when my eyes are open, an object, say a flying bird, crosses the line of vision, I see it without an effort of the will. The act of vision which recognizes the bird is, for an instant, a spontaneity, but the will immediately inter- venes and impels the faculty of sight to further inspec- tion. Here we have, in regular succession, first, the presence of the object of vision; secondly, the spontaneous or involuntary act of vision; and, thirdly, the impulse of the will which changes the instantaneous, involuntary THE WILL AND THE SPONTANEITIES. 2$ act to a prolonged voluntary one. Both acts are expended on the same object. Again, if an audible sound, say the music of a flute, strikes the ear, the initial act of hearing it awakens, is spontaneous. The effort of listening which immediately follows this spontaneity, is an act of the will which holds the faculty of hearing strictly upon its object. In this instance we have: 1. The object presented to the ear. 2. The spontaneity awakened thereby. 3. The effort of will which transforms the spontaneity into an act of listening. Again, if any sapid substance, say the pulp of a lemon, is brought into contact with the tongue, the sensation that follows is spontaneous. The will may prompt the mind to scrutinize this sensation and its cause, but the taste we feel is, in itself, wholly involun- tary. The sensations of touch and smell are likewise in- voluntary. In fact, if we scrutinize the entire range of the mental activities of which the mind is capable, we shall find that the action of every faculty begins with a spontaneity, producing what is called an act of attention. Thus the object and the resulting spontaneity uniformly precede any effort of the will. Moreover, the more attractive the object presented, the more vigorous and complete is the spontaneity that follows, and the more earnest and continuous is the effort of the will that is incited thereby. Spontaneity in Education. — It thus becomes evident that, in juvenile education, the true method consists in presenting to the senses of the child, objects of such 24 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. natural interest as will call forth the absorbing spon- taneities that incite strong efforts of the will, and so finally result in the power of steady attention. Feelings Spontaneous Throughout. — We will add that while every intellectual act i: spontaneous in its com- mencement, the feelings are spontaneous throughout. The will has no immediate and direct control over any of the sensibilities. Anger, for example, is aroused and prolonged by an injury or an insult. The will has no power to excite or suppress anger, by any efforts expended directly on the feeling itself. Both the existence and duration of the feeling are caused wholly by the presence of its objects. The Will has Indirect Control of Feeling.— Thus, though I cannot expel anger from my mind by a direct voluntary effort, I can, at any rate, by an act of the will, turn bodily and mentally away from the exciting cause of it. I can give my attention to other objects that awaken feelings of an opposite character, and in this way produce the conditions of mind in which anger naturally subsides. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER III. Define will as the power of choice. How does a desire become a motive? Explain and illustrate the propelling power of the will. Give the synonymes that express the impulses of the will. What is a spontaneity, and how caused ? Explain and illustrate the relation of spontaneous action to will action. Give the order of spontaneous and voluntary action. What is the true method of inciting the spontaneities in early education ? Give the relation of will to the feelings. How does the will control the feelings indirectly. SENSATION. 25 <&l)apttv KIT. SENSATION. Sensation precedes Perception. — In the consecutive order of the operations of child-mind when acting on a concrete object, sensation precedes perception. Sensation of Smell. — I hold in my hand an orange. Let us make it an object of exclusive attention, and note, with the utmost care, the first effect it produces on the organs of sense. When held near the nose, it excites at once the olfactory nerves and begets a feeling called the sensation of smell. A sensation, you remember, is a feeling produced by the contact of a bodily organ with one of its own peculiar objects. The sensation under scrutiny is caused by contact of odorous particles from the orange with the nerves of smell. This sensation is located by the mind in the nose, and is moderately pleasant. It is moreover of short duration. Withdraw the orange, and the sensation disappears, and leaves only a dim notion of itself in the memory. Evidently, the true purpose of this sensation is to defend the body by distinguishing the healthful and harmful qualities in the food we eat and the air we breathe. It is also spon- taneous. Sensation of Taste. — Take now a portion of the pulp into the mouth, and the juice it contains, coming in 26 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. contact with the tongue and palate, produces at once another feeling called the sensation of taste. Note care- fully the peculiarities of this sensation, and we findthem as follows: like the sense of smell, it is due wholly to the presence of the object, namely, the liquid of the orange. Not being the product of the will, it is spontaneous. Caused by a substance that is wholesome, it is pleasant. If the substance producing it were deleterious to a healthy stomach, it would be painful. It is brief, lasting only while the liquid that produces it is in contact with the tongue and palate. That withdrawn, it vanishes from the organs of taste and leaves merely a faint trace of itself in the memory. Evidently, the sensation of taste fulfils its purpose in securing nutrition for the body, and not in furnishing ideas for the mind. Both taste and smell are animal senses, not intellectual senses. They supply us with feelings, not with ideas. The Sensation of Feeling or Touch. — Next bring the tips of the fingers in contact with the surface of the orange, and you are instantly conscious of another feeling, namely, the sensation of touch. This sensation the mind recognizes as located in the ends of the fingers, and as being caused by the contact of these with the skin of the orange. Since the surface which the fingers press is comparatively smooth and soft, the sensation produced is slight and painless. If it were hard and rough instead, or covered with sharp points, the sen- sation would become more pronounced, even painful. Suppose I were grasping a fragment of ice instead of an orange, I should feel a sensation of cold. Or if we hold the hand in water that approaches the boiling point, the SENSA TION. 2J effect is a sensation of heat. Now, when the surface touched is lacerating, or hot, or cold to a degree that threatens injury to the organs, the sensation resulting is a painful one, thereby warning the mind of danger to the body. The purpose, therefore, of the sensation of touch, like those of smell and taste, is to aid and protect the bodily organs. Vanishing under normal conditions with the contact that produced it, it is a brief sensation and leaves no distinct notion of itself in memory. This sensation of touch does not contribute the kind of knowledge that educates the intellect. Take notice, however, that the touch which gives us a sensation and the touch that gives us a perception of external objects are, as we shall see further on, wholly different senses. Though acting always in conjunction through th£ hand, each employs a different set of nerves. , It is sufficient to say here that, in touching the same orange, the one yields a sensation, the other an idea. The Sensation of Sight. — Our own experience tells us that, in the act of seeing, there is very little feeling in the eye. In fact, when looking at an object under ordinary conditions, our actual vision is attended with a sensation so slight as to escape our notice. When we look exclusively at the orange, the mind is occupied with the outside object perceived, and not with any local effect it has on the eye. A sudden increase in the intensity of light, a flash of lightning, or an abrupt illumination of thick darkness, augments the sensation felt in the organ, until we are clearly conscious of it; but, at the same time, they diminish the distinctness of per- ception in a like ratio. We could not see the orange 28 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. with equal clearness in a light that was unusually bril- liant. Thus we learn by trial that the sensation of sight is, in circumstances favorable to vision, dim and insignifi- cant ; that, unlike the other sensations we have scru- tinized, it does not minister to the wants of the body. The sense of sight is not, therefore, to say the least, an animal sense. Its evident design is to store the mind with knowledge of the external world. The organic pleasure or pain connected with seeing is very slight. Sensation of Hearing. — Pronounce next the w T ord orange, and note carefully its effect on the mind. Do we not instantly recognize it as an external sound that designates the object I hold? Do we give much con- scious attention to the mere local effect on the ear, which constitutes the sensation of hearing? The truth is, the mind, absorbed in the spoken word and its meaning, pays little heed to the slight feeling which its utterance awakens in the ear. In other words, the main office of the sense of hearing is to transmit to the mind ideas of the sounds which are produced within its range, and the attending sensation is comparatively of little account. Still the sensations begotten in the ear by sound are somewhat more pronounced than those occa- sioned in the eye by light. For, as Hamilton says : "We have greater pleasure and greater pain from single sounds than from single colors ; and, in like manner, concords and discords in the one sense, affect us more agreeably or disagreeably than any modifications of light in the other. " Thus sounds, whose melody and harmony are complete, SENSA TIOAT. 2Q beget and heighten the pleasant sensations attending the act of hearing, while discordant sounds and violent noises are equally effective in producing painful ones. The sense of hearing is, however, the sole agent through which we gain knowledge of sounds and their relations ; and the local feeling that accompanies the act of hearing is a subordinate element. The principal products of this sense are . ideas of sound rather than any organic sensation it begets. Summary of the Facts gathered respecting Sensations. — We have thus found, by the action of each sense on the orange, that the resulting sensations differ widely both in their intensity and in their purpose. We have learned that in smell, taste, and sensitive touch, the sen- sations are marked and predominant, while the ideas gained therefrom are faint and indistinct. We have dis- covered likewise by trial that these sensations, being uniformly either pleasant or painful, enable us to dis- tinguish between a thing that is helpful and a thing that is harmful to the body, and so we are led to seek the one and to avoid the other. These facts justify us in classifying smell, taste, and sensitive touch as animal senses, whose sole purpose is to defend, protect, and preserve the body. Sensations of Hearing and Seeing slight. — On the con- trary we found that the sensations that attend the acts of seeing and hearing are comparatively slight and insig- nificant, and that they are wholly subordinate to the knowledge the mind gains of the external objects of sight and hearing. 30 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. The special characteristics of sensations as revealed by the same tests may be summed up as follows : 1. As bodily states, they are sensual. 2. As produced in the organs of the senses, they are local. 3. Since they do not usually outlive the presence of their objects, they are short in duration. 4. As guardians of the body, they are common to man and the lower animals ; and therefore smell, taste, and sensitive touch in which sensation predominates, are called the animal senses. 5. They are spontaneous, and therefore need no training hut discreet guidance and wholesome restraint. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER IV, Describe the sensations of smell as caused by the orange, and give its several characteristics. Describe and name the several characteristics of the sensation of taste as excited by the pulp of the orange. Give an account of the sensation of touch as caused by contact of the fingers with the orange. What is the common purpose of the sensations of smell, taste, and touch? What is the character of the sensation that accompanies the act of vision ? Illustrate What is the design of the sense of sight? What is the effect on the ear when we pronounce the word orange? De- scribe the slight sensation that attends the act of hearing, and compare it with that of seeing. Summarize the facts we have gathered respecting the sensations, and give the reasons for naming smell, taste, and sensitive touch the animal senses. Sum up the five characteristics of the sensations in the order named. SENSE PERCEPTION— GATHERING CONCEPTS. 3 1 SENSE PERCEPTION.— GATHERING CONCEPTS. The Animal Senses do not Gather Ideas. — Let us now examine each of the senses, not as the seat of a special sensation, but as a faculty by which we gain knowledge of outside things. And, in the first place, we found that smell, taste, and sensitive touch, when brought into contact with their respective objects, yield little else than local sensations; and that, consequently, these senses are not faculties by which we gather into the mind ideas of the world around us. The smell of the orange begot a decided sensation, but left a dim notion in the memory. The taste of the orange awoke a sensation that was still more positive but, left behind a negative idea. The touch of the orange, as affecting simply the nerves of feeling, produced a sensation which was due to temperature or to the con- dition of surface. But the mental image of the sensa- tion is among our faintest ideas. Hence these three senses minister to the wants of the body. They do not supply the intellect with its ideas; and, consequently, their exercise is not included in any system of intel- lectual training. Perception through Touch as Affecting the Nerves of Motion. Grasp now the orange with the hand and con- 32 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. centrate your attention upon the effect that follows. Do you not perceive that wholly apart from the sensation there is a resistance to motion ? Try to shut the fingers that enclose the orange, and you fail because of the re- sistance it presents. It is their resistance to the free motion of the hand, that reveals to us primarily the presence of external objects. In infancy, before the eye is able to distinguish objects as colored, the hand dis- covers their presence as obstructions to motion. Under nature's promptings the tiny hand, by countless vibra- tions, finally reveals to the infant mind the existence of an outside resisting solid. Perceptive touch then is the pioneer sense. It is the first discoverer of this external world. Perception of Shape, etc.— But let us make some further tactual experiments on the orange, and note at- tentively the results. The orange not only resists the closing of the fingers, but resists them in different direc- tions. To the thumb, which rests on the upper surface, it is a resistance to downward motion. To the opposite fingers, it is a resistance to upward motion. Hold or handle the orange how we will, the resistance to motion is everywhere outward and at equal distances from a common centre. The orange is, therefore, perceived to be round or globular. If the object clasped were, in- stead of an orange, a small cube, the sense of touch would perceive by resistance to the pressure of the fingers, that it had six plane surfaces, every two of which were opposite and parallel to each other. Size and Weight. — If the orange I hold were increased in volume, the fingers that should try to clasp it would SENSE PERCEPTION— GATHERING CONCEPTS 33 meet the resisting surfaces at a greater distance from the common centre, and thus reveal its greater size. If I lay the orange on the palm of one hand and an iron ball of equal size on the palm of the other, the degree of re- sistance to upward motion that each would make, would disclose its comparative weight. Thus Perceptive Touch discovers the presence of an external object by its abso- lute resistance to motion of the hand ; perceives its shape or figure by the relative direction of resistance which its surfaces present to the exploring fingers; determines its size by the distance of its resisting surfaces from its centre; and finds its weight by its resistance to upward motion, in other words, by its downward pressure. In this manner, perceptive touch gives us our first knowl- edge of the outside objects that surround us. As an intellectual sense, it precedes both sight and hearing in the notions it transmits to the mind, of the forms with which we come in contact. Touch, a Double Sense. — From the above fact, it is clear that touch is a double sense, or rather two senses located in one organ, the hand. In the one, contact with an object begets, by its temperature or condition of surface, a pure sensation. In the other, contact with an object afford, us, by its resistance to freS motion, a pure per- ception of an external resisting solid. In the first sense, contact affects the nerves of feeling which run from the surface of the body, and especially from the fingers' ends, to the brain. In the second sense, contact affects the nerves of motion which run from the brain to the mus- cles and especially to the hand. The product of the first is a feeling, which suggests only a dim notion of 34 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. its cause. The product of the second is a distinct per- ception of a resisting solid, which has shape, size, weight, length, breadth and thickness. The office of the one is to guard the body ; of the other, to supply the mind with the ideas of the outside world. For the pur- pose of designating these distinct offices which they per- form together in the same contact, we may call the first, sensational touch, and the second, perceptive touch. Perceptive Touch, an Instrument of Expression. — But perceptive touch is not only the means by which we gain our earliest ideas of the outside world, but it is, in a very wide sense, an instrument of expression. The hand with its flexible fingers, embodies the best ideas of the race in material forms. It expresses in colors and characters and figures, what the mind has previously conceived. All the manual arts and handicrafts are, in this sense, the product of the human hand. Without its help, the arts of drawing, writing, printing, jpainting, sculpture, architecture, and many industries could never have existed. In fact it is hardly an' exaggeration to say that civilization owes its origin and progress to the human hand. Still the hand is only the obedient ser- vant of the will, the active agent of the mind in expres- sing its concrete idea^ Manual Training. — Now, does it not occur to you that a sense which is so important to the individual and so prolific of results to the world, should be trained with the utmost thoroughness ? Is it not clear also that, since perceptive touch, of all the intellectual senses, comes first into action, it should receive the first formal train- ing given to the child ? I need not dwell here upon the SENSE PERCEPTION— GATHERING CONCEPTS. 35 manifest principle, that touch as a means of gaining ideas from without, and touch as a means of trans- muting ideas into matter, will both be trained primarily by the same exercises. Nor need I more than allude to the obvious fact that touch must be trained largely by practice on its own products, namely, the manual arts. The rudiments of drawing and writing are, at any rate, the first steps' in manual training; and these steps ought, in the order of nature, to precede and lead to the earliest lessons in reading and spelling. Perception through the Sense of Sight. — Hold now the orange before the eyes, look steadfastly at it, and con- sider carefully the nature of the mental act involved. You say that you see the orange. Precisely what does this act of seeing the orange consist of ? In seeing the orange, is your mind occupied with a sensation or feeling which is produced in the eye ? Or does your mind, in the act of seeing, concentrate its attention on the external thing which is the object of sight ? Clearly your atten- tion is fixed on the orange and the act is an act of per- ception ly sight. The faculty in this case is the sense of sight ; the act of this faculty is seeing; and the object is the orange. What is the result of this act of seeing the orange ? Manifestly, it is a notion of the orange, which, while the act of seeing continues, we call a per- cept of the orange. Thus, I repeat, when I present the orange to your eyes, four things are involved in the operation that fol- lows; namely, (1.) The faculty of sight. (2.) The ob- ject of sight, the orange. (3.) The act of seeing. (4.) The product of seeing, which is the percept of the $6 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. orange. Faculty; object; action; product; this is the invariable order in the exercise of every intellectual faculty; and, let me say here, with all the emphasis I can command, that, throughout the whole domain of mind, it is the action that educates the faculty which puts it forth. Sight : How Trained. — The sense of sight must be trained to its greatest range and acuteness by repeated and complete acts of seeing, just as judgment must be trained by acts of judging, or reason by acts of mason- ing. This is one of the fundamental principles in the science of education. What is it We See. — Again, with our eyes fixed on the orange, let us ask precisely what is it that we see ? Fas- tening my eyes again on the orange, I see first the color, which is yellow. I see also on the yellow surface, slight variations of light and shade, which enable me to per- ceive that the shape of the half on which the eye dwells is that of a hemisphere. Withdraw wholly the sensation of light and shade, and also the auxiliary perception of touch, and the part which now presents itself to the eye as a hemisphere, which is round, would present itself as a circle, which is flat. How do We See Solids ? — The image of the half-orange on the retina of the eye, is a colored picture having out- line and length and breadth but, of course, not thick- ness. The mind can, therefore, perceive in this picture primarily the two properties that give us surface, namely, length and breadth. But the mind cannot perceive di- rectly in the retinal picture, the third property, which, with the first two gives, us a solid ; namely, thickness. SENSE PERCEPTION— GATHERING CONCEPTS. 37 The variation of light and shade which are the signs of thickness or solidity are, to be sure, present in the reti- nal picture ; but the mind does not know in the begin- ning what these signs mean. 'From what source does the mind of the infant first learn that light and shade as perceived by the eye, mean solidity and shape ? The infant eyes see light and shade in the retinal picture at a period when the infant hands have already discovered the shapes of external solids. It is the hand then that teaches the eye, in countless primary lessons, that light and shade signify shape. And having learned that the differences of light and shade on the surfaces of solids, indicate their individual figures, the eye forever after infers shape from color with a rapidity that outstrips the lightning's flash. In fact, the modifications of color called light and shade, and the modifications of shape they indicate, are so welded together in the mind's ex- perience, that, in the act of vision, it scarcely distin- guishes the one from the other. No Sight-Perception of Colorless Objects. — But if, after the above analysis of early vision, any one of you doubts that the eye sees colors only and infers the solids they depict, the question may be settled by trying the follow- ing experiment. Hold the orange before the eyes in a room where the darkness is so great as to entirely oblit- erate its colors. Strive as you will to see the orange in the absence of its colors, you will utterly fail. The color- less orange has wholly disappeared from perceptive vision, while to perceptive touch, it is as clear and as distinct as before. The reason is that the darkness has with- drawn the colors of the orange, which are the exclusive 38 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. objects of sight, and left unaltered the solid figure which is the exclusive object of perceptive touch. The eye, then, I repeat, perceives color, including light and shade. The hand perceives solids only, and teaches the eye by countless instances repeated without stint, that the vari- ations of light and shade indicate the corresponding variations of shape. Effect of long Experience. — I hardly need to add that you and I, who are scrutinizing this orange, have been trained by a host of experiences to perceive form through color by a single quick impulse, which we do not divide in thought. We have seen thousands of oranges before this one, and innumerable other colored solids besides. Our sense of sight was taught by touch even in early in- fancy to perceive form by the invariable indications of light and shade that lie upon its surface. Through all our subsequent lives, we have perceived colors and the forms they reveal to the eye, as constantly united. Not in a single instance has touch discovered a form that is colorless, or our sight a color that does not lie upon the surface of a solid. Of all the countless figures we hold in memory, we cannot recall one that is free from color. Color and form are among the closest and most inflexi- ble of all our associations. Only the man who is totally blind from birth, can either perceive or conceive an ob- ject that has the outlines of figure, but is colorless. Rapidity and Range of the Sense of Sight. — But the characteristics that distinguish the sense of sight from the other intellectual senses, are its wonderful scope and swiftness. So rapid and comprehensive are its move- ments, that it collects a far greater number of concepts SENSE PERCEPTION— GATHERING CONCEPTS. 39 from the world without than the other intellectual senses. So minute and accurate is its action, that the ideas it supplies to the mind are the most distinct and vivid of all our mental furniture. It can inspect at will the pistil of a flower, or, with a sweep of the eye, gather in an .'entire landscape; and the subsequent operations of intellect consist largely in working up these concepts into the higher forms of thought. In fact, the concepts of sight surpass in number and clearness all our concepts from whatever source. Value of Eye-Training. — How vital then to a complete education is it that the eye of a child should be trained to the utmost efficiency and acuteness. How important that a sense which is the chief agent for furnishing the mind with its materials for thinking, should be disci- plined by systematic practice. There is no greater ob- stacle to genuine intellectual progress than the habit of careless observation. If our sight-concepts are vague and incomplete, all the processes of analysis, imagina- tion, and reasoning of which they are the objects, will be of a like character. The power and habit of seeing exhaustively the elements of every visible thing on which the eye falls, are the prime requisites of a complete edu- cation. Means of Training the Eye. — The means of training the sense of sight lie around us in unlimited abundance. Nature presents a countless host of objects, whose simple beauty attracts constantly the eyes of the child. All the products of imagination, which the hand has clothed in the material forms of art, appeal likewise to his sense of sight; and judicious selection from these two sources, 40 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. arranged in a series which begins with the simplest specimens and rises gradually to the more complex, are, under the guidance of the intelligent teacher, the means of accomplishing the purpose in hand. Perception of Sound through the Sense of Hearing — Summing up of Sight and Touch. — Eesuming our scrutiny of the orange, we find, of course, that it contains no element which appeals to the sense of hearing. Contact of the orange with the nose, tongue, and fingers, gave us local sensations which were clear at the time of^ their production, but dim in subsequent memory. The same contact of the orange with the fingers, that excited the sensation of touch, revealed also a resistance to motion. It was through this resistance, that the mind primarily perceived the orange as an external body having shape and size. This act makes the sense of touch a means of transmitting to the mind ideas from the world without. With its capacity to feel sensations, it has also the power to perceive the facts that resistance to motion re- veals. The local sensation of touch is & passive element; the power to gather and give to the mind a knowledge of solids and shapes, is an active element. Touch, as passive, is sensational touch. Touch, as active, is per- ceptive touch. Each has a purpose of its own wholly unlike that of the other. The one guards the body from danger ; the other stores the mind with knowledge. But when we presented the orange to the eye, we in- stantly found that the sense of sight does not perform the double office that is conspicuous in touch. The sight was at once absorbed in the act of seeing the orange, and had no conscious sensation in the organ SENSE PERCEPTION— GATHERING CONCEPTS. 4 1 employed. It perceived all the modifications of color, of light and shade, which the orange displays, as the signs of its shape and size. It is exclusively, therefore, a perceptive sense whose sole purpose is to collect and transmit to the mind, concepts of the endless variety of forms that present their colors to the eye. Sense of Hearing. — But when we come to the sense of hearing we must drop the orange for the time. But, though the orange has no properties that appeal to the ear, it is connected with an audible sound by the closest and most compact of all associations, to-wit : that of a thing and its name. Triple Effect of a Significant Word. — Kemoving from sight the orange, pronounce the word, orange, and note carefully the triple effect it instantly produces : (1) It excites a feeling in the ear which is feeble, yet more pro- nounced than that of the eye. (2) It calls forth an act of hearing, in which the mind perceives distinctly the sound as outside of itself. (3) It recalls from memory a distinct and vivid concept of the visible thing of which it is the name. The name being uttered, I in- stantly feel the slight auricular sensation, perceive the external sound that caused it, and recall the concept of the thing which the sound designates. All this takes place in a flash so subtle, that I do not consciously dis- tinguish one part from another. But the act that was most obviously performed by the ear, was the hearing of an external sound. A concept of this sound, orange, survives in memory the act of hearing, and can be re- called when needed. Hearing, an Intellectual Sense. — The sense of hearing, 42 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. then, since it gathers ideas for the mind, is an intel- lectual sense ; slower, indeed, than the sense of sight, but indispensable to the use of spoken language. The concepts of sounds gained from this sense, are less dis- tinct than those of sight. I can recall this moment the iound of my brother's voice, but I can recall his face and figure far more distinctly. The Ear how Trained. — Evidently the ear is trained most effectively in childhood by means of sounds that are attractive. Music is a potent factor in giving deli- cacy and facility to the sense it exercises. Beginning with the melody of simple verse, the child may be taught by imitation the practice of elementary singing, always using appropriate words, and gradually advancing from short rudimentary exercises, to the higher forms of melody and harmony. But the juvenile ear is disciplined with even greater effect, by the exercise of reading and speaking. It is the utterance of the child's own tongue that, if correct, sharpens and quickens his sense of hearing. In learn- ing to talk, the infant's ear keeps pace with his organs of speech ; and every word he speaks calls into action both the tongue and the ear. Any defect of the one will beget a defect in the other. In all the exercises that develop the vocal organs, it is, therefore, of the ut- most moment that utterance should be incessantly and carefully practiced. The Percept. — The percept is the instantaneous pres- ent product of the act of touching, seeing, or hearing any object within the range of the senses. I take the orange in my hand and hold it before my eyes. The SENSE PERCEPTION— GATHERING CONCEPTS 43 present idea which I gain in the act, is a percept of the orange. A percept, then, is the immediate mental effect of perceiving any external thing by the act of touch, sight, or hearing, or from all these senses acting together, In perceiving the orange, I have, at this moment, the notion of solidity, shape, and weight from touch ; the notion of color, light and shade, and figure from sight ; and the notion of its name from hearing. These notions, gained by the mind through the simultaneous action of touch, sight, and hearing, are all united in the one per- cept. Associated with this percept is a dim memory of its smell, taste, etc. But remember that the percept lasts only while the senses are engaged on the object of which it is the dupli- cate. Eemove the orange from sight and touch, and the percept of the orange instantly becomes a concept of the orange. Thus assuming the orange as hitherto un- known, name, handle, and scrutinize it until your per- cept is complete. Then lay the orange aside out of the range of the senses, and what is left in your mind? Have you not a mental picture or concept of the orange, a concept whose distinctness is precisely in proportion to the distinctness of the percept from which it is de- rived? Thus the clearness and completeness of the concept of any external object depends on the clearness and completeness of the percept of that object, and the percept depends in turn for its clearness and complete- ness, on the vigorous action of the senses of which it was the product. To be more specific, my mental picture or concept of the orange borrows its distinctness from the percept of the orange ; and this percept gained its dis- 44 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. tinctness from the thoroughness and frequency where- with I handled, scrutinized, and named the orange itself. Thus we see the unspeakable importance of manual, visual, and vocal training. To train the perceptive senses, is to increase the number and precision of the ideas they furnish. When will the teacher learn that the clearness of the concepts gained by the pupil, is of far more value than their number ? The following order in the mental operations we have considered thus far, may be committed to memory : Faculty. Object. Action. Product. The Intellectual ^ j Touching, j Senses. Grange. \ { Se^ng.^ j. Percept. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER V. Show that the animal senses do not gather ideas. In what manner does the sense of touch give us our first knowledge of a solid? How does the handling of an orange reveal its shape? Also its size and weight? How is perceptive touch related to sight and hearing in the order of its first action? Explain the two different effects of contact which make touch a double sense. Discriminate and name the two different products of touch as a double sense. Give the distinctions between sensitive touch and perceptive touch. In what way is the hand an instrument of ex- pression? Give the reasons and the means for early manual train- ing. What does the act of seeing the orange consist of? Name the faculty, object, act, and product in scrutinizing the orange, What is it that educates a faculty ? When looking at an orange what is it precisely what we see? How is the sense of sight trained? What qualities of the orange do we perceive directly, and what qualities do we infer? What does the hand teach the eye? Repeat the experiment showing that the eye perceives the SENSE PERCEPTION—GATHERING CONCEPTS. 45 modifications of color only. What is the effect of long experi- ence in quickening the perception of form through color? How does sight compare with touch and hearing in its rapidity, range, and in the number of ideas it gathers? Why should the eye be rained? What are the means for training the eye? Give a sum- mary of the facts gathered from contact of the orange with the tose, tongue, and fingers. Distinguish between touch as passive and touch as an active sense. Why is sight regarded as exclusively a perceptive sense? What is the association by which a word is connected to the object it denotes? Give the triple effect which the pronouncing of a significant word produces. Which of the three effects is the principal one and what is its product? What is the relative distinctness of the concepts gained from hearing and those gained from sight? What are the natural means of training the ear? Define the percept of the orange, and say what elements in it were gained primarily from touch and what from sight. Under what condition does the percept of the orange become the concept of the orange? On what does the concept, orange, de- pend for its clearness and completeness? On what does the per- cept depend for the same properties? Give the order of object, action, and product of the intellectual senses. 46 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. Chapter TTJL MEMORY AND CONCEPTION. THE TWO FACULTIES THAT RETAIK AND INTENSIFY THE CONCEPT WITHOUT MODIFYING IT. Memory — Acquiring the Concept. — Again, I pronounce the name orange, and its picture or concept is con- sciously and distinctly before your minds. Hold it there persistently while you seek a moment's relief from psy- chological effort, by reading from the Bigelow Papers, a stanza whose gist goes to show that war and Christianity are antagonistic in spirit : "Parson Wilbur, he, says he never hearn tell in his life, That the 'postles trained raound in their swaller-tailed coats, And followed on arter a drum or a fife To get some on 'em office and some on 'em votes, But John P. Robinson, he, Says they didn't know everything down in Judee." Now, did you hold the concept of the orange con- sciously in mind while reading the above stanza ? If not, into what region did it vanish? Manifestly, the concept of the orange vanished into memory, which held it in such wise that you were no longer conscious of its presence. But when the concept, orange, vanished into memory, was it wholly lost from your mind ? As- suredly not. Otherwise, it would not be in your mental MEMORY AND CONCEPTION. 47 grasp at the present moment. It disappeared from your conscious notice when you gave your attention to LowelPs humor. It escaped notice and lapsed into memory at that particular instant, because the mind cannot attend at once to two things that are radically different. It was retained in memory during the inter- val in which your attention was centred upon the poem, and it was recalled from memory by the sound of its name. The mind turning its attention to other objects, the concept, orange, was acquired by memory, and then recalled from memory by the utterance of its name. The Three Acts of Memory Spontaneous and Uncon- scious. — Let us now scrutinize two characteristics which the three successive acts of acquiring, retaining, and recalling the concept, orange, have in common. First : They were spontaneous or automatic opera- tions. That is, the concept, orange, was acquired, re- tained by memory and recalled at separate times, by no effort of yours. They were self-acting movements of the concept. Secondly : The acts of acquiring, retaining, and re- calling the concept, orange, were unconscious acts. That is, from the instant it escaped the mind's notice, to the instant it was again recognized as recalled from memory, the mind was not aware of the changes in which it was acquired, retained, and recalled to conscious notice. The three operations of memory, then, are uni- formly spontaneous and unconscious throughout. Concept Retained by Association. — Further, by what means was the concept, orange, retained in memory during the interval between the instant of acquiring 48 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY, and the instant of recalling it ? The clear fact is, it was retained by the connection with other concepts held in the memory along with it. Sign and Thing Signified. — For example, the concept, orange, is closely associated with the name orange, by which sound it was just now recalled. This union in memory of a concept and its name is called the associa- tion of " sign and the thing signified." Such is the asso- ciation which connects in memory all words with the things they designate, and without it language would not be possible. It is manifest that, without a concept of the thing named, the name itself would be meaningless. Hence the reason for the maxim in early teaching : " Things must be taught before names." Whole and Parts. — But the concept, orange, has in memory other associations than that of its name. If, when I am intent on other matters, you show me a bit of orange peel, I instantly recall the entire concept of which the peel is a part. The result will be the same if, instead of the peel, you exhibit a fragment of the orange, say an eighth, a third, or a fourth. Evidently the fragment is closely associated with the entire concept, orange, and thereby serves as a means of retaining and recalling it. So also a lock of hair often recalls the concept of a face we desire to remember. This lock is associated in memory with the concept of the person whose head it once adorned, and so, when seen, it in- stantly recalls the concept of that person. This is termed the association of " whole and parts." The mind uses the same association to retain concepts in memory and to recall concepts from memory. MEMORY AND CONCEPTION. 49 Time and Place. — Another association which is prom- inent as a means of retaining and recalling individual concepts, is the time when and the place where they were gained by an act of perception. For instance, some months hence, when your thoughts recur to this week and this place, they will probably recall with a flash, the concept of the orange which was then and there the object of psychological inspection. This special agency in retaining in memory and recalling therefrom the sin- gle concepts gathered by the senses, is termed the association of " time and place. " Resemblance. — Once more, any concept which memory unconsciously holds, is retained and recalled by means of other concepts that are similar to it in their qualities or characteristics. Thus, a picture of the so-often-in- spected orange, wherever and whenever seen, would recall its concept vividly to mind by the resembling colors. Another orange of twice the size, though observed a thousand miles away, would have a like effect. These are examples of the ^ association of " resemblance " that supplies the means by which the vast multitude of indi- vidual things that lie around us and incite the senses to action, are arranged in classes, each of which is desig- nated by a single term called a common noun. Other Associations. — The above are examples of con- cepts connected with each other and held in memory by the relations of a thing with its name ; a whole with its parts ; a thing as located in time and place ; and a thing with things that are similar. But the four associations given are only prominent specimens of the many ties by SO TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. which ideas are held in memory and recalled to conscious attention. Principles in the Science of Education. — Let us close this article with the statement of a few obvious princi- ples in the training of memory which belong to the science of education. 1. All the faculties, except memory, are disciplined by persistent and repeated acts of attention to their objects. Attention, as we already know, is the act of a faculty impelled by the will. The sense of sight, for example, is trained not by dawdling and desultory looking at things, but by the close and reiterated acts of inspection that are directed by will-power. 2. But the three acts of memory are, as we have seen, wholly spontaneous or involuntary; that is, they take place without the agency of the will. Moreover, the acts of memory are unconscious ; that is, the mind does not know or notice their occurrence. It is clear for these reasons, that memory cannot be trained, like the other faculties, by the application of will-power to quicken and intensify directly the acts of acquiring, retaining, and recalling a concept. For these acts, being spon- taneous and unconscious, are entirely beyond the reach of the will. 3. Memory, then, can be trained only by the number of clear and complete concepts which it acquires through the strenuous action of the other faculties. It is disciplined not by its own acts, but by the idea sit acquires. I may add that memory is rendered still more accurate and ready by frequent repetition of the strenuous efforts that furnish the clear and complete concepts which constitute MEMORY AND CONCEPTION. 5 I its best material. The concepts retained in memory have a constant tendency to fade, but their distinctness may be restored and preserved by reiterating the acts of the faculty that produced them. By frequently hand- ling and naming the orange, the little child is finally enabled to retain its picture in memory, and to recall it whenever any of the springs of the association that sur- round it are touched. The distinctness and tenacity with which memory holds the concept, orange, in our minds, obviously depends upon the repeated and thorough efforts of the senses that exhausted its properties and parts. When will the teacher appreciate the import- ance of frequent and perfect reviews ? When will he see clearly that one idea, which contains all the prop- erties, parts, and relations of the thing it duplicates, is more effective in training the intellect of the pupil, than a host of ideas that are vague and dim ? CONCEPTION. All Acts Begin as Spontaneities. — Before explaining briefly the nature of the conceptive faculty, let me call your attention once more to a few significant facts, which are of great weight in the science of education. If we consider carefully the acts of any faculty we have studied, we shall find that this act was spontaneous in the start. When the concept, orange, was recalled from your memory by hearing its name, the instantaneous act of recognition that followed was a purely spontaneous one. It was the conscious presence of the concept that in- cited the act of recognition, and not any impulse of the 52 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. will. So, when I first displayed the orange to your eyes, the initial act of seeing it was spontaneous. In- deed, you could not, at the instant, help seeing it. It was the presence of the orange alone that initiated the act of perceiving it. Then the will supervened, and,, with more or less strain, held the act persistently upon its object. Attention, the Application of Will-Force. — Now, as we have said before, this application of will- force, which makes any spontaneous mental act persistent-and ef- fective, is called attention. And since every faculty is educated by strenuous acts of attention directed to its object, it is obvious that attention is a prime factor in the attainment of mental discipline. Attention, then, is spontaneity plus will-force. All the acts of attention contain, therefore, two elements in vary- ing proportions. In the educated mind, except in the intervals of relaxation, the will-force dominates and di- rects spontaneity. In the minds of savages and chil- dren the spontaneities predominate. The child, in his earliest rudimentary thinking, perceives, imagines, classi- fies, and reasons vaguely but spontaneously. And one of the problems of mind-growth is how to turn these elementary spontaneities into persistent and habitual acts of attention. Ratio of Will-Force to Spontaneity. — But, as we have seen, the faculties of the same mind differ in the ratio of spontaneity to will-force, which their acts exhibit. The senses, for instance, have more automatic action than the reasoning faculty. The three operations of memory are wholly automatic, and the operations of MEMORY AND CONCEPTION. 53 imagination are, as we shall see, largely of the same character. Conception : What is it ? — The faculty of conception contains generally, in its action, a union of spontaneity and will-force not unlike that of the senses. Concep- tion is the faculty that grasps and holds distinctly be- fore the mind, a concept recalled from memory. It is the province of conception simply to receive from memory and vividly picture to the mind, the concept which is its object. Thus the concept, orange, recalled to the mind after the reading of Lowell's stanza, pre- sented itself spontaneously to conception and excited automatic action. Then an impulse of the will im- parted a vigor and persistence to this action, that ren- dered the concept under scrutiny, vivid and distinct. All this took place in a subtle instant that makes my attempt to describe it, bungling and slow. If the con- cept, orange, when recalled from memory, had awakened only a languid spontaneity, it would have eluded the grasp of the conceptive faculty, and glided dimly, like a vanishing spectre, back into unconscious memory. Interest and Reiteration produce Distinct Concepts. — Eecall now the concept of a familiar face, your mother's for example, and let your power of conception fasten upon it with the grip of an earnest attention. How clear the familiar expression; how distinct the outlines; how complete in all the details of form and feature. Substitute, for an instant, a concept of the face of a comparative stranger, and your utmost effort fails to make it so definite and real. The reason is obvious. The first concept has been gained and perfected by a thousand acts of perception. It has been associated in 54 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. memory with countless tokens of affection. The second concept lacking such incentives to conception, is one of those feeble and fleeting notions that soon fade from the memory and leave no trace behind. Obviously, the young pupil, in gathering his first stock of lucid and staple ideas, needs the spur of these two incentives, namely, interest and repetition. The objects which engage his attention should be naturally attrac- tive. Out of the multitude of things that appeal to the senses of the child, those only should be used as stimu- lants to early attention, which combine the elements of simplicity, novelty, and beauty. Eegular solids for the hand; attractive colors and figures for the eye; the simplest melodies for the ear; these are among the objects from which the child gathers his earliest distinct perceptions of an outside world. And the clear percepts that result, cling to his memory ; which restores them in the form of vivid concepts, and so supplies valid materials for the processes of thought. Memory and Conception depend on Sense Perception. — Thus a tenacious and ready memory, and a vigorous and vivid conception, are alike the products of a sense per- ception that is facile and accurate. The power of con- ceiving an idea with lucid distinctness, is acquired (1) by strenuous and reiterated efforts in the acts of con- ceiving that which is before the mind, and (2) by the clear and complete concepts obtained through memory from the senses. Conception, fastening with instinctive eagerness upon ideas of such a character, attains finally, through reiterated efforts that constantly increase in vigor, its highest, widest culture. Synopsis. — Let us now inspect minutely and commit MEMORY AND CONCEPTION. 55 to memory the following synopsis, which shows the uniform succession of the operations thus far described. Faculty. Object. Product. Action. j Touching. Sense Perception. External Object. ■< Seeing. ( Hearing. Memory. Conception, Percept. ( Recalling, j . Unconscious Conceiving Conscious Concrete Concept. 5 * Concrete Concept. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VI. When the concept, orange, vanished into memory, was it utterly lost? What is the proof that it was not lost? What recalled it from memory? What are the two characteristics which the three acts of memory have in common? By what means was the con- cept, orange, retained in memory until recalled? What associa- tions connect words with the things they designate? Give the order of learning the names of things. Explain the association of whole and parts; of time and place; of resemblance. Why can not the memory be trained like the other faculties, by intensifying its own acts? How then can memory be trained? What is the value of reviews? What is the character of all initial intellectual acts? CONCEPTION. What are the two elements that constitute attention? Explain how the ratio of will-force to spontaneity varies in different faculties. Also in different minds. Define conception and illus- trate by the concept, orange. Effect of interest and reiteration on the distinctness of concepts. Give illustration. What objects stimulate the attention of children? By what two means is the power of lucid conception acquired ? Repeat the synopsis show- ing the invariable sequence of mental operations thus far. 56 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. Chapter VIM. ANALYSIS AND ABSTRACTION. FACULTIES THAT INSPECT AND MODIFY THE CONCRETE CONCEPT AND DERIVE ADDITIONAL IDE A*T THERE- FROM. ANALYSIS. The Concrete Concept — Its Origin Reviewed. — The in- tellectual senses, by their combined action, produce in our minds the percept of the orange. The percept, be- coming a concept in the absence of the orange, was un- consciously received, retained, and restored by memory to the conscious grasp of conception. The conceptive power now holds the concept, orange, in vivid distinct- ness before our mental vision. Its presence naturally incites the mind to further action. The question now is, what is the next operation which the mind will in- stinctively perform upon it ? The Concept Duplicates the Percept. — The concept, orange, is, if perfect, the exact transcript of the orange itself. The orange is composed of parts and properties, and is called therefore a concrete object. The concept contains or represents these parts and properties, and is called a concrete concept for the same reason. The number of parts and properties in the concept, orange, now under scrutiny of the conceptive power, is precisely ANALYSIS AND ABSTRACTION. $7 equal to those of the percept, orange, unless some of these have been lost in memory. If the percept had gathered and transmitted to the concept all the elements contained in the orange, then the concept would be absolutely complete and perfect. But such a concept is an ideal one, which the human mind never reaches, but which it can approach through discipline and culture. Analysis of the Concrete Concept. — But whether the properties and parts of the concept, orange, be greater or less in number and distinctness, the next instinctive act of mind is to inspect each one of these apart from the rest. Especially when this instinctive act of analysis is impelled by the will, the mind concentrates its atten- tion upon each of the properties and parts in succession, and acquires, in this way, a number of new concepts which are associated in memory thereafter as " whole and parts." The act of analysis then naturally centres upon the concept, orange, while in the grasp of the con- ception, and discriminates each of its parts, such as the peel, pulp, juice, seeds, etc. A similar scrutiny reveals also its properties, as color, shape, size, figure, flavor, weight, etc. Clearly, all these products of anaylsis are so many individual concepts of parts and properties com- prised in the concept, orange, and they are expressed in such sentences as, The orange is round; The orange is yellow; etc. Analysis either Spontaneous or Strenuous. — This act of analyzing a concrete concept is, like all intellectual acts, either spontaneous and desultory, or energetic and thor- ough. The child's analysis of the concept, orange, unless guided by the teacher, would bring out only the more 58 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. obvious elements which his senses had gathered sponta- neously. The analysis of the same concept by the sci- entist, being a systematic effort, is comparatively ex- haustive. Indeed, it is often extended to the limits of human knowledge. Analysis of the Concept a Repetition. — Evidently this act of analyzing the concept is only a more definite and explicit repetition of the previous act of analyzing the percept. For, as we have said, the concept contains only the elements which were gathered in the percept, while its object is under the scrutiny of the senses. For example, the concept, orange, can contain no ele- ments which were not gathered along with the percept, while the orange was the object of sight and touch. The Object Lesson Preparatory. — In fact the object lesson is nothing else than the perceiving by sight and touch, and the naming of the qualities and parts of an object when analyzed. Thus the object lesson, and all similar processes in teaching, are effective in training the pupil for the subsequent analysis of the concept, which requires a more strenous effort of attention. Here, as elsewhere, the fundamental requisite is the antecedent training of the senses. For, through the effective action of the senses alone can the mind have gathered those concepts, which comprise, in measurable fulness and clearness, the properties and parts of the external objects they represent. Analysis, how Trained as a Faculty. — The faculty of analysis i's, like the other faculties, trained to precise and ready action by systematic and reiterated efforts expended on concepts that are full and complete. The ANALYSIS AND ABSTRACTION. 59 pupil begins with object lessons, and progresses through the processes of analysis found in reading, spelling, and elementary arithmetic, until finally he reaches the higher examples furnished by the sciences. Each ascending step is preparatory to the next higher one. Value of the Power. — I need hardly add that the power to gather rapidly, and to analyze exhaustively, lucid and minute ideas of the things that surround us in endless profusion, is one of the essentials of a finished education. In fact, a systematic discipline of the intel- lectual powers could not be attained without it. ABSTRACTION. THE FACULTY THAT WITHDRAWS THE PROPERTIES WHICH ANALYSIS REVEALS IN A CON- CRETE CONCEPT AND TRANSFORMS THEM INTO AB- STRACT CONCEPTS. The Objects of Abstraction. — The objects on which the faculty of abstraction acts are the concepts of properties previously disclosed by the act of analysis. Analyzing the concrete concept, orange, the mind gained therefrom individual concepts of its parts and properties. Leaving the disposal of its parts to another faculty, let us ask what operation the mind now performs, spontaneously at first, upon the individual concepts of the properties found in the concept, orange. They are now, so to speak, the single concepts of the properties of this orange exclusively. At this point, does not the mind begin spontaneously to compare each of these properties of the concept, orange, with the same properties found by pre- vious analysis in other concrete concepts ? The orange 60 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. we inspected is yellow. A slight subtle analysis has re- vealed, one by one, that other things are yellow; that the daisy, the buttercup, and a host of flowers, and countless different objects are likewise yellow. Com- paring successively the yellow of our concept, orange, with the identical yellow discerned in many other con- crete concepts, the mind finally reaches a concept of yellow apart from the concrete things in which it exists. This is a concept of yellow abstracted or withdrawn by the mind from the particular things of which it is-an in- dividual property, and conceived as an entity apart from them all. The idea thus attained through suc- cessive acts of comparison is termed an abstract concept, and the power the mind exerts in the process of forming it is called abstraction. Notions of Roundness, how Gained. — Again, analysis discloses both by touch and sight, and subsequently by inspecting the resulting concept, that the orange is round or globular in shape. A comparison of the concept, orange, with the concept of other objects of globular form, such as marbles, balls, apples, etc., gradually enables the child's mind to attain the notion of round- ness, apart from any particular instance in which it is found. Such is the origin of the multitude of ideas which are the concepts of qualities considered as with- drawn by the intellect from the concrete things to which they belong. The abstract concepts, hardness, smooth- ness, length, breadth, thickness, size, shape, figure, dis- tance, weight, color are samples of the innumerable host of abstract ideas which the average mind contains. Adjectives and Abstract Nouns. — These concepts, ANALYSIS AND ABSTRACTION. 6 1 which are the products of the abstracting process, are classified in grammar as "abstract nouns/' while the qualities they express, as previously discerned by analy- sis, in a concrete object, are designated by adjectives. Thus : Specific Quality. Abstract Quality. A good man goodness. A sharp knife sharpness. A distant city distance. A high mountain height. A warm climate warmth. A soft seat softness. Number and Form. — Among the earliest abstract con- cepts gained by the child, are those of number and form. The first are acquired by spontaneously noticing the objects presented to his senses as single things, Next, comparing instinctively each of these single things with each of the others gives rise to a dim primitive notion of the abstract unit or oneness. But the same sponta- neous comparison distinguishes these objects as more than one, and finally begets an indistinct notion of plurality in the abstract. Concrete Arithmetic. — Teaching the child to count, to add and subtract carefully the balls of a numerical frame, is only systematizing the early processes of nature. These primary lessons in concrete arithmetic should be varied and protracted until the learner has attained facility in concrete reckoning and, along with it, the most definite notions of abstract numbers. For the science of arith- metic deals with abstract numbers, and its materials are, therefore, supplied by the faculty of abstraction. 62 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. tfhe Concrete before the Abstract. — Since we cannot abstract the qualities of a concrete concept without first discriminating them by analysis, nor analyze the same concept without first conceiving it, we are able to see clearly that the maxim in teaching which requires that the pupil should study "the concrete before the ab- stract M is strictly in harmony with the order of nature. Every plan for primary training should present, in suc- cessive periods, (1) concrete objects ; (2) their qualities ; (3) the abstract qualities derived from these. ~ - Synopsis. — The unvarying succession we have found in the order of the processes of analysis and abstraction, will be represented by adding them to the synopsis ar- ranged at the close of the section on conception. Faculty. Sense-Percep- tion. Memory. Conception. Analysis. Abstraction. Object. \ External Object. Percept. \ Unconscious Con- ( crete Concept. \ Conscious Con- ( crete Concept. j Concepts of Prop- ( erties. • Action. ( Touching. < Seeing. ( Hearing. (Acquir- ing. Retaining. Recalling, onceiv- ing. Analyz- ing. Abstract- ing. Product. Percept. ( Unconscious Con- ( crete Concept. ( Conscious Con- ( crete Concepts. j Concepts of Prop- ( erties and Parts. j Abstract Con- i cepts. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VII. Give the preceding operations by which the concept, orange, is gained and held before the mind ? Of what is the concept, orange, the transcript ? On what does the number of character- istics in the concept, orange, depend ? What is the next instinctive act which the mind exerts on the concept ? Of what does the ANALYSIS AND ABSTRACTION. 63 act of analysis consist and what are the concepts that result ? Give the difference between spontaneous and strenuous analysis. In what respect is the analysis of a concept a repetition ? Analysis in the object lesson. Analysis, how trained. The importance of the faculty of analysis. ABSTRACTION. What are the objects of abstraction ? What did we gain from analyzing the concept, orange ? Describe the process by which the simple properties of the orange were transformed into abstract concepts. How did we get a notion of roundness ? Show the origin of abstract nouns in language. Explain the early acquisi- tion of the notions of number and form in child-mind. What is the value of early lessons in concrete numbers? Why, in teaching, should the concrete precede the abstract ? Give the synopsis of the unvarying succession of mind-growth thus far. 64 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. Chapter TJXKK. IMAGINATION e/*S\*D CLASSIFICATION. FACULTIES THAT PROCEED BY SYNTHESIS; THE OKE TO BUILD UP KEW COKCEPTS, THE OTHER TO ARRANGE CONCEPTS IK CLASSES. IMAGINATION. THE CONCEPT BUILDER. The Faculty that Constructs. — Imagination is the faculty that combines at pleasure the products of con- ception, analysis, and abstraction into new concrete concepts. The concrete concept derived from the senses is a transcript of the external thing it represents. The concrete concept which imagination constructs does not duplicate any single outside thing. Its Materials. — To build this new concept, imagi- nation only uses the materials which outside things have supplied to the mind. The orange transmits to our mind, through the senses, a concept of itself as a con- crete whole. This concept of a whole, when analyzed, afforded additional concepts of its parts and properties. These concepts of individual properties yielded, by com- parison, the corresponding abstract concepts. What is the sum total of ideas gathered from this single concrete object, the orange? 1. A concept of itself as a whole; including, in general its color, its shape, its size, and its contents. IMA GIN A TION A ND CLA SSIFICA TION. 65 2. Individual concepts of its parts; as skin, pulp, film, seeds, etc. Also concepts of its individual properties; as large, smooth, soft, sweet, juicy, nutritious, etc. 3. Abstract concepts of these properties gained from comparison with their duplicates in other objects; such as abstract size, figure, softness, sweetness, weight, etc. Constituents of the Image-Concepts. — Now these three classes of concepts comprise the materials with which imagination builds a new concrete concept which has no external reality. The mind, I repeat, holds a concept of the real orange as a concrete unit; holds also concepts of the abstract properties derived from these. All these elements will be found as constituents of the new image- concept of an orange, which has no existence except in thought. But the new image or concept of an orange, which imagination has constructed, will comprise these elements in proportions that vary, more or less, from those of the real orange. Example of the Process in Child Mind. — Suppose, for the moment, that we are children just learning to talk, to whom the word orange is still a "proper noun/' and whose imaginations have the spontaneous activity be- longing to childhood. We have seen, handled, and tasted the orange under consideration, and learned its name. We have consequently gained therefrom a concrete concept, spontaneously analyzed its more obvious characteristics, and by instinctive comparisons derived dim and rudimentary abstract ideas of its more noticeable properties. When the word orange is pronounced, it may incite in our minds two spontaneous operations. The first recalls 66 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. from memory the concept of the actual orange with its parts, properties, etc., etc. ; the second forms an image of an orange say ten times as large as the real one. As materials for this metamorphosis, we have the concrete concept to be used for our sample. We have concepts of parts which must be enlarged ten times and adjusted in the new image-concept as found in the sense-concept. We have the abstract concepts of size, shape, color, flavor, etc., with which to magnify and modify the new image, and give it congruity of color, shape, symmetry, etc. All these we combine into the new product ; and the entire operation, from the recalling of the sense- concept, to the completion of the new image-concept, takes place in a spontaneous flash that renders any description of its steps a comparatively clumsy per- formance. Image-Concepts of the Child and the Man contrasted. — The products or images of the child's imagination are often crude and extravagant. The more natural and attractive images which a cultured imagination often constructs are due to the abundant materials which experience gathers as the years advance, and to a refined judgment of what is beautiful and good and true. Multiply the materials of imagination and quicken its processes as we may, both the materials and the processes, from the earliest to the last, are always the same in origin and kind. The former are the successive products of conception, analysis, and abstraction ; the latter are spontaneities which should be disciplined by judicious and reiterated exercises. The Concept of the Image-Concept inspected. — Take IMAGINATION AND CLASSIFICATION. 6? for our example a beautiful painting representing the Madonna by Kaphael. The painter had evidently seen many individual examples of female beauty in face and form. The concrete concepts thus gained had yielded, through analysis, notions of the particular characteristics, such as expression, contour, feature, and color, which were combined in this or that woman in such wise as to awaken the emotion of beauty in the beholder. From these special concepts of qualities gathered from the analysis of many individual specimens, Eaphael had formed, by wide comparison, abstract concepts of the expression, contour, movement, and symmetry in gen- eral, that constitute beauty. These elements the painter, taking the concrete concept of a beautiful woman for his guide, had united in a beautiful image concept which, by the aid of the hand and the eye, he had expressed in colors. Image-Concepts, how Expressed. — The skilful hand, guided by the eye, is mainly the means of giving outward reality to image-concepts. In imagination, the order of action reverses that of the senses. In the latter, it is first the external thing and then the concept that fol- lows it. In the former, it is first the concept and then the external thing that embodies the concept. The hand and the tongue are its instruments of expression. Both the fine and the useful arts are the concepts of imagination expressed either in language or in material forms. If an image-concept, having elements that appeal to any of the higher emotions, be clothed in metrical language, it becomes a poem; if in colors, a painting; if in form, a piece of sculpture; if in sounds, a musical composition. 68 TALKS OAT PSYCHOLOGY. Art, then, is the product of man's imagination ; it is the image -concept expressed by the pen, the brush, the chisel, or the voice, and the mode of expression consti- tutes its different branches. Imagination ; its Culture. — Since the combining acts of the image-making faculty are spontaneous, it cannot be educated by immediate efforts of the will in strength- ening its actual processes. The means of cultivating the imagination are, therefore, comprised (1) in the study of the best models found in the arts, and (2) in the abundance of clear and definite materials supplied for its use by the auxiliary faculties. The close observation of material objects, and the exhaustive analysis of their characteristics, are, beyond question, the efforts which supply imagination with the choicest objects on which to act; and the same efforts in studying select specimens in the arts are necessary to secure the types after which its images should be moulded. It follows inevitably, that a liberal training of the senses and of the faculties that immediately follow them, is indispensable to the culture of the imagination. It is the early activity of imagination and the feeble observations and analysis preceding it, that produce the grotesque images peculiar to childhood. Judicious primary courses arranged for the development of the early faculties, soon correct this tendency to form mis- shapen images, and bring the creative faculty into harmony with the beautiful and the true in nature. Simple and sensible stories for children ; early drawing ; map drawing ; pictures and early composition, may be suggested as prominent among the means of accomplish- ing this important purpose. IMAGINATION AND CLASSIFICATION. 69 CLASSIFICATION". THE FACULTY THAT ARRANGES CONCRETE CONCEPTS INTO CLASSES. The Preceding Series yields Single Concepts only. — Hitherto we have dealt exclusively with single concepts. We have endeavored to follow and explain the successive intellectual operations that produce units only. Con- ceiving ourselves to be little children, we strove to repeat consciously the processes by which we climbed upward from the percept of a single thing to its name ; from the particular precept to the particular concept it generates ; from the particular concept as concrete to the individual properties it contained; from the single concept of these properties to their abstract counterparts. Finally, out of the materials thus gathered, we constructed a new "individual idea called the image concept. The series of unvarying steps which we endeavored to retrace, proved beyond question the soundness of the maxims in mind training which affirm the true order of primary study to be : " A thing before its name ;" " A whole before its parts ;" " The concrete before the abstract;" "Facts before fancies." But at this point let us note, with a special stress of attention, the fact that the orange was a single and sepa- rate whole; its name, to us, a proper name; the percept ; the concept derived from it; the concepts of its elements ; the corresponding abstract concepts and the new image concept which followed, were, each and all, single enti- ties. Even the abstract concept is the name of a single property wherever found. Grasping completely this in- 70 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. dividuality of the products in the series thus far, we will now inspect the processes by which the mind arranges its single concepts into kindred groups, each of which is named a class-concept. Class-Concepts, how formed. — The child recalling once more the concrete concept, orange, from memory, holds it again under the scrutiny of analysis. This act brings into conscious notice its properties and parts. But, mean- time, the senses have supplied him with another concept whose properties and parts, revealed by analysis,4ie com- pares with those of the first concept, and finds that they resemble each other throughout. He then unites the two concepts together in his mind on the basis of their resembling characteristics, and calls them two oranges. But he has gained also through the senses, a third con- cept, whose elements when analyzed, are manifestly similar in form and kind to those of the preceding samples. He consequently adds this third concept to the other two concepts and calls them three oranges. This process of synthesis or addition now goes on with- out formal counting, of course, but with a subtile ra- pidity that finally gathers all orange-concepts into one group or class which he designates by the common name, orange. Here we see how impossible it is to form classes without the aid of language. Characteristics. — It is evident that the links which connect together the individual concepts when united to form a class-concept, are their common characteristics. We recognize each one of these characteristics spontane- ously through the abstract notion of it previously ac- quired. Thus in the arranging of red apples in a class, IMAGINATION AND CLASSIFICATION. 7 1 we recognize the red of this or that apple, because we have a concept of the color, red, in the abstract. The Materials for Classifying. — The materials which the classifying faculty works up into classes, are identical with the materials which imagination works up into new image- concepts. The objects on which these two syn- thetic faculties operate, are, as we have seen, (1) the con- crete concept ;- (2) its characteristics, or properties and parts ; (3) the corresponding abstract concepts. But each faculty uses these materials in a way peculi- arly its own. Imagination employs the concrete concept as a sample which the new image must, in general, re- semble. It uses the properties and parts of the same concrete concept as the elements to be combined in the new image-concept. And it modifies these elements in their recombination, by assuming the abstract concepts as standards. See "Examples of the Process," under imagination. In the classifying process, on the other hand, the con- crete concepts are the objects to be classified. Their re- sembling characteristics are the means by which they are classed together, and the corresponding abstract concepts are the standards by which these characteristics are com- pared and found to resemble each other. For instance, oranges as simple concepts are to be classified together. Their resembling parts and properties are the means of effecting this classification, and the abstract notion of the properties they comprise are the standards by which we recognize these properties and their resemblance to each other. Actual Classification contains Groups within Groups. — Our actual knowledge is composed largely of class-con- 72 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. cepts so related to each other in a series, that a class having a larger number of individuals connected by a less number of characteristics, includes another class having a less number of individuals connected by a larger num- ber of characteristics. For example, in the series : Animal. —Creature having life, growth, and feeling; Quadruped. — Creature with life, growth, feeling, and four feet ; Horse. — Life, growth, feeling, four feet, solid hoofs; the class Animal contains more individuals and less characteristics than the class Quadruped, the class Quadruped more individuals and less characteristics than the class Horse. Bird. — Animal; two-legged; feathered; winged. Swimmers. — Two-legged; feathered; winged; web- footed. Duck. — Two-legged; feathered ; winged ; web-footed; large flat bills. Wood-duck. — Having the characteristics of the duck and those of its own species besides. In this last series, the class Bird includes the im- mense number of animals which are connected by three characteristics : namely, two legs,, feathers, and wings. The class Bird includes the class Swimmers, in which the individuals are far less in number; but the character- istics on which they are classified comprise not only those of the class Bird, but the added one of web-footed. The class Duck contains only a fraction of the class Swimmers, but the characteristics on which the class is founded embrace not only those of the class Duck, but also the added one of large flat bill. IMA GIN A TION A ND CLA SSIFICA TION. 73 The class, Wood-duck, with a greatly diminished num- ber, increases the characteristics of the class Duck, under which it is included, by adding those of its own species. Thus the lowest class, Wood-duck, has the minimum number of individuals and the maximum number of characteristics; while the highest class, Bird, has the maximum number of individuals and the minimum number of characteristics. Definition: What is It? — Comprehending fully the important fact that in the series of groups within groups, which classification arranges, the number of individuals, and the number of characteristics which connect them, increase or decrease in an inverse ratio, we shall easily learn the nature of a definition. A definition simply names the higher class to which the thing defined be- longs, and then names the characteristics which place it in the class next below. For example, a quadruped is an animal having four feet. This definition manifestly assigns the quadruped to the class, Animal, and then specifies the characteristic, four feet, which places it in the class, quadruped, next below. A horse is a quadruped having solid hoofs. A square is* a plane figure having four equal sides and four right angles. An adjective is a word used to limit a noun. These are specimens of the defining process, wherein the characteristics of the two adjacent classes, higher and lower, may be easily pointed out. It is evident that class- concepts are the only ideas that can be strictly defined, 74 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. and that the accuracy of a definition depends on the correctness of the classification on which it is based. Accurate definitions are of great value to the teacher especially as they serve to convey distinct and definite ideas. Dim and confused class-concepts, otherwise called half -knowledge, cannot be defined. Proper and Common Nouns: Adjectives and Abstract Nouns. — If we reflect on the character of the ideas which our minds have gathered and memory stored, we shall find that by far the larger portion is made up~bf ab- stract concepts and class-concepts. As to the first, every property which our concrete ideas contain, is represented also in thought as an abstract concept. Or, if we express the same fact in the language of grammar, it will warrant the following statement; namely, that every adjective whose meaning we know, has supplied us with an abstract noun whose meaning is equally clear to our comprehension. A few simple examples may serve as illustrations. djective. Abstract Noun. Adjective. Abstract Noun. Good. Goodness. Honest. Honesty. Bright. Brightness. Courageous. Courage. Brief. Brevity. Lazy. Laziness. Early Classification turns Proper Names into Class- Names. — It is likewise manifest that each of the entire host of concrete concepts which language and our senses have gathered, lies in a class to which we have already connected it in an earlier mental operation. For instance, boy, girl, cow, horse, dog, and a count- less list of like words, designate each a complete class to which it belongs. But in our earliest mental experi- IMAGINATION AND CLASSIFICATION. 7$ ence, boy, girl, cow, etc. were, to our limited knowledge, proper nouns which served as the names of concrete objects perceived singly. Then followed, slowly and in its regular order, the acts by which each of the words boy, girl, cow, horse, etc. became the name of a class, and so a common noun. Now, when we desire to point out any particular individual from the others of its class, we employ one of two expedients. We pronounce its proper name as Tom, Nellie, Daisy, Dick. Or, if the individual to be designated lacks a proper name, we discriminate it from its class by means of verbal ad- juncts, as "The horse that jumped over the gate." Here the article, the, limits its noun to some one horse; and the adjunctive sentence, "That leaped over the gate," determines definitely which this one horse is. The Classifying Faculty: How Educated. — In closing this chapters let us notice briefly that the classifying faculty is educated by repeated efforts in classifying the particular objects prepared by the preceding operations. Such efforts must be numerous, protracted, and effective. But effective or complete classifications can be reached only by the completeness of the materials to be classified. These materials are the concepts provided by previous observation, analysis, and abstraction. We could not classify the orange until we had an exhaustive knowledge of its particular properties. We could not gain an exhaustive knowledge of its particular properties unless we had a knowledge of such properties in general, that is from abstraction. Nor could we analyze the orange completely, to gain a knowledge of its particular properties, unless we had a complete con- 7& TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. cept of the orange itself. Finally, we could, not have the complete concept of the orange itself, except through a strenuous act of perception. The faculties of percep- tion, conception, analysis, and abstraction must there- fore be trained to do this work thoroughly, in order to supply perfect materials for the process of classification. With perfect materials thus prepared, the power of classification is educated by its efforts in classifying them. Sciences that Supply Objects for Classification — The study of the sciences which present and investigate the properties of single things, not only trains the antece- dent faculties, but furnishes valid materials for the pro- cess of classification. The classifications of arithmetic and of mathematics in general, are absolutely perfect. Botany and zoology and grammar are also among the studies that furnish valid materials for the classifying faculty. Faculty. Object. Action. Product* j Concrete Concepts. ) Imagination.-^ Concepts of its elements. V Imagining. Image-Concepts. ( Abstract Concepts. ) Classification. Same as above. Classifying. Class-Concepts. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VIII. Define imagination. What is the sum total of ideas gained from the concrete concept, orange ? What are the constituents of the new image of an orange which imagination builds ? Give an ex- ample of the process of combining the concepts of a real orange into an imaginary one. What is the difference between the image- concepts of a child and those of an educated man ? How did Raphael gather the elements which he combined in the image con- IMAGINATION AND CLASSIFICATION. 77 cept represented by the painting called the Madonna ? Explain how difference in the mode of expression constitutes the differ- ent branches of art. Give the two principal means of cultivating imagination. How is the tendency of childhood to form gro- tesque images corrected ? CLASSIFICATION. What is the condition of the ideas gained before the process of classification begins ? What are the successive steps of the child's mind from the percept of a single thing to the first act of classi- fying it ? What maxims in primary teaching are founded on these successive steps ? What is the entire process by which the child makes his first classifications ? What is the value of a common noun in classification ? What are the links that bind individual concepts together ? What is the use of the abstract concept in the act of classifying ? What are the three kinds of concepts that con- stitute the materials on which both imagination arid classification act ? In what manner does each faculty employ these materials in forming the image-concept, on the one hand, and the class- con- cept on the other ? In what manner are our class-concepts ar- ranged by the mind so as to include groups within groups ? Which contains more individuals, the class Animal, or the class Horse? Which has the greater and which the less number of characteris- tics ? What is the relative number of individuals and characteris- tics in the classes included under the class Bird ? What is the character of a definition and what its value ? Of what concepts is our knowledge mainly composed ? What other knowledge does our perception of the meaning of an adjective imply ? How do the earliest acts of classifying change proper nouns into the names of classes ? By what two expedients do we designate the individuals of a class ? By what two means is the classifying faculty educated ? How are the materials for classification gathered ? What sciences sup- ply the objects to be classified ? 78 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. (ftijapter XX. JUDGMENT AND REASONING; THE THINKING FACULTIES. - THE FIRST CONNECTING TWO CLASS-CONCEPTS TOGETHER: THE SECOND COMPARING THEM WITH EACH OTHER IN TRIPLETS. What is Judgment? — The last faculty, whose opera- tions we considered, gave us the class-concept as its product. This class-concept contains a host of single concrete concepts connected together by their resem- bling characteristics. We found that our knowledge consists largely of these class-concepts, each of which is designated by a common noun. Assuming now that we comprehend fully the class-concept both in name and nature, the question next in order is, what will the mind do with it? Let us find the answer to this question by inspecting our own mental operations. If we scrutinize closely our processes of thinking, we shall find that they consist almost wholly in affirming that one class-concept is, or is not, contained|in another class-concept. Of course, JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 79 the single concept containing, is a wider class than the concept contained. Thus when I say, The orange is a delicious fruit, I simply affirm that the narrower class, orange, is contained in the wider class, delicious fruit. For the class, delicious fruit, comprises several kinds of fruit besides the orange; for instance, the peach, the plum, etc. Now this mental act of comparing two class-con- cepts and affirming that one is, or is not, contained in the other, is called a Judgment. A judgment, then, is a mental affirmation that, of two concepts compared together, one is contained in, or ex- cluded from, the other. A positive judgment is one which affirms that of two concepts compared, one is contained in the other. This may be illustrated by the use of circles, as follows : A negative judgment affirms that, of two concepts compared, one is not contained in the other. "The orange was not ripe," i.e., not in the class ripe fruit. Frequently, in a judgment, the concept contained or excluded is concrete and individual, while the concept 80 TALKS ON PS YCHOLOG V. containing or excluding it, represents, of course, a class. Brigham Young was a Mormon. Thomas was not guilty, i.e., not among those that are guilty. We think in Judgments. — We are now prepared to learn, with precision, the nature of the mental act called thinking. Thinking, as we have already seen, is the action of any intellectual faculty upon its object. Earnest thinking is the action of any faculty strenu- ously impelled by the will. Desultory thinking is the spontaneous action of any faculty incited simply by the presence of its object. But thinking, whether earnest or desultory, always takes the form of a judgment or judgments. In other words, we think in judgments and the simplest thought is a single judgment, while an extended thought or act of thinking is a series of 'judgments. Example : The lesson was long, the recitation was a failure, and the class was discouraged. Here the thought is composed of three simple judg- ments whose connection may be shown by circles. Ee- JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 81 membering that the adjective, which often completes a simple judgment, represents a class, we have : LONG THINKING. ( LESSON j H (RECITATION] CLASS The Proposition. — So far, we have considered judg- ment as a mental act wholly apart from the language in which it is expressed. A judgment or simple thought consciously affirms that one concept contains or ex- cludes another; but this affirmation may or may not be expressed in words. When it is so expressed, however, it invariably takes the form of a Proposition. A proposition is a sentence which consists, as we are well aware, of a subject, a predicate, and a copula. The subject is that of which something is affirmed ; the pre- dicate is the something which is affirmed of the subject; the copula is the affirming word which connects the subject and predicate. In the example, The orange is nutritious, orange is that of which something is affirmed, and it is, consequently, the subject ; nutritious is the something affirmed of the orange ; it is, therefore, the predicate ; while is, the affirming word that connects subject and predicate together, is the copula. In grammatical an- 82 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. alysis, all complex or compound sentences may be divided into simple propositions, and the adjuncts that limit their subjects, copulas, or predicates. The Power to Think ; How Disciplined. — Judgment or thinking is the mode in which any faculty acts strenu- ously upon its object. The power to think will, there- fore,, be rendered facile and rapid by the same severe exercises that train every faculty to its, highest efficiency. Every systematic branch of study educates the judgment just in proportion as it educates the facultie&jvhich it stimulates to effort. But the necessity for rapid and exact thinking increases as intellectual effort advances in the series which we have traced. It is in scrutinizing the relation of class- concepts to each other and in the processes of reasoning, that the mind requires great facility and accuracy in the power of thought. The processes of arithmetic, gram- mar, algebra, and geometry, whether elementary or ad- vanced, call the reasoning faculty into sustained and vigorus exercise. DEDUCTIVE SEASONING. — DEDUCING CONCEPTS Materials for the Reasoning Process. — The last faculty, that of judgment, connects two concepts together, one within the other, and affirms that they are a unit. This unit, which is the product of judgment, consequently always contains a narrower concept within a wider one. When judgment affirms that " The orange is a nuturious fruit," it virtually combines the two, (the first within the sec- ond), and determines that they are one. Nutritious JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 83 fruit, the predicate, is now a class-concept which com- prises the class, orange, as one of its components. As affirmed to contain the class, orange, the class-concept, delicious fruit, is the product of an affirmation or predi- cation of judgment. It may, for this reason, be called predicated class concept. In the judgment, 11 The sermon was a fine effort," the concept, "fine effort," is a predicated concept. Now the predicated concept is the object on which the reasoning faculty expends its efforts and evolves there- from a concept of its own. The Reasoning Process. — Present the average boy with an orange, and he shows at once by infallible tokens, that he knows it is good to eat. He has not experimented on this particular orange either by smell or taste, and yet he displays no lack of confidence in its palatableness. How does the boy know that this particular orange is "good to eat "f The answer is not far to seek. The boy has previously tested other or angesby the sense of taste, and reached the judgment that since all oranges are "good to eat," the untried orange just now accepted must be "good to eat " also. In other words, the class "things good to eat" contains the class, orange. The class, orange, contains the individual orange ; conse- quently, the class, "things good to eat," must contain the individual orange. If we clothe this spontaneous flash of juvenile reasoning in formal words, it will read as follows: Oranges are " good to eat ;" This is an " orange ;" Therefore, " it is good to eat." 84 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. Inspecting this elaborate statement, we find that it is composed of three judgments which affirm relations be- tween the three concepts, namely: the class, tilings good to eat; the class, orange; and the in- vidual orange. These relations may be clearly shown in the arrangement of the following circles; and the gist of the statement is, that the class, " good to eat," includes the class, " all oranges ;" that the class _" all or- anges " includes the aforesaid individual " orange ;" therefore the class "go©d to eat " must include the in- dividual orange also. The Syllogism. — The methodical arrangement of the three propositions by which we deduce, from a wider class, a conclusion respecting the narrower class or the individual contained under it, is called the Syllogism. All fruit is perishable; The orange is a fruit; The orange is perishable. The first proposition, which affirms that the class, fruit, is contained m the class, perishable, is the Major premise. The second, which affirms that the class, orange, is contained in the class, fruit, is the Minor premise. The third, which affirms that, therefore, the class, orange, must be con- tained in the class, perishable, is the conclusion. Point out the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion, in the following syllogism : The horse is a quadruped; JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 85 Dick is a horse; Therefore, Dick is a quadruped. Next, show in circles the three concepts containing and contained. Major Premise often Suppressed. — In ordinary lan- guage, the major premise, being understood both by the speaker and the hearer, is usually suppressed. In the sentence, "Thomas showed fear," for example, we say shoived is a verb because it affirms something of the subject, Thomas. Supplying the ma- jor premise and arranging the three propositions in the form of a syllogism, we have: An affirming word is a verb; Showed is an affirming word; Therefore, showed is a verb. Inductive Reasoning examines, one by one, the indi- viduals of a class, and finding that a particular property belongs to each,, affirms that such property is a charac- teristic of the entire class. Take, for instance, the gen- eral proposition, " The orange is a healthful food," what, precisely, is the ground of our confidence in this wide statement ? It signifies that every complete indi- vidual of the class, orange, is conducive to health, when eaten. My opinion of the veracity of the proposition must be based either on the testimony of others, or on a process of induction carried on and completed by my- self. I have eaten, as the years passed, a large number of oranges, and found each one to answer the purpose of 86 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. good food. Consequently, I am ready to declare that the orange, as a class, is healthful. Imperfect Induction. — Imperfect induction is the care- less noticing of a characteristic in a scanty number of individuals of a class, and rushing to the conclusion that such characteristic belongs to the entire class. From having observed one or two imprudent actions, to call their author a fool; or, from having suffered through the dishonesty of a few foreigners, to assert that thej^belong to agnation of sharpers, are examples of a hasty induction; which, in general, is the source of innumerable errors. Culture of the Reasoning Faculty.— Since the opera- tion of reasoning is the highest intellectual effort of which we are capable, the faculty of reasoning will be most effectually disciplined by the study and practice of processes that are rigidly logical and correct. All branches of study that demand a severe and systematic exercise of the reasoning power, contribute to its culture. The mathematics whose processes are examples of perfect logic; grammar, history, and the natural sciences gener- ally; may be mentioned as among the studies tfhich in- cite to its highest activity, the faculty by whose efforts human thought reaches its culmination. PRINCIPLES IN THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION DERIVED FROM THE INVARIABLE ORDER IN MIND-GROWTH. 1. There is an invariable sequence in the early action of the intellectual faculties. 2. In the period of primal unfolding, each faculty holds a fixed place in a series wherein it receives the ob- jects on which it acts, from the faculty preceding it, and JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 87 furnishes the objects to be acted on by the faculty fol- lowing table. TABULAR VIEW OF THE SUCCESSION OF POWERS, OB- JECTS, ACTS, AND PRODUCTS IN MIND-GROWTH. Faculty. 1. Sense-Percep- tion. 2. Memory. 3. Conception. 4. Analysis. 5. Abstraction. 6. Imagination. 7. Classification. 8. Judgment. ,' 9. Reasoning. Object. Action. ) Touching. External Object. > Seeing. ) Hearing. ] Receiv- ing. Retain- ing. Recalling. Repre- senting. Analyz- ing. Abstract- ing. Imagin- ing. Classify- ing. Affirm- ing. Reason- ing. Product. Unconscious Con- crete Concept. Conscious Con- crete Concept, f Simple Concepts of Properties. Concrete Con- ' cepts. Simple Concepts Abstract Con- cepts. Same as above. Class-Concepts. Predicated Con- cepts of Class > Characteristics. ) Percept. Unconscious Con- crete Concept. Conscious Con- crete Concepts. i| Simple Concepts of Properties and Parts. Abstract Con- cepts. Concrete Image- Concepts. Class-Concepts. Predicated Con- cepts of Class Characteristics. Inferred Concepts. 3. The initial action of each faculty is a spontaneity elicited by the presence of its object, and followed, at varying intervals, by an effort of the will called an act of voluntary attention. 4. The complete action of any faculty of the series, supplies perfect objects for the faculty that follows it, and so tends to produce the full and harmonious action of the subsequent faculties in the series. 88 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. 5. No faculty can act except on its own peculiar ob- jects. 6. In training any faculty to early activity,, we should present to it only those objects which are simple, attrac- tive, distinct, and coi. £ lete. 7. Vigorous and complete action educates and dis- ciplines the faculty that puts it forth, and desultory and incomplete action weakens and retards its growth* 8. The order of mind-growth, as shown in the pre- ceding chapters, requires that, in the corresponding order of studies, the thing should precede its name; the simple be studied before the complex; the concrete before the abstract; the individual before the class to which it belongs. 9. The series or course of studies must accord with the series of unfolding faculties, and so contribute most effectively to their discipline. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER IX. What does a class-concept contain ? What does thinking con- sist of ? What is a judgment ? Show by drawing circles the difference between a positive and a negative judgment. Show by successive connected circles the steps in connected thinking. What is the difference between a judgment and a proposition ? Of what three parts does a proposition consist? Define each. How is judgment or thinking educated 2 What studies discipline the judgment most effectively 1 REASONING. Show in the judgment, "the oraoge is a delicious fruit/' that one class-concept is affirmed to contain another. What is the JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 89 object on which the reasoning faculty acts ? Explain the pro- cess of reasoning by the boy, on the orange, and give the result- ing syllogism in circles. Construct and include in circles, the syllogism proving that all fruit is perishable. Define the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion in the syllogism, and commit them to circles. Show and illustrate by circles how in common reasoning the major premise is generally suppressed. What is inductive reasoning? What is imperfect or hasty in- induction ? By what means is the reasoning faculty educated ? Write out from memory the complete table showing the suc- cessive steps in mind growth. Repeat the nine principles in the science of education. PART II. EDUCATION AND THE MEANS OF ATTAINING IT. Education: What is it? — Education, as a process, con- sists in developing harmoniously and training to their highest efficiency, all our physical and mental powers. Education, as a product or result, is the actual attain- ment, by the individual, of faculties that are trained to act with force and facility, upon their respective objects, and thus to attain the purposes of a complete life. It is, in fact, the perfect balance of highly disciplined powers and capacities wherein the higher predominate and guide the action and impulses of the lower, to the noblest results of human effort. But education so defined, is ideal and, in the present condition of man, is unattainable on this earth. If any youth, now living, were capable of receiving this ideal development and his environment could be perfectly ad- justed to the production of it, then we should have an instance of the philosopher, poet, divine, artist, states- man, ruler, orator, scientist, etc., all wrought to perfec- tion by culture, and united in a single complete and sym- metrical character. But the defective germs of powers. 92 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. and the propensities which the infant inherits, can not serve as the basis of such a development; nor is any en- vironment on this planet, in school or out, susceptible of the adjustment necessary to its attainment. Never- theless, the complete and symmetrical education defined is the ideal towards which we strive to advance so far as our defective powers and the imperfect surroundings will admit. Physical Education. — Physical Education, as a process, is the systematic training by judicious exercise and nutrition of all the bodily powers, so that each organ, whether voluntary or automatic, shall perform its func- tions in such a manner as to secure development, sound- ness, and vigor to the whole body. Physical Education, as a result, is the possession of a body that is strong, vigorous, active, and enduring throughout, and whose appetites are under the uniform control of the will. A perfect physical education is, however, in this world, beyond our reach ; and wee an only strive to approach it by an unvarying conformity to the laws of health and physical development. The study of physiology, dietet- ics, and the use of suitable food, clothing, and shelter, with the proper alternation of labor and rest, contribute to this end. Mental Education is divided into two branches, namely, Intellectual Education and Moral Education; which cor- respond to two classes of mental phenomena. Intellectual Education, as a system, is the develop- ment and discipline of every intellectual faculty by its own persistent and strenuous, voluntary efforts expended upon its peculiar objects. The eye is educated by efforts EDUCATION AND ITS ATTAINMENT. 93 of complete seeing ; the ear by the efforts 01 distinct hearing; the classifying faculty by strenuous acts of perfect classification. Intellectual Education, as an attainment, is an intellect so trained by the severe and protracted exercise of all its powers, that they may be concentrated at will on one or more objects, by an effort in which each faculty performs its peculiar function in an instantaneous succession. Thus the educated scientist, finding a new specimen of a familiar class, perceives, analyses, classifies, judges of, and reasons upon it, detecting its relations to other classes and inferring its invisible qualities, all in a single instant. The knowledge he gains by a momentary effort, which concentrates every intellectual act from perceiving to reasoning inclusive, on an object under his eye, would fill many printed pages. An intellect uneducated, could not grasp such knowledge except by painful and pro- tracted exertions. Even when acquired, it would take the form of verbal memories rather than the clear-cut concepts of judgment and reasoning. Moral Education consists in the restraining and re- ducing of our appetites, propensities, and passions to habitual control of a will whose decisions and impulses are brought into conformity with the principles of justice, truth, goodness, sincerity, and right. It also includes the developing of a conscience which shall be void of offence towards God and man. In a man so educated, the higher sentiments prevail, the selfish feel- ings are habitually subordinated to a will guided uni- formly by the dictates of duty, and by a conscience sensi- tive to the slighest infraction of truth, and justice, and 94 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. right. Alas ! how few the concrete examples of a sym- metrical moral education. But the earnest teacher must struggle on, both in his conduct and in his teaching, towards this perfect standard, encouraged by the fact that though he never can absolutely reach it, every step upward is a noble triumph. Order of the Processes of Education. — The training of the mental and the physical powers naturally progress to- gether by alternate exercises appropriate to each. But in mental education, the progress of intellectual -training precedes moral training by a single step. The order of mental phenomena is (1) knowing, (2) feeling, (3) will- ing. I must know a moral precept before I can feel its influence ; I must feel its influence before I can will to obey it. Thus truth and duty taught the child by par- ticular cases reenf orced by personal example of the parent and the teacher, are effective helps in early moral educa- tion. Since the lower feelings are restrained, the higher emotions developed, and the will directed, by appropriate knowledge, it is of vital moment that the same ideas which discipline the intellect, should be of such a char- acter as to chasten the sensibilities and improve the heart. Contrast of an Ignorant and an Educated Person. — An ignorant man is one whose intellectual faculties are un- trained and obtuse. His senses perceive things only in their more obvious properties and relations; consequently, the contents of memory are dim and scanty; the concepts recalled therefrom, vague and sterile ; a desultory ana- lysis reveals only the limited properties gathered by the senses ; the abstract concepts are correspondingly feeble EDUCATION AND ITS ATTAINMENT. 95 and few ; the imagination works up its crude materials into images that are distorted by prejudice ; the classi- fying faculty forms, spontaneously, defective classes of things imperfectly analyzed ; the affirmations of judg- ment on the relations of ill-formed classes, are feeble and fallible; and, finally, the efforts of reasoning by the com- parison of such judgments, result in mere conjectures that elicit truth only by accident. The knowledge which the possessor of such an intellect has gathered and holds in memory, is composed of narrow ideas that are con- fused and ill-formed, ideas that do not represent any but the simplest realities around him. In truth, his realities are in general either suspicions or the bare notions of individual things that make no appeal to his imagination. 1 ' A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose is to him And it is nothing more." The educated mind, on the other hand, is one whose perceptive power is rapid, accurate, and exhaustive; whose memory gathers, holds, and restores all things worthy of remembrance that the hand has touched, the eye seen, or the ear heard ; whose conceptive faculty dis- plays, vividly and in distinct outlines, each of the many concepts which memory supplies ; whose analytic scru- tiny, revealing every element his concepts contain, and the abstraction that follows with its wide ideas, minister abundantly to an imagination that uniformly produces images worthy of approval by a cultured taste. With copious and well digested materials for classification, the class-ideas of the educated mind are wide, accurate, and 96 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. complete, thus forming a basis for the infallible judg- ment and reasoning that follow and contribute con- stantly to the stores of minute and varied knowledge already gathered. Perhaps the one fundamental dis- tinction between the cultured and the ignorant, is that the faculties and feelings of the latter are under the con- trol of spontaneous impulse, while the former exercises a disciplined will that holds every passion under whole- some restraint and impels every faculty to effective effort. — The Means of Education. — The means of education in- clude all the objects and influences around us that elicit systematic and strenuous efforts of the will, whether in habitual self-denial, as in moral education; or in im- pelling each faculty to the scrutiny of its object, as in intellectual education. The Environment. — Our environment comprises the things and events that permanently surround us and come within the range of our personal observation and experience. It embraces the innumerable objects that appeal to the senses and demand attention. It includes all the products of nature and art within our reach ; all the branches of study we are led to pursue ; all the in- fluences, parental, social, moral, religious, that con- tinually affect us. In short, the environment is the sum total of the forces, material or spiritual, that constantly play upon us and incite our faculties to spontaneous activity. Stimulation. — But of the vast multitude of objects in his environment, that move the senses of the child, by far the larger portion excite only feeble and flitting EDUCATION AND ITS ATTAINMENT. 97 spontaneities, while a comparatively limited number stimulate curiosity and awaken those more intense and lasting spontaneities that induce the repeated and vigor- ous efforts resulting finally in discipline. Such objects, arranged in an order wherein the simple gradually ap- proaches the complex, the concrete reaches the abstract by successive steps, the particular becomes the general through regular progression, constitute the means of intellectual education as guided by the teacher, especi- ally in the early training of the child. Selection and Arrangement of Objects, the Teacher's Province. — It is the duty of the teacher to select and arrange the proper objects for study, the rudiments of science and art which fulfill the conditions that make them effective as a means of early discipline. Even if this work be done by one in higher authority, the actual teacher of the child should know minutely and fully the reasons both for the materials chosen and for their har- monious adjustment to the successive operations which constitute the processes of mind-growth. For no in- structor is capable of conducting skilfully the minor steps in mind-training, who does not comprehend com- pletely the principles on which they rest. Reiteration of Efforts Essential to Education. — It is difficult to overstate the pressing necessity, especially in primary training, of repeating every disciplinary effort until it becomes rapid and facile. Any single act of at- tention, even though it be persistent and successful, does not perceptibly invigorate the faculty that puts it forth. It is only by reiterating, with systematic pre- cision, the educating processes from day to day and f 98 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. month to month, that the faculties they exercise attain infallible accuracy and the swiftness that outstrips con- scious effort. Scan the ideas over which your minds have gained the most perfect mastery, — ideas that, w T hen recalled, dupli- cate, with greatest exactness, their outside original. Are they not the concepts of faces that the eye has dwelt upon most frequently ? of scenes that are familarized by daily and hourly experience? of voices to which you have listened from infancy? It is by adopting and syste- matizing nature's method of reiteration, that we reach expertness in any intellectual operation, whether simple or complex. The facility of the numerical additions we make, our complete mastery of the multiplication table, and especially the ease with which, in reading, we in- stantly catch and pronounce the complex words of a sentence, are all the products of countless reiterations. Two Conditions in Reiteration. — Now in order to give the practice of reiteration its utmost effectiveness, the teacher must comply with two conditions : (1) He must see to it that, in the first instance, the pupil goes through with perfect accuracy the steps of the process to be repeated. (2) He must require that the pupil make exact re- petitions of this process so frequently as to hasten the attainment of automatic swiftness therein. When so applied as to fulfill the above conditions, re- iteration reaches, in the child's mind, results that are well-nigh marvelous. The writer has known classes of boys and girls from five to six years old, to attain, in numerical processes, a degree of accuracy and expert- EDUCATION AND ITS ATTAINMENT. 99 ness which are equalled by few adults. Is it not worth while then to ponder on the question, whether this principle which nature inaugurates, could not be made far more fruitful of valuable results, in early mind-train- ing than heretofore ? Especially in primary education, are not the clearness and completeness of the ideas gained, of far greater moment than their mere number ? Imitation. — In the earliest stages of mind-growth, nothing is more noticeable than the power of imitation. Not having reached as yet a knowledge of the nature of things, the child simply imitates the actions and move- ments of those around him. In many children, the tendency to copy the voices and gestures of others, amounts to mimicry. Now this instinctive imitation of whatever the child sees and hears, is nature's method of primary instruction. It is the initial process in the de- velopment of mind. By imitation, the little one utters its first small words ; makes its first modulations of voice ; sings its first simple song ; puts forth its first endeavor at counting, etc. The primary teacher systematizes this natural method, and makes it the means by which the pupil learns his early formal lessons in drawing, singing, reading, writ- ing, and spelling. But in proportion as the under- standing of the child is developed, imitation, as a factor in mind-growth, is superseded by mental efforts that are prompted by a knowledge of "the reasons of things." The point to be urged here is that the teacher should so combine the processes of imitation and reiteration that the pupil may thoroughly conquer every step in the lessons he learns, before he proceeds to the next one. IOO TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. adapter XX* TRAINING OF THE SENSES. General Principles. — Thus equipped with a knowledge of the means and ends of education in general, let us now inquire, with more minuteness, into the means we have of training each intellectual faculty, until, from being wholly spontaneous in the outset, it attains the accuracy and facility of effective action. Let us recall to mind just here the maxims in education which are to be our guides, namely: (1) that every faculty must be trained in the order of its growth; (2) that every faculty must be trained by persistent and repeated exercise upon its own peculiar objects ; (3) that such objects must be selected as will stimulate attention and promote growth; (4) that the objects selected must be so arranged as to advance, by degrees, from the simple to the complex, from concrete to abstract, from the individual to the class in which it belongs. The Animal Senses. — The animal senses, taste, smell, and sensitive touch, do not, as we have already said, require any formal training by the helps of the teacher. Since they are spontaneous feelings, rather than con- scious acts of mind, they cannot be disciplined by exer- cise. As bodily states, their proper use in fulfilling the purposes they subserve belongs to the department of TRAINING OF THE SENSES. IOI physical education. Having no need of the training which the active faculties require, they should be kept under judicious guidance and wholesome restraint at home. Perceptive Touch; Trained by What Means? — From early infancy, the child shows a constant desire to grasp and handle the things within its reach. Nature prompts this first bringing of the tiny fingers into contact with resisting solids. While continuing these lessons which nature has begun, the teacher's purpose is to systematize and im- prove them. This he is enabled to do, by selecting from her unlimited stores such solids as will be most definite and attractive. Solids of convenient size, and regular in form, will answer the purpose in hand. All the va- rieties of geometrical figures, represented by wooden blocks, are available for these early lessons. Of course, the period of child-life occupied by such elementary exercises is antecedent to the more formal lessons given in the primary school. It is in fact the play-period wherein the spontaneities of the little one are elicited by the presence of simple regular forms, and bright colors, and melodious sounds. Nature, equipped by man's help with novelties most fascinating to the dawn- ing intellect, is the actual teacher. It is nature alone that prompts^the actions that respond to the solicitations of suitable objects. In this interval, which, according to Froebel, extends from three to six years of age, no attempt is made to stim- ulate or direct any formal efforts of the will. The sole purpose of the play-school or Kindergarten is to educate 102 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. and develop by exercise the instinctive spontaneities that, in early childhood, precede and finally call forth per- sistent efforts of attention. But I cannot do better for my readers than to insert here Joseph Payne's description of the Play School es- tablished by Froebel, in Blankenberg, Germany. First, however, let us emphasize the fact that there is no such thing as the solitary action of a faculty. Objects which appeal, for instance, to the sense of touch, result in the percept of an external solid, which at once-incites to action, memory, conception, and analysis. Then, fur- ther, any concrete thing which presents resistance to touch, presents also colors to the eye, and, not unfre- quently, sounds to the ear; all of which are elements of the percept that follows. Every object which the child inspects is a combination of tangible and visible qual- ities, and, therefore, in the formal exercises for training the senses, the eye and the hand are engaged together. This simultaneous action of the two senses is provided for in equipment of the Kindergarten in the initiatory stage referred to. "Then comes the first Gift. It consists of six soft woollen balls of six different colors, three primary and three secondary. One of these is recognized as like, the others as unlike, the ball first known. The laws of similarity and discrimination are called into action ; sensation and perception grow clearer and stronger. I cannot particularize the numberless exercises that are to be got out of the various combinations of these six balls. u - The second Gift consists of a sphere, cube, and TRAINING OF THE SENSES. 103 cylinder, made of hard wood. What was a ball before is now called a sphere. The different material gives rise to new experiences; a sensation, that of hard- ness, for instance, takes the place of softness ; while varieties of form suggest resemblance and contrast. Similar experiences of likeness and unlikeness are sug- gested by the behavior of these different objects. The easy rolling of the sphere, the sliding of the cube, the rolling as well as the sliding of the cylinder, illustrate this point. Then the examination of the cube, es- pecially its surfaces, edges, and angles, which any child can observe for himself, suggests new sensations, and their resulting perceptions. At the same time, notions of space, form, motion, relatively in general, take their place in mind, as the unshaped blocks which, when fitly compacted together, will lay the firm foundation of the understanding. These elementary notions, as the very groundwork of mathematics, will be seen to have their use as time goes on. " The third Gift is a large cube, making a whole which is divisible into eight small ones. The form is recog- nized as that of the cubes before seen ; the size is dif- ferent. But the new experiences consist in notions of relativity — of the whole in its relation to the parts, of the parts in their relation to the whole ; and thus the child acquires the notion and the names, and both in immediate connection with the sensible objects, of halves, quarters, eighths, and of how many of the small divisions make one of the larger. But in con- nection with the third Gift, a new faculty is called forth — Imagination — and with it the instinct of con- 104 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. struction is awakened. The cubes are mentally trans- formed into blocks, and with them, building commences. The constructive faculty suggests imitation, but rests not in imitation ; it invents, it creates. Those eight cubes, placed in a certain relation to each other, make a long seat, or a seat with a back, or a throne for the Queen; or again, a cross, a doorway, etc. Thus does every play exhibit the characteristics of art, and ' con- forms (to use Bacon's words) the outward show of things to the desires of the mind; ' and thus the child, as I said before, not merely imitates, but creates. And here, I may remark, that the mind of the child is far less inter- ested in that which another mind has embodied in ready prepared forms, than in the forms which he con- ceives, and gives outward expression to, himself. He wants to employ his own mind upon the object, and does not thank you for attempting to deprive him of his rights. " The fourth, fifth, and sixth Gifts consist of cubes variously divided into solid parallelopipeds, or brick- shaped forms, and into smaller cubes and prisms. Ob- servation is called on with increasing strictness, rela- tivity appreciated, and the opportunity afforded for endless manifestations of constructiveness. And all the time impressions are forming in the mind, which, in due time, will bear geometrical fruits, and fruits too of aesthetic culture. The dawning sense of the beautiful, as well as of the true, is beginning to gain consistency and power." The Primary School Period. — The Formal Training of Sight and Touch in Concert. We now enter upon the TRAINING OF THE SENSES. 105 period iu mind-growth, when the senses of touch and sight should be trained, gradually and discreetly, to ef- forts of exclusive attention. Hitherto, we have depend- ed solely upon the inherent attractiveness of the objects furnished as stimulants to spontaneous action. It is now the province of the teacher to present such objects and employ such methods as will add to the spontaneity the element of will-force; in other words, shall trans- form each spontaneity into an act of attention. Identical Exercises for Manual and Visual Training. — The hand, as we know well, is trained by systematic contact, involving resistance to motion. It is the min- ute variations of this contact in the effort of construct- ing different forms, that, through countless repetitions, finally result in manual skill and expertness. The eye, as we are also aware, is trained by scrutinizing, in count- less efforts, the endless diversities of color and the forms they indicate. In manual practice, the hand and the eye are engaged together, the one to make, the other to guide, every muscular motion. Primary Drawing. — The simplest lessons in drawing answer fully the conditions required in objects which are employed, at this initiatory stage, to drill the eye and the hand. (1) The figures in drawing can be so arranged as to begin with the simplest, and advance gradually, and with many repetitions, toward the more complex. (2) Elementary drawing furnishes the conditions in which imitation, stimulation, and reiteration have free and full play. (3) In the practice of drawing, every motion of the 106 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. hand and the eye is, of necessity, directed by the will; and thus it affords an effective stimulant to early at- tention. (4) The' ideas gained from the different figures copied in elementary drawing, are simple, definite, and distinct; and, therefore, most suitable for the primary training of memory and the power of conception. It also tends to give precision to the earlier pictures of incipient imagination. Arrangement of Progressive Lessons. — Several series of progressive lessons proposed by various experts, ful- fill more or less hapily the conditions suitable for the tyro. The following is suggested as presenting a suc- cession of regular figures which precede and lead to the more complex forms that nature supplies for models in drawing. Children may engage, for their first lessons, in the drawing of parallel lines, straight and curved, imitating with pencils the copies made by the teacher. These may be followed, after much repetition, by practice in drawing parallel angles lying in the same perpendicular or the same the horizontal line. Next in the series is the simplest regular plane figure, namely, the triangle. Triangles, again, may be so adjusted in the series^that^the simplest, namely, the equiangular triangle, shall furnish the first model in the drawing of plane figures, and be followed by the right-angled triangle which, in its turn, is succeeded by the right-angled isosceles triangle. Next follow in a uniform sequence, in which the sim- pler precedes the more complex, the entire list of plane figures arranged in the order of increase in the number TRAINING OF THE SENSES. 107 of their sides. This order comprises the square, the parallelogram, the pentagon, the hexagon, the heptagon, the octagon, and finally the circle; each of which may be made, in its turn, the model for the most careful and thorough practice. A caution may be given at the beginning of these rudimentary exercises for manual and visual training. Success lies, not in rapid advancement from lesson to lesson, but in the accuracy and facility attained by the pupil in the drawing of each figure. Drawing the Alphabet. — The capital letters of the alphabet may happily supply the next series of objects suitable for the further training of the hand and the eye. Up to this point, the straight lines have preced- ed the curves, and the circle has completed the series of regular figures. The capitals comprise straight lines, perpendicular, horizontal, and oblique; curves in com- bination with straight lines; and curves by themselves. The arrangement of the capitals then may proceed, as in previous lessons, from the simple to the more com- plex, beginning with I and L, and closing with and Q. The names of the characters may be given and pro- nounced incidentally, as in the previous lessons in draw- ing the plane figures. These exercises in drawing the alphabet should not in the least interfere with the " word method " in learn- ing to read, but be made auxiliary to it. For along with the elementary drawing proposed for the training of the hand and the eye, should go lessons for training in concert the eye and the ear. And in all the exercises for the early education of the senses, it should never for 108 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. a moment be forgotten that two inseparable results uni- formly follow exactness and repetition in practice; name- ly, distinct ideas and the effective training of the fac- ulty exercised. The Ear: Its Primary Training. — I am sure of the hearty endorsement of experienced teachers, when I say that in the initial exercises of the primary school, there should be no abrupt transition from the methods of the Kindergarten or the home school. There ought, rather, to be a gradual and cautious merging of the play- method into the work-method, which requires discrimi- nating efforts. All the imperfect spontaneous habits which the child brings from the home or the play-school, ought still to be corrected by play-school methods. For instance, any defective articulation by the pupil, of particular words, may be cured by imitating their cor- rect utterance by the teacher. Indeed, imitation by the pupil, of the vocal sounds, whether musical or sig- nificant, will be, in the beginning, the main agency by which the ear of the child is systematically trained. Child Singing. — From the earliest act of perceiving external sounds, the infant ear is attracted by vocal melodies; and the lullabies owe their influence to this fact in child nature. Music soothes the restlessnes of the little one, excites his interest and awakens his sym- pathies. How natural that it should be used as one of the incipient means of training his ear. Songs whose melody and verse are so simple as to be easily appre- ciated by the class, should be selected for these primary sound-lessons. Such songs should be practiced and learned solely by imitating the teacher, both in repeat- TRAINING OF THE SENSES. IO9 ing the words, and in singing them when committed to memory. It is remarkable how easily the average child commits and recalls connectedly the lines of a simple ditty which presents to his ear the attraction of words arranged for metrical effect. The writer could not have reached his fourth year when he learned from his mother's lips, and has not yet forgotten, the following from Mother Goose. " Bean porridge hot ; Bean porridge cold ; Bean porridge in the pot, Nine days old. " This facility in learning and repeating verses, which is due to their simple melody, is a contribution of na- ture to the means we have for the incipient training of the ear and the tongue. Learning first the words and then the tune, by imitating their vocalization, great care should be taken that the pupils pronounce every word with distinctness and strike every note with precision. In this way, a class of twenty or thirty little people may be taught to sing children's songs in concert, and the practice in singing be employed, not only for drilling the tongue and ear, but as a relief from other exercises which are less attractive. Phonic Drill as a Correction of Actual Defects in Vocal Utterance. — In commending the early practice of phonic drill, I must not be understood as advocating its adoption as a means of learning to read. Reading is the perception of the whole printed word as recalling the concept with which it is associated. More com- pletely defined, reading is the perception of an entire HO TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. printed sentence as recalling or suggesting an associated judgment or thought. Talking is likewise the knowl- edge and utterance of the spoken word and sentence, as wholes, to express the associated idea or thought. Why should not the child learn the wholes as expressed by characters, in the same manner as he has already suc- cessfully learned the whole as expressed by sounds?* Consequently, in the early lessons, reading will best be taught by presenting to the eye of the learner the visi- ble words which represent the audible words^already known? Of course innumerable reiterations are required, especially in the early steps. But vocal reading adds another element to the process of learning to read. It includes not only the gaining of the thought by the reader from the printed sentence, but the conveying of the thought to others by the vocal utterance of it. This use of the voice in reading, puts the necessity of previous vocal drill beyond all question. It is not, to say the least, desirable that the little pupil should en- counter the formidable difficulties of actual reading, while there are elementary sounds which, in talking, he still habitually fails to make. In the most serious un- dertaking of his life as yet, we should not crowd too many obstacles on him at once. If any teacher has been so fortunate as to find, on organizing her classes for elementary reading, that they are generally free from habits of defective articulation in talking, her experi- ence has been different from mine. Phonic Drill for Primary Classes consists in articulat- * See Parker's Talks on Reading— Appendix. TRAINING OF THE SENSES. Ill ing distinctly, in imitation of the teacher, the separate articulate sounds which combine to form our spoken words. These comprise, as you well know, forty ele- mentary vowel and consonant sounds, which may serve as a series of simple vocal gymnastics, to run parallel with the exercises in drawing geometrical figures. Tor this purpose the vocal elements may be divided into four groups, namely; the vowels, the labials, the Un- guals, and the palatals. Each group should be vocal- ized in turn under the teacher's lead, until every pupil can produce its sounds with unaided precision. Such vocal exercises should be short ; but, if conducted with exactness, they will result in forming the habit of dis- tinct utterance, which is the fundamental requisite in oral language. Especially in reading, to be taught subse- quently, is distinct articulation essential at the outset. Many persons, whose early faults in this line were neg- lected, have carried through life the habits of defective articulation. Manifestly, the vocal training that results from these exercises, will also have its effect in giving delicacy to the ear. Primary Counting. — Beginning with the lessons in drawing and the vocal drill, practice in counting with the eye and the hand may occupy a daily moderate por- tion of the pupil's time. For this exercise, a large frame may be suspended against the wall, say 2 x 3 ft., hung with wire, on which are strung wooden buttons or balls which one of the pupils can move with a pointer, while the others of the class count in concert. No ex- planation of the properties of numbers should go along with this primitive method, out of which the human 112 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. race finally developed the science of arithmetic. All at- tempts to expand the principles of the science should be postponed to a later period. Meantime, the counting of the balls or buttons, which proceeds'with many repeti- tions of each process, should gradually advance from one perfected step to another of slightly increased com- plexity, until all the available operations in concrete numbers are completely mastered. Thus, counting by units may be followed with counting by twos, as 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.; then by threes, by fours, by fives,~etc. ; till great precision and rapidity is reached by the class. Practice may follow in irregular additions wherein the teacher calls the number to be added ; the boy with the pointer moves the corresponding balls, and the class name in concert the resulting sum. Let the corresponding practice of the processes of subtraction, multiplication, and division, so far as they can be carried conveniently with concrete symbols, suc- ceed at judicious intervals. Thus we have, in the aggregate, a series of exercises in concrete numbers which, if thoroughly mastered, will lay the foundation for proficiency in abstract arith- metic, to which they lead. We can not too frequently urge that the pupils engaged in these efforts of con- crete reckoning should enter upon no new step in the series, until they have attained expertness in the steps that precede it; and that, in all cases, they should be encouraged to carry through each operation without help, as soon as the method is pointed out to them. The Faculties Exercised in Concrete Reckoning. — These concrete lessons which precede the study of ab- TRAINING OF THE SENSES. 113 stract arithmetic, and which may occupy several months after primary reading is begun, call several faculties into salutary action. (1) They are not without effect in lending quickness and precision to the eye and tongue. (2) They supply concepts of things as units and groups of units which, by their complete resemblance to each other, constitute the best materials for early classi- fication. (3) The earliest operation of analysis easily centres upon the characteristic of unity or individuality so ob- vious in the concepts gained from concrete reckoning, and thus incites to spontaneous acts of abstraction. (4) Finally, definite notions of abstract numbers are the sure products of systematic and successful drill in the concrete operations described above. 114 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. READING, WRITING, SPELLING. The Eye, Ear, Tongue, and Hand trained in Primary Reading. — Recall the fact that our final lessons in draw- ing the capitals, and a simple phonic drill, closed the series of exercises preparatory . to reading^ The ele- mentary drawing lessons have given a degree of steadi- ness and precision to the hand of the pupil, and lent to his eye some power to discriminate the outlines of figures. The phonic articulations, taken from the lips of the teacher, have unconsciously cured the defects and increased the distinctness of his spoken words. His ear has likewise improved in the line of detecting the dis- tinctions of vocal sounds. Hand, eye, tongue, and ear have been engaged in a series of elementary operations that demand and develop acts of prolonged attention. Could there be devised any better preparation for the serious difficulties to be grappled with in learning to read, write, and spell ? Is it not marvellous that, for so many centuries, little children were compelled, on their first entrance into school, to face objects that were naturally distasteful, without previous training? The most effective method of learning to read is based on strict psychological reasons. The child has learned to talk, by associating with the things he has seen and handled particular oral sounds, which he has succeeded in pronouncing by dint of innumerable repe- READING, WRITING, SPELLING. 115 titions. His entire stock of knowledge in language con- sists of spoken words as wholes associated in memory with objects to which his senses were directed. He is already initiated into nature's process of learning to talk ; let him simply continue this process in learning to read. Nature's Method applied in Learning to Read. — If the child learns to talk and afterwards to read by the same natural method, he certainly has advantages in begin- ning to read, which he lacked in beginning to talk. For in beginning to talk, the organs he used, were wholly without antecedent training. But in beginning to read, the organs exercised have the benefit of previous drill. Moreover, talking or using spoken words is based on a single association, that of "sign and thing signified ;" while reading, or using the written or printed words as means of expression, is based on two associations, namely, the association of written word with the spoken word and also with the thing signified. Of course, the gaining of a new idea by means of two associations, is easier than by means of one. We would infer, then, that reading would progress much more rapidly than talking; and so it generally does. But the early lessons in read- ing lack, for the most part, a single incitement which was previously present in talking. For in talking, the spontaneous naming of the thing is stimulated by its presence ; whereas, in reading, such stimulation is gen- erally wanting. Reading with th« Objects Present. — The wisest course, then, is to supply the initiatory lessons in reading with the same incitement under which the spoken words were Il6 TALKS OX PSYCHOLOGY. learned. Accordingly, the first hundred selected for incipient reading should embrace the most familiar monosyllabic names of things related to each other in the child's daily experience. These things should all be placed before the eyes of the class in the lessons that fol- low. As the introductory lesson, the word Hat, for in- stance, may be written in plain script on the board, and pointing to the thing itself, the teacher may invite the pupils to inspect and pronounce its written name. As aids in so doing, they have before them bothThe familiar object and its equally familiar spoken name. A few reiterations of sight and sound will make the written name almost equally familiar. First Reading and Writing Combined. — The class may now write the word Hat, copying carefully with their pencils the form on the board. This first lesson in writing will be no violent transition from their last les- sons in drawing. They have already sketched the initial character, H, and the remaining characters are simple enough. Let them now write repeatedly, and pro- nounce in concert, the word they have written. The result is, they have themselves formed the new word ; they have, of necessity, inspected it carefully; they have associated it with the spoken word and, inevitably, with the thing it designates. What more simple or natural method can be devised for the introduction of ele- mentary reading ? The little people have the stimulus of making for themselves, and using, a novel contrivance for naming a well-known thing, which, being before them, duplicates nature's process by which they have learned to talk. READING, WRITING, SPELLING. II 7 Twenty or thirty words, short and simple, and desig- nating present objects, may next be copied successfully from the teacher's script, pronounced, and committed to memory with many reiterations of pencil and tongue. Eemember that here as elsewhere, but especially here, " Haste makes Waste," and that the condition of final success demands the complete mastery of every step before taking the next one. The errors which prevail in the district school, consist, as I think, not so much in the choice of wrong methods, as in the slovenly applica- tion of right methods. First Reading of the Sentence. — With a stock of writ- ten words retained distinctly in memory, and flowing easily from the pencil's point, our lively youngsters will now make successfully their first efforts in reading and writing the simplest sentences. These initiatory sen- tences ought to express the relations to each other, of the familiar objects whose written names the class have already learned. Thus they have made and committed the written names hat and hook. They may now be in- cited to read with the least help possible and then copy the sentence, The hat is on the hook. The acts of carefully copying and distinctly reading the rudimentary lesson in hand, may be repeated until they produce the most perfect facility of pencil and tongue. Then the article a may be substituted for the, first before hat and afterwards before hook; and, as the daily lessons in writing and reading progress, the sen- tence may be gradually transformed by such successive substitutions, as will recall for practice most of the written words already familiar. Finally, when the pupils Il8 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. are able to write with facility, and read without hesita- tion, thirty or forty such rudimentary sentences, they may enter with the right antecedent training upon the reading of printed sentences in the primary reader. Formal Practice in Writing. — Meanwhile, the formal exercises in drawing the capital letters have been suc- ceeded by equally formal practice in forming, with the pencil, the script letters, small and great. Along with the copying of written words as wholes in the elementary reading, has gone, under the guidance of the teacher, the more precise copying, one by one, of the characters arranged for beginners in an approved system of penmanship. The practice in forming and naming the separate letters, and the practice in writing and reading words as wholes, should continue as parallel lessons ; w T hile the reading of print progresses until the two are merged into one in the systematic exercise called spelling. Spelling Learned by Writing. — The spoken word is addressed to the ear, the written word to the eye. The memory of a spoken word is, therefore, the concept of an articulate sound ; the memory of a written word is the concept of a visible form. The written word is com- posed of elements, each of which is addressed to the eye, and furnishes to memory also the concept of a visible from. The written word, as a whole, has been learned by repeatedly writing, scrutinizing, and pronouncing it. What is more natural than to employ the same method in learning the elements it contains ? The order of mental action, as expended on the READING, WRITING, SPELLING. U9 orange, was first to gain a percept of its form as a whole; next to examine, one by one, the parts that together composed the whole. First the whole, and then the parts, is the order of nature in acquiring knowledge of whatever sort. The pupil has had special preparation for pursuing this order in the spelling of written words. He has formed with the pencil, pronounced, and committed to memory, an adequate number of such words. He has acquired in formal writing a complete knowledge of the separate forms and names of the script letters that com- pose these words. He may now begin, under the teach- er's guidance, simply to note and to name each letter as he forms it in the act of writing words. Spelling follows the same Series as Reading. — In this new exercise, let him commence again and follow through in the same order, the series of short, well known words which he traversed in learning to read This series is so arranged that like groups of two or three letters occur in the consecutive words that com- pose it, and give occasion for the reiteration which is so essential to thoroughness. The exercise which now unites in one the two acts of writing and spelling the word, should follow the lessons in reading, from which examples should be selected for daily practice. And let this practice, with minute attention to subordinate parts, be continued in a series that rises gradually from the monosyllable to the longest polysyllable, until the pupil can write from memory any word that he knows, and has acquired the fixed habit of noticing and remem- 120 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. bering the letters that combine to form every word he sees. After two or three years of the daily training described, his writing and his spelling become the inde- pendent means of expressing his thoughts, and he needs no more formal practice in the one or the other. The old method of tongue spelling which consists in naming successively the letters and then pronouncing the written word they form, is more of a hindrance than a help in pursuing the plan of teaching proposed. To say, for example, doubleyew, aitch, double e,el spell " WJieel" is one of the absurdities which the school master of the past has bequeathed to us. The learner may, however, by continuing the phonic drill be easily taught to analyze the spoken word into its phonetic ele- ments, as a help to distinct utterance in elocution. But vocal analysis, as addressed to the ear, has little connection with the processes of spelling by letters which are addressed to the eye. But why should I give any further details in the natural method of teaching the rudiments of reading, writing, and spelling ? Are they not written out minutely in a score of books, most of which are excellent, especially " Parker's Talks" to which I have already referred ? What Faculties are Effectually Trained by the Nat- ural Methods of Learning to Read, to Write, and to Spell? Elementary Beading conducted according to the system described, calls into simultaneous exertion sev- eral intellectual powers. (1.) The eye scrutinizes in- tently the form of the word as a whole; (2.) the hand as directed by the eye, is persistently engaged in copying it; (3.) the tongue utters the spoken word it repre- READING, WRITING, SPELLING. 121 sents; to which, in turn, the ear gives earnest heed. Eye, hand, tongue, and ear are all employed in the strenuous effort of attention. The percept of the written word that results, is the product of sight, outlined by touch, and associated with the percept of the spoken word gained through hearing. It is, therefore, associated all the more closely with the thing which both the written and the spoken word designate. It consequently sup- plies a concept for memory that contains in complete- ness all the elements gained from the different sources I have named. The concept of the written word then, acquired through the strenuous action of all the intel- lectual senses, answers fully a condition for training the memory. Memory can be trained only by the number of clear and complete concepts it receives through the strenuous action of the faculties. Elementary reading on the plan proposed, also in- cludes the frequent and numerous reiterations which is another indispensable condition to unfading distinct- ness in memory. See " Principles in the Training of Memory," page 34. It is clearly manifest that the lucid and complete con- cepts that train the memory in elementary reading, fur- nish in abundance the genuine materials for the opera- tion of faculties subsequent in the series. Especially do these concepts, when recalled from memory, stimu- late to definite action the faculties of conception and analysis. See " Memory and Conception Depend on Sense Perception" page 38. Early Exercise in Writing commenced and carried on as suggested, evidently requires persistent and sustained 122 TALKS 0A T PSYCHOLOGY. efforts of the hand and the eye. The concepts gained therefrom, are, as we have seen, mainly identical with those of reading; which are, in this way, intensified and made tenacious in memory. No early training of the hand, the eye, the memory, and the conceptive power, is more effective than that which results from the inces- sant use of the pen. It gives precision to touch and sight; fixes indelibly in the memory the script form, and consequently the idea which the form expresses; and supplies for conception and the faculties that fol- low, the clearest concepts as the objects on which they centre. Copying, slowly and clumsily in its commence- ment, the simplest script words and fastening them in memory; it finally, by assiduous practice, reaches spon- taneous facility and swiftness as an instrument of ex- pression. Disciplinary Effect of Primary Spelling. — Spelling as taught primarily by writing, scrutinizing, and naming one by one, the letters which compose a written word, is, in its disciplinary effect, an important addition to the elements that render a concept full, vivid, and tena- cious. As furnishing a great variety of accurate sight- concepts, it demands a constant repetition of minute acts of attention which give precision and exactness to sight, memory, conception, and analysis. Especially does it call the power of analysis into more systematic and lively exercise than either reading or writing has afforded. Beginning laboriously with making, noting, and naming the single letters of a monosyllable, which fade instantly from memory and are restored by count- less repetitions, it finally confers, by incessant practice, READING, WRITING, SPELLING, 1 23 such range and accuracy of knowledge that the memory of a cultured mind gathers and retains about fifty thou- sand printed words, as so many groups of letters, each of which is a distinct concept. I hardly need say that spelling increases the associations of "sign and thing signified" by adding thereto the subtle association of "whole and parts." 124 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY, Chapter »¥♦ COMPOSITION. ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR. AB- STRACT ARITHMETIC. WHAT FACULTIES DO THEY STIMULA TE AND TRAIN ? Composition is the Act of Expressing Thought by means of written words. It consists simply in substi- tuting the pen or pencil for the tongue, in the use of language. It requires, as an antecedent [preparation, some knowledge of spelling, and such practice in writ- ing as enables the child to write legible words recalled from memory and used to express thought. Elemen- tary composition combines reading, writing, and spell- ing in a single exercise, and employs them to express the simple judgments which the child's mind naturally makes. It is the practical application of the pupil's attainments thus far, to the purpose of expressing thought. Early composition then, as an exercise, sup- plies the child's first lessons in thinking ; and writing, spelling, and reading are the means of communicating thought. The Place of Early Composition in the Series. — Of course, the initial lessons in composition must not super- sede the exercises in reading, writing, and spelling as described in chapter three. Reading should be contin- ued by itself as a daily lesson, until the learner can read COMPOSITION. ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR. 1 25 with facility, distinctness, and natural inflections of voice, any passage at sight. Writing-lessons, as such, should end only with the attainment of a good hand, with the habit of mechanical correctness, and with dex- terity in the use of the pen as an instrument of expres- sion. Spelling, as a special exercise, should be kept up until the writer has formed the habit of spontaneously noting and recalling from memory the letters that com- pose a written word, as distinctly as the form of the word itself. Composition, however, may profitably be commenced when reading, writing, and spelling have progressed so far as to enable the learner to write, independently of copies, the w r ords which he constantly speaks. Because of the varying circumstances in different localities, the precise time cannot be fixed upon; but children in school, under ordinary conditions, ought, as seems to me, to begin composition before they are eight years old. The exercise throughout, whether elementary or ad- vanced, tends to promote the habit of consecutive think- ing, and to vivify and familiarize the ideas and the vo- cabulary which other studies are constantly increasing. Exercises in Composition : How arranged. — The lessons in composition must be so arranged as to accord with the order of mind-growth. In other words, they must begin with the simple, and advance step by step, towards the complex. They may open with the simplest description in short sentences of things present, which the juvenile writer sees, hears, and handles. They may, in fact, con- sist in object lessons written out in detail by the pupil under the judicious prompting or questioning of the 126 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. teacher. The teacher displaying, for example, an orange, asks, "What is the shape of this orange ?" The class write, each with a pencil, " The orange is round/' The teacher asks, " What covers the orange ?" The class respond in script, " The skin covers the orange." Sim- ilar questions may follow, which elicit written answers that affirm in simple, separate judgments all the obvious parts and properties of the orange. The orange is soft. The orange is yellow. The orange contains pulp. The orange contains seeds. The orange is good to eat. Other objects within range of the senses may be anal- yzed and described with similar minutness and simplic- ity of written statement, and the class may finally close this series of rudimentary papers on things at hand, with good-natured descriptions of each other's persons or faces or conduct. The next list of topics, in which the writers express in brief sentences the thoughts which their present ob- servations suggest, may embrace the events that occur around them. Composition-writing is now one of the regular class exercises, occupying its stated time, and always under the direction of the teacher. The child may describe, in short sentences, what he sees others do- ing. In an ordinary school-room, there will be no lack of incidents which are of perpetual interest to such ob- servers. Actions and movements and sounds that are ordinarily obstacles to study, may now be made the ob- jects of ^special attention in order to facilitate their natu- ral expression in script. The teacher may go through a performance in pantomime, asking the class to note down each gesture, posture, expression of face, etc. In COMPOSITION. ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR. \2J this way , the pencil becomes the facile instrument in communicating the ideas which the senses are gathering from the objects and events within their range. Of the time occupied by these lessons, which strengthen the habit of close observation and careful expression, the teacher must be the judge. With her sympathetic help, there will be no lack of interest in them on the part of the writers. Such lessons should, at any rate, be con- tinued until the class has gained the power of expressing its thoughts on things at hand, with facility and without special assistance. The next step is an obvious one. Compositions that train the Memory. — The young writers are ready to engage in an exercise that will re- quire them to express in script, ideas recalled from the immediate past. The act of writing composition will now necessitate two kinds of preparatory efforts. One is the careful observation that gathers ideas and thoughts from the outside things ; the other is the act of atten- tion, which recalls from memory these ideas and thoughts for the purpose of expressing them in written sen- tences. Observation and Memory. — The class may now be urged to examine, during the intervals of school-work, some object of natural interest outside. Particular trees, brooks, horses, cats, and dogs will supply suit- able topics for the first ten or twelve elementary papers of this sort. The teacher may, in her discretion, furnish beforehand, for the first two or three compositions, a series of questions which suggest the parts and proper- ties to be noted in the object under inspection. But they may soon be left to their own observations in gath- 128 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. ering facts for the interesting descriptions they are sure to write at this period. The objects described should increase in complexity, step by step. These compositions on things absent are naturally fol- lowed by compositions on the incidents and events the writers have personally witnessed. Such topics will lend to the writing the incitement of actual experience, and revive with distinctness the thoughts derived there- from. Conducted in the order and method suggested for the previous series, they will fitly introduce the writing of simple narratives. Narrative. — A narrative gives an account in language, of a series of incidents or events connected together in the order of their occurrence. The simplest narrative is a short story which embraces familiar objects and the incidents that affect them. Our juvenile writers may properly begin with reproducing in script, stories heard from the teacher's or the mother's lips. Style. — As the objects and events, whether present or past, on which they have written, have increased in com- plexity of properties and relations; the simple sentences formed in the beginning, have likewise increased in com- plexity of structure. In other words, the style in com- position has been based, let us hope, upon the character of the thought which the sentences embodies. In adapting expression to thought, the subject and predicate have both been unconsciously modified by a limiting adjunct-word, phrase, or sentence, and the principal sen- tences have been joined together by connectives to show a similar relation in the facts or events they depict. Let me urge, however, that throughout their lessons, a mode COMPOSITION. ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR. 1 29 of expression be sought in all stages of progress, that is as simple as the nature of the topic will warrant. Per- haps the prevailing fault in the style of young writers to- day is excessive verbosity. Home Topics. — The wiiting of stories w T ill make severe drafts upon memory as stored by previous observation and reading. Let the writer, as soon as may be, use the materials he has gathered from his own experience. The best incentives to thought and expression at this period are the connected incidents in which the child has personal interest. Let him give an account, for instance, of a game of ball that he witnessed, or of a picnic that he attended, or of what he saw or heard at a celebration on the Fourth of July. Here, as elsewhere, let the topics chosen be such as to awaken his sympathies. For it is impossible, either for the young or the old, to write impressively except under the stimulation of interest. Rudimentary Invention. — Here, under the kindly guidance of the teacher, the pupil enters the domain of invention. The concepts gathered from the characters, actions, and sufferings of those he loves, stimulate his imagination to form new pictures of human experiences far more striking than any that his hands have touched or his eyes seen. Guide him wisely in the use of this newly-discovered power. Let him build and describe castles in the air, if he will ; but see to it that they are built in harmony with reality, beauty, and truth. Here we will take leave of our interesting young workers with the pen, knowing well that if they have followed faith- fully the path we have pointed out thus far, it will surely lead them to higher attainments in the future. I30 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. The Faculties Trained by Composition- Writing. — The faculties called into strenuous exercise by composition- writing in its different stages, have been named in- cidentally as our lessons proceeded. But, since it is our special purpose to determine the value of early studies as mental gymnastics, we will dismiss the subject with a more direct statement of the effects of this exercise on the juvenile faculties. (1.) Expression gives vividness to every concept and thought which it clothes in language. Especially is this true of thoughts expressed in script: composition conse- quently stimulates to vigorous action every faculty whose products it presents. (2.) Early composition on objects and incidents under the eyes of the writer, stimulate the senses to per- sistent action, and systematize the rudimentary efforts of analysis. (3.) Compositions that reproduce and express the ob- jects and incidents of the immediate past, evidently train the nascent memory and the senses on which it depends. The demands for careful analysis will be still more urgent. (4.) The simple narrative makes constant drafts on observation, memory, conception, and analysis. (5.) Inceptive invention restrains, directs, and syste- matizes the spontaneous products of the child's imagina- tion. (6.) Finally, composition gives readiness in the use of words learned from other sources, lends variety and facility to expression, and makes the pen its natural in- strument. COMPOSITION. EIEMENTARY GRAMMAR. I31 Abstract Arithmetic. — Recall the series of lessons in concrete numbers given as a preparation for the study of abstract arithmetic, and lasting more than a year. By exercises in counting, which gradually increase in com- plexity, our model class have attained expertness in reckoning with the numerical frame, with marbles or toy money, or with any concrete things which represent identical itnits in forms convenient for handling. The earnest teacher has led her pupils, with repetitions that resulted in readiness, through all the fundamental operations in numbers that can be easily shown on a numerical frame. The happy result is that, though knowing little of the properties of numbers, they have these numerical operations at the tongue's end, and can go through them all with spontaneous rapidity. They have also, let us hope, continued without inter- ruption parrallel lessons in drawing and writing, in which they have learned to form the different figures that stand for abstract numbers from 1 to inclusive. The multiplication table has been commenced on the numer- ical frame; let it now be completed by studying the table itself and committing it to memory with indelible exactness. The identical operations previously mastered by use of the numerical frame should now be gradually withdrawn from its help, and carried through independ- ently. As a result to which all previous practice has contributed, the pupil has attained the power of con- ceiving abstract numbers whether single or combined. But the pupil, however expert in concrete reckoning, should not be allowed to enter upon the study of ab- stract arithmetic with a leap. The thoughtful teacher 13 2 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. will give him the constant support of concrete examples, whenever they are available, in writing and reading num- bers and in the processes that follow. For, as the growth of mind is gradual, so its transitions from one kind of activity to another ought never to be made abruptly. But having introduced the tyro in numbers to abstract arithmetic, we may safely leave him on its threshold. For its text-books are excellent both in method and arrangement, and the teachers of arithmetic are confessedly among the best in the profession. Arithmetic as a Study. What Faculties Does it Ex- ercise? Abstraction. — It is clear that our concepts of pure numbers are abstracted from the concrete objects gathered in by the senses. As the elements whose re- lations are developed by the science of numbers, they are addressed primarily to the faculty of abstraction by whose action they are consciously grasped. I may add that the notions of pure numbers are among the earliest abstract ideas which the mind of the child naturally realizes. The simple operations in arithmetic may, for this reason, precede the studies of grammar and geog- raphy. Classification Incited by Pure Numbers. — But the con- cepts of pure numbers not only appeal primarily to the faculty of abstraction and elicit its strenuous efforts, but they furnish, for the classifying faculty, the materials for its first perfect w r ork. For the only perfect classes that exist are formed by the grouping together of complete identities like those of the abstract units. Further, the unit of each higher class in pure numbers, is the uni- form decimal multiple of the unit in the class below. COMPOSITION. ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR, 133 Thus in the successive classes,, units, tens, hundreds, thousands, the ten contains ten units ; the hundred, ten tens ; the thousand, ten hundreds. The denominations of Federal money are based on decimal classification and consequently constitute a perfect system of currency. Arithmetic Disciplines Chiefly the Reasoning Faculty. — The operations of arithmetic demand steady and per- sistent efforts of the reasoning faculty. The processes by which most of its problems are solved are faultless examples of deductive reasoning. The general pro- positions from which the deductions are made are either axioms or derived from axioms, and are, therefore, abso- lute certainties. All the steps from the premises to the conclusions are likewise free from possible errors, if cor- rectly taken; and the conclusion is, in such case, beyond all question. Thus the young student often finds his first examples of perfect reasoning in the pages of his arithmetic. English Grammar : Its Nature. — The science of the language we speak, must conform to the principle so often referred to as settling the place a study should hold in the order of consecutive studies. It must be rightly adjusted as a whole in the series of mental gymnastics which accord with the series of unfolding faculties, while its parts must be so arranged as to advance from the simple to a gradually increasing complexity. Grammar as a science, comprises the relations of words in the sentence which expresses the relations of thought. Its matter, therefore, partakes of the subtlety of thought itself. The study of grammar consequently employs the higher faculties exclusively, and for this I 3 4 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. reason, should be preceded by the elements of arithmetic and geography. The Preparation Required. — For the same reason, no study in the earlier course should be approached with a more careful and complete preparation. Reading, writ- ing, spelling, and especially composition have led the pupil up to the period when the actual making of the sentence is fitly joined with a careful study of the offices and relations of the words that compose it. There should, at this juncture, be no change from the sentences com- posed by himself, to the inspection of sentences composed by another. Indeed, experience has shown that the method is most successful wherein the pupil scrutinizes the office and relations of grammatical elements as he puts them together himself. Following this method, let him pro- ceed, not with the complex structures he has learned to form, but with the simple ones with which he began composition. It will be easy to bring out, by a series of simple, well-considered questions, the function of each element when joined to the word it modifies. The scholarly teacher knows how limited in number these elements are, and how great the variety of combinations they are capable of making. The nature and functions of the elements, and, further on. their names, must first be learned by the use of the simplest sentences; and then their more complicated grouping should follow in the order so often urged. A few simple examples will suffice to show what office each word or group of words performs when joined to other words. COMPOSITION. ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR. 1 35 Example. Man walked. The man walked. The lame man walked slowly. The lame man at the hospital, walked slowly to the station. The lame man at the hospital who was very weak, walked slowly to the station, where he took the cars. What word names the person who did something ? Which word tells what man did? What word points out man ? f Which word tells what kind J of a man walked ? j Which word tells how he ^ walked ? What group of words show where the lame man was stop- ping? What group of words tells us I whither the lame man walked ? What group of words express the condition the lame man was in? What group gives his action . at the station ? This series of elementary lessons may occupy several weeks, the class copying, from the teacher's dictation, each element when added, and then writing many similar examples of it in words of its own choosing. In this way, a series of simple exercises like these may lead gradually to naming and defining the elements, one by one, while appending them to words in the complex sentence that results. Then a host of examples should be written by the class under the teacher's lead, showing the countless permutations by which these elements combine to make the various forms which a complex sentence may assume. Finally, the parts of speech may be defined, named, and 136 TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY. learned from an adequate number of examples, and, by a slow progression that leaves no difficulty unmastered, the class may be prepared fer accurate parsing and ana- lysis as taught in some good text-book. I would urge that, in the exercises suggested, careful attention be given to connectives, as they furnish the key to gram- matical construction. The examples offered above con- tain nearly all the grammatical elements. The scholarly teacher appreciates the peculiar character of the language he teaches, and shapes his methods ac- cordingly. He knows well that, with the exception of the personal and relative pronouns and one or two verb- terminations, the English tongue is without inflections, and that the relations of its words to each other are, consequently, determined mainly by the position they hold in the sentence. Grammar as a Gymnastic Exercise. — The science of grammar deals with the classified offices and relations of words it presents by means of definitions. The classes of words with which it begins, are, therefore, the pro- ducts of the classifying faculty; and it is on this faculty that grammar makes its first draft. The analytical reasoning that follows, and reveals the various relations of words as the elements of the sentence in its different forms, exercises powerfully class judgment and the reas- oning faculty. Consequently, English grammar, as a science, has its proper place among the advanced gymn- astics, though many a school still assigns it as an elemen- tary study, despite the fact that its results in such case are uniformly valueless. Books for Teachers. INDUSTRIAL. -EDUCATION^ Laves Industrial Education. Industrial Education ; a guide to Manual Training. By Samuel G. Love, principal of the Jamestown, (N. Y.) public schools. Cloth, 12mo, 330 pp. with 40 full-page plates containing nearly 400 figures. Price, $1.75 ; to teachers, $1.40 ; by mail, 12 cents extra. 1. Industrial Education not understood. Probably the only man who has wrought out the problem in a practical way is ^ Samuel G. Love, the superin- tendent of the Jamestown (N. Y.) schools. Mr. Love has now about 2,400 children in the primary, advanced, and high schools under his charge ; he is assisted by fifty teachers, so that an admirable opportunity was offered. In 1874 (about fourteen years ago) Mr. Love began his experiment ; gradu- ally he introduced one occu- pation, and then another, uatil at last nearly all the pupils are following some form of educat- ing work. 2. Why it is demanded. The reasons for introducing it are clearly stated by Mr. Love. It was done because the educa- tion of the books left the pu, pils unfitted to meet the prao* tical problems the world asks them to solve. The world does not have a field ready for the student in book-lore. The state- ments of Mr. Love should be carefully read. 3. It is an educational book. Any one can give some formal work to girls and boys. What has been needed has been some one who could find out what is suited to the little child who is in the " First Reader," to the one who is in the "Second Reader," and so on. It must be remembered the effort is not to make carpenters, and type-setters, and dress- makers of boys and girls, but to educate them by these occujpar tions better than without them. =LOVE= SEND ALL ORDERS TO 2 E. L. KELLOGG & CO.. NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 4. It tells the teacher just what to do. Every teacher should put some form of Manual Training into his school. At pres- ent the only ones are Gymnastics, Writing, and Drawing. But there are, it is estimated, more than thirty forms of Industrial Work that may be made educative. The teacher who studies this book will want to try some of these forms. He will find light on the subject. 5. It must be noted that a demand now exists for men and women to give Industrial Training. Those teachers who are wise will begin now to study this important subject. The city of New York has decided to introduce it into its schools, where 140,000 pupils are gathered. It is a mighty undertak- ing, but it will succeed. The people see the needjof a differ- ent education than that given by the books. Book education is faulty, partial, incomplete. But where are the men and women to come from who can give instruction ? Those who read this book and set to work to introduce its methods into their schools will be fitting themselves for higher positions. The Lutheran Observer says :— " This volume on Manual Teaching" ought to be speedily introduced into all the public schools. It is admir- ably adapted for its purpose and we recommend it to teachers every- where." The Nashville American says :— " This is a practical volume. It embodies the results of many years of trial in a search after those occupations that will educate in the true sense of the word. It is not a work dealing in theories or abstractions, but in methods and details, such as will help the teacher or parent selecting occupations for chil- dren.' 1 West Virginia School Journal— "It shows what can be done by a resolute and spirited teacher." Burlington Free Press.—" An excellent hand book. M Prin. Sherman Williams, Glens Falls, N. Y.— U I am sure it will greatly aid the solution of this difficult problem." Prof. Edward Brooks, Late Principal Millersburg, (Pa.) Normal School.—" It is a much needed work ; is the best book I have seen." Supt. S. T. Dutton, New Haven.— "The book is proof that some practical results have been reached and is full of promise for the future. Supt. John E. Bodley, Minneapolis.—" I know of no one more com- petent to tell other superintendents and teachers how to introduce Man- ual Training than Prof. Love." Oil City Blizzard.—" The system he has marked out must be a good one, or he would never have allowed it to go out." Buffalo Times.—" Teachers are looking into this subject and this will help them." Voston Advertiser.— " A plain unvarnished explanation." Jamestown, N. Y. Evening Journal.— "In the hands of an intelligent teacher cannot fail to yield satisfactory results." SEND ALL ORDERS TO E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 3 Curries Early Education. " The Principles and Practice of Early and Infant School Education. " By James Currie, A. M., Prin. Church of Scotland Training College, Edinburgh. Author of " Common School Education," etc. With an introduction by Clarence E. Meleney, A. M., Supt. Schools, Paterson, N. J. Bound in blue cloth, gold, 16mo, 290 pp. Price, $1.25 ; to teachers, $i oo ; by mail, 8 cents extra. WHY THIS BOOK IS VALUABLE. 1. Pestalozzi gave New England its educational supremacy. The Pestalozzian wave struck this country more than forty years ago, and produced a mighty shock. It set New Eng- land to thinking. Horace Mann became eloquent to help on the change, and went up and down Massachusetts, urging in earnest tones the change proposed by the Swiss educator. What gave New England its educational supremacy was its reception of Pestalozzi's doctrines. Page, Philbrick, Barnard were all his disciples. 2. It is the work of one of the best expounders of Pes- talozzi. Forty years ago there was an upheaval in education. Pes- talozzi's words were acting like yeast upon educators ; thou- sands had been to visit his schools at Yverdun, and on their return to their own lands had reported the wonderful scenes they had witnessed. Rev. James Currie comprehended the movement, and sought to introduce it. Grasping the ideas of this great teacher, he spread them in Scotland ; but that country was not elastic and receptive. Still, Mi*. Currie's presentation of them wrought a great change, and he is to be reckoned as the most powerful exponent of the new ideas in Scotland. Hence this book, which contains them, must be considered as a treasure by the educator. 3. This volume is really a Manual of Principles of Teaching. It exhibits enough of the principles to make the teacher intelligent in her practice. Most manuals give details, but no foundation principles. The first part lays a psychological basis — the only one there is for the teacher ; and this is done in a simple and concise way. He declares emphatically that teaching cannot be learned empirically. That is, that one can- not watch a teacher and see how he does it, and then, imitat- ing, claim to be a teacher. The principles must be learned. 4. It is a Manual of Practice in Teaching. SEND ALL ORDERS TO 4 E. L. KELLOGG & CO. , NE W YORK & CHICAGO. It discusses the subjects of Number, Object Lessons, Color, Form, Geography, Singing, and Reading in a most intelligent manner. There is a world of valuable suggestions here for the teacher. 5. It points out the characteristics of Lesson-Giving — or Good Teaching. The language of the teacher, the tone of voice, the question- ing needed, the sympathy with the class, the cheerfulness needed, the patience, the self-possession, the animation, the decorum, the discipline, are all discussed, This latter term is denned, and it needs to be, for most teachers use it to cover all reasons for doing — it is for " discipline" they do every* thing. 6. It discusses the motives to be used in teaching. Any one who can throw light here will be listened to ; Mr. Currie has done this admirably. He puts (1) Activity, (2) Love, (3) Social Relation, as the three main motives. Rewards and Punishments, Bribery, etc., are here well treated. The author was evidently a man " ahead of his times ;" every- where we see the spirit of a humane man ; he is a lover of children, a student of childhood, a deep thinker on subjects that seem very easy to the pretentious pedagogue. 7. The book has an admirable introduction, By Supt. Meleney , of Paterson, N. J. , a disciple of the New Education, and one of the most promising of the new style of educators that are coming to the front in these days. Taking it all together, it is a volume that well deserves wonderful popularity. Adopted by the Chautauqua Teachers' Reading Union. Philadelphia Teacher.—" It is a volume that every primary teacher should study." Boston Common School Education.—' 4 It will prove a great boon to thousands of earnest teachers." Virginia Educational Journal.—' 4 Mr. Currie has long been esteemed by educators." Central School Journal.— " Books like this cannot but hasten the day for a better valuation of childhood." North Carolina School Teacher.— "An interesting and timely book." FOR READING CIRCLES. " Payne's Lectures " is pre-eininently the book for Reading Circles. It has already been adopted by the New York, Ohio, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado, and Chautauqua Circles, besides many in counties and cities. Remember that our edition is far superior to any other publislied. SEND ALL ORDERS TO E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. Shaw's Rational Question Book. " The National Question Book." A graded course of study for those preparing to teach. By Edward R. Shaw, Prin- cipal of the High School, Yonkers, N. Y.; author of " School Devices," etc. Bound in durable English buckram cloth, with beautiful side-stamp. 12mo, 350 pp. Price, $1.50 ; net to teachers, postpaid. This work contains 6,000 Questions and Answers on 22 Different Branches of Study. ITS DISTINGUISHING FEATURES. 1. It aims to make the teacher a better teacher. "How to Make Teaching a Profession" has challenged the attention of the wisest teacher. It is plain that to accomplish this the teacher must pass from the stage of a knowledge of the rudiments, to the stage of somewhat extensive acquire- ment. There are steps in this movement ; if a teacher will take the first and see what the next is, he will probably go on to the next, and so on. One of the reasons why there has been no movement forward by those who have made this first step, is that there was nothing marked out as a second step. 2. This book will show the teacher how to go forward. In the preface the course of study usually pursued in our best normal schools is given. This proposes four grades; third, second, first, and profes- sional. Then, questions are given appropriate for each of these grades. Answers follow each section. A teacher will use the book somewhat as fol- lows : — If he is in the third grade he will put the questions found in this book concerning numbers, geography, history, grammar, orthography, and theory and practice of teaching to himself and get out the answer. Having done this he will go on to the other grades in a similar manner. In this way he will know as to his fit- ness to pass an examination for SEND ALL ORDERS TO 6 E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK ay. 6 £h(os. A collection of fresh and original dialogues, recitations, declamations, and short pieces for practical use in Public and Private Schools. Bound in handsome, new paper cover, 160 pages each, printed on laid paper. Price 30 cents each ; to teachers, 24 cents ; by mail, 3 cents extra. The exercises in these books bear upon education ; have a relation to the school-room. 1. The dialogues, recitations, and declamations, gathered in this volume being fresh, short, easy to be comprehended and are well fitted for the average scholars of our schools. 2. They have mainly been used by teachers for actual school exercises. 3. They cover a different ground from the speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero — which are unfitted for boys of twelve to sixteen years of age. 4. They have some practical interest for those who use them. 5. There is not a vicious sentence uttered. In some dialogue books profanity is found, or disobedience to parents encouraged, or lying NEW COVER. laughed at. Let teachers look out for this. 6. There is something for the youngest pupils. 7. " Memorial Day Exercises " for Bryant, Garfield, Lincoln, etc. , will be found. 8. Several Tree Planting exercises are included. 9. The exercises have relation to the school-room and bear upon education. 10. An important point is the freshness of these pieces. Most of them were written expressly for this collection, and can be found nowhere else. Boston Journal of Education.— " Is of practical value." Detroit Free Press.—" Suitable for public and private schools,'' Western Ed. Journal,— " A series of very good selections." EIGHTEENTH YEAR! The S chool .J ournal JL is published weekly at $2.50 a year. Amos M. Kel- logg and Jerome Allen, two teachers of life-long experience and progressive ideas, devote their whole ^ time to editing it. Established 18 years ago, it is to- day the best known and widest circulated educational ,jl, weekly in the country. This reputation has been won strictly on its merits, as its subscribers know, and you will too (if not now a subscriber), if you send 6 cents tAt for a sample copy. TENTH YEAR! Jhe T eachers* I nstitute ^ is published monthly at $1.25 a year; 12 large 44 page papers constitute a year (most other educational , monthlies publish but 9 or 10). It is edited by the * same editors as the School Journal, and has, ever since it was started in 1878, been the most popular JL- monthly educational published, circulating in every sta te — a national paper. This was because it was practical — little theory and much practice — crammed jf with it. Sample copy 10 cents. ELEVENTH YEAR! T reasure- Trove it is a beautiful illustrated 36 page monthly, for the boys and girls. Price, $1.00 a year. We must refer you to our descriptive circular for particulars about this ic charming paper, for we have not room here to tell you the half of its value. It is used by thousands of teachers as an aid to their school room work. -^T Sample, 10 cents. E. L. KELLOGG & CO., Educational Publishers, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Oct. 2004 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111