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Title: The Science of Human Nature
A Psychology for Beginners
Author: William Henry Pyle
Release Date: May 31, 2006 [EBook #18477]
Language: English
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Teacher Training Series
EDITED BY
W. W. CHARTERS
_Professor of Education, Carnegie Institute of Technology_
THE SCIENCE OF
HUMAN NATURE
_A PSYCHOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS_
BY
WILLIAM HENRY PYLE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book is written for young students in high schools and normal
schools. No knowledge can be of more use to a young person than a
knowledge of himself; no study can be more valuable to him than a study
of himself. A study of the laws of human behavior,--that is the purpose
of this book.
What is human nature like? Why do we act as we do? How can we make
ourselves different? How can we make others different? How can we make
ourselves more efficient? How can we make our lives more worth while?
This book is a manual intended to help young people to obtain such
knowledge of human nature as will enable them to answer these questions.
I have not attempted to write a complete text on psychology. There are
already many such books, and good ones too. I have selected for
treatment only such topics as young students can study with interest and
profit. I have tried to keep in mind all the time the practical worth of
the matters discussed, and the ability and experience of the intended
readers.
TO THE TEACHER
This book can be only a guide to you. You are to help your students
study human nature. You must, to some extent, be a psychologist yourself
before you can teach psychology. You must yourself be a close and
scientific student of human nature. Develop in the students the spirit
of inquiry and investigation. Teach them to look to their own minds and
their neighbor's actions for verification of the statements of the text.
Let the students solve by observation and experiment the questions and
problems raised in the text and the exercises. The exercises should
prove to be the most valuable part of the book. The first two chapters
are the most difficult but ought to be read before the rest of the book
is studied. If you think best, merely read these two chapters with the
pupils, and after the book is finished come back to them for careful
study.
In the references, I have given parallel readings, for the most part to
Titchener, Pillsbury, and Münsterberg. I have purposely limited the
references, partly because a library will not be available to many who
may use the book, and partly because the young student is likely to be
confused by much reading from different sources before he has worked out
some sort of system and a point of view of his own. Only the most
capable members of a high school class will be able to profit much from
the references given.
TO THE STUDENT
You are beginning the study of human nature. You can not study human
nature from a book, you must study yourself and your neighbors. This
book may help you to know what to look for and to understand what you
find, but it can do little more than this. It is true, this text gives
you many facts learned by psychologists, but you must verify the
statements, or at least see their significance to _you_, or they will
be of no worth to you. However, the facts considered here, properly
understood and assimilated, ought to prove of great value to you. But
perhaps of greater value will be the psychological frame of mind or
attitude which you should acquire. The psychological attitude is that of
seeking to find and understand the _causes of human action, and the
causes, consequences, and significance of the processes of the human
mind_. If your first course in psychology teaches you to look for these
things, gives you some skill in finding them and in using the knowledge
after you have it, your study should be quite worth while.
W. H. PYLE.
EDITOR'S PREFACE
There are at least two possible approaches to the study of psychology by
teacher-training students in high schools and by beginning students in
normal schools.
One of these is through methods of teaching and subject matter. The
other aims to give the simple, concrete facts of psychology as the
science of the mind. The former presupposes a close relationship between
psychology and methods of teaching and assumes that psychology is
studied chiefly as an aid to teaching. The latter is less complicated.
The plan contemplates the teaching of the simple fundamentals at first
and applying them incidentally as the occasion demands. This latter
point of view is in the main the point of view taken in the text.
The author has taught the material of the text to high school students
to the end that he might present the fundamental facts of psychology in
simple form.
W. W. C.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE AND OF THE INDIVIDUAL 18
CHAPTER III. MIND AND BODY 34
CHAPTER IV. INHERITED TENDENCIES 50
CHAPTER V. FEELING AND ATTENTION 73
CHAPTER VI. HABIT 87
CHAPTER VII. MEMORY 124
CHAPTER VIII. THINKING 152
CHAPTER IX. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 176
CHAPTER X. APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 210
GLOSSARY 223
INDEX 227
THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
=Science.= Before attempting to define psychology, it will be helpful to
make some inquiry into the nature of science in general. Science is
knowledge; it is what we know. But mere knowledge is not science. For a
bit of knowledge to become a part of science, its relation to other bits
of knowledge must be found. In botany, for example, bits of knowledge
about plants do not make a science of botany. To have a science of
botany, we must not only know about leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, etc.,
but we must know the relations of these parts and of all the parts of a
plant to one another. In other words, in science, we must not only
_know_, we must not only have _knowledge_, but we must know the
significance of the knowledge, must know its _meaning_. This is only
another way of saying that we must have knowledge and know its relation
to other knowledge.
A scientist is one who has learned to organize his knowledge. The main
difference between a scientist and one who is not a scientist is that
the scientist sees the significance of facts, while the non-scientific
man sees facts as more or less unrelated things. As one comes to hunt
for causes and inquire into the significance of things, one becomes a
scientist. A thing or an event always points beyond itself to something
else. This something else is what goes before it or comes after it,--is
its cause or its effect. This causal relationship that exists between
events enables a scientist to prophesy. By carefully determining what
always precedes a certain event, a certain type of happening, a
scientist is able to predict the event. All that is necessary to be able
to predict an event is to have a clear knowledge of its true causes.
Whenever, beyond any doubt, these causes are found to be present, the
scientist knows the event will follow. Of course, all that he really
_knows_ is that such results have always followed similar causes in the
past. But he has come to have faith in the uniformity and regularity of
nature. The chemist does not find sulphur, or oxygen, or any other
element acting one way one day under a certain set of conditions, and
acting another way the next day under exactly the same conditions. Nor
does the physicist find the laws of mechanics holding good one day and
not the next.
The scientist, therefore, in his thinking brings order out of chaos in
the world. If we do not know the causes and relations of things and
events, the world seems a very mixed-up, chaotic place, where anything
and everything is happening. But as we come to know causes and
relations, the world turns out to be a very orderly and systematic
place. It is a lawful world; it is not a world of chance. Everything is
related to everything else.
Now, the non-scientific mind sees things as more or less unrelated. The
far-reaching causal relations are only imperfectly seen by it, while
the scientific mind not only sees things, but inquires into their causes
and effects or consequences. The non-scientific man, walking over the
top of a mountain and noticing a stone there, is likely to see in it
only a stone and think nothing of how it came to be there; but the
scientific man sees quite an interesting bit of history in the stone. He
reads in the stone that millions of years ago the place where the rock
now lies was under the sea. Many marine animals left their remains in
the mud underneath the sea. The mud was afterward converted into rock.
Later, the shrinking and warping earth-crust lifted the rock far above
the level of the sea, and it may now be found at the top of the
mountain. The one bit of rock tells its story to one who inquires into
its causes. The scientific man, then, sees more significance, more
meaning, in things and events than does the non-scientific man.
Each science has its own particular field. Zoölogy undertakes to answer
every reasonable question about animals; botany, about plants; physics,
about motion and forces; chemistry, about the composition of matter;
astronomy, about the heavenly bodies, etc. The world has many aspects.
Each science undertakes to describe and explain some particular aspect.
To understand all the aspects of the world, we must study all the
sciences.
=A Scientific Law.= By _law_ a scientist has reference to uniformities
which he notices in things and events. He does not mean that necessities
are imposed upon things as civil law is imposed upon man. He means only
that in certain well-defined situations certain events always take
place, according to all previous observations. The Law of Falling Bodies
may be cited as an example. By this law, the physicist means that in
observing falling bodies in the past, he has noticed that they fall
about sixteen feet in the first second and acquire in this time a
velocity of thirty-two feet. He has noted that, taking into account the
specific gravity of the object and the resistance of the air, this way
of falling holds true of all objects at about the level of the sea.
The more we carefully study the events of the world, the more strongly
we come to feel that definite causes, under the same circumstances,
always produce precisely the same result. The scientist has faith that
events will continue to happen during all the future in the same order
of cause and effect in which they have been happening during all the
past.
The astronomer, knowing the relations of the members of the solar
system--the sun and planets--can successfully predict the occurrence of
lunar and solar eclipses. In other fields, too, the scientist can
predict with as much certainty as does the astronomer, provided his
knowledge of the factors concerned is as complete as is the knowledge
which the astronomer has of the solar system. Even in the case of human
beings, uncertain as their actions seem to be, we can predict their
actions when our knowledge of the factors is sufficiently complete. In a
great many instances we do make such predictions. For example, if we
call a person by name, we expect him to turn, or make some other
movement in response. Our usual inability to make such predictions in
the case of human beings is not because human beings are not subject to
the law of cause and effect, it is not that their acts are due to
chance, but that the factors involved are usually many, and it is
difficult for us to find out all of them.
=The Science of Psychology.= Now, let us ask, what is the science of
psychology? What kind of problems does it try to solve? What aspect of
the world has it taken for its field of investigation?
We have said that each science undertakes to describe some particular
aspect of the world. Human psychology is the science of human nature.
But human nature has many aspects. To some extent, our bodies are the
subject matter for physiology, anatomy, zoölogy, physics, and chemistry.
Our bodies may be studied in the same way that a rock or a table might
be studied. But a human being presents certain problems that a rock or
table does not present. If we consider the differences between a human
being and a table, we shall see at once the special field of psychology.
If we stick a pin into a leg of the table, we get no response. If we
stick a pin into a leg of a man, we get a characteristic response. The
man moves, he cries out. This shows two very great differences between a
man and a table. The man is _sensitive_ and has the power of action, the
power of _moving himself_. The table is not sensitive, nor can it move
itself. If the pin is thrust into one's own leg, one has _pain_. Human
beings, then, are sensitive, conscious, acting beings. And the study of
sensitivity, action, and consciousness is the field of psychology. These
three characteristics are not peculiar to man. Many, perhaps all,
animals possess them. There is, therefore, an animal psychology as well
as human psychology.
A study of the human body shows us that the body-surface and many parts
within the body are filled with sensitive nerve-ends. These sensitive
nerve-ends are the sense organs, and on them the substances and forces
of the world are constantly acting. In the sense organs, the nerve-ends
are so modified or changed as to be affected by some particular kind of
force or substance. Vibrations of ether affect the eye. Vibrations of
air affect the ear. Liquids and solutions affect the sense of taste.
Certain substances affect the sense of smell. Certain organs in the skin
are affected by low temperatures; others, by high temperatures; others,
by mechanical pressure. Similarly, each sense organ in the body is
affected by a definite kind of force or substance.
This affecting of a sense organ is known technically as _stimulation_,
and that which affects the organ is known as the _stimulus_.
Two important consequences ordinarily follow the stimulation of a sense
organ. One of these is movement. The purpose of stimulation is to bring
about movement. To be alive is to respond to stimulation. When one
ceases to respond to stimulation, he is dead. If we are to continue
alive, we must constantly adjust ourselves to the forces of the world in
which we live. Generally speaking, we may say that every nerve has one
end in a sense organ and the other in a muscle. This arrangement of the
nerves and muscles shows that man is essentially a sensitive-action
machine. The problems connected with sensitivity and action and the
relation of each to the other constitute a large part of the field of
psychology.
We said just now, that a nerve begins in a sense organ and ends in a
muscle. This statement represents the general scheme well enough, but
leaves out an important detail. The nerve does not extend directly to a
muscle, but ordinarily goes by way of the brain. The brain is merely a
great group of nerve cells and fibers which have developed as a central
organ where a stimulation may pass from almost any sense organ to
almost any muscle.
But another importance attaches to the brain. When a sense organ is
stimulated and this stimulation passes on to the brain and agitates a
cell or group of cells there, _we are conscious_. Consciousness shifts
and changes with every shift and change of the stimulation.
The brain has still another important characteristic. After it has been
stimulated through sense organ and nerve, a similar brain activity can
be revived later, and this revival is the basis of _memory_. When the
brain is agitated through the medium of a sense organ, we have
_sensation_; when this agitation is revived later, we have a _memory
idea_. A study of consciousness, or mind, the conditions under which it
arises, and all the other problems involved, give us the other part of
the field of psychology.
We are not merely acting beings; we are _conscious_ acting beings.
Psychology must study human nature from both points of view. We must
study man not only from the outside; that is, objectively, in the same
way that we study a stone or a tree or a frog, but we must study him
from the inside or subjectively. It is of importance to know not only
how a man _acts_, but also how he _thinks and feels_.
It must be clear now, that human action, human behavior, is the main
field of psychology. For, even though our main interests in people were
in their minds, we could learn of the minds only through the actions.
But our interests in other human beings are not in their minds but in
_what they do_. It is true that our interest in ourselves is in our
minds, and we can know these minds directly; but we cannot know
directly the mind of another person, we can only guess what it is from
the person's actions.
=The Problems of Psychology.= Let us now see, in some detail, what the
various problems of psychology are. If we are to understand human
nature, we must know something of man's past; we must therefore treat of
the origin and development of the human race. The relation of one
generation to that preceding and to the one following makes necessary a
study of heredity. We must find out how our thoughts, feelings,
sensations, and ideas are dependent upon a physical body and its organs.
A study of human actions shows that some actions are unlearned while
others are learned or acquired. The unlearned acts are known as
_instincts_ and the acquired acts are known as _habits_. Our psychology
must, therefore, treat of instincts and habits.
How man gets experience, and retains and organizes this experience must
be our problem in the chapters on sensations, ideas, memory, and
thinking. Individual differences in human capacity make necessary a
treatment of the different types and grades of intelligence, and the
compilation of tests for determining these differences. We must also
treat of the application of psychology to those fields where a knowledge
of human nature is necessary.
=Applied Psychology.= At the beginning of a subject it is legitimate to
inquire concerning the possibility of applying the principles studied to
practical uses, and it is very proper to make this inquiry concerning
psychology. Psychology, being the science of human nature, ought to be
of use in all fields where one needs to know the causes of human action.
And psychology is applicable in these fields to the extent that the
psychologist is able to work out the laws and principles of human
action.
In education, for example, we wish to influence children, and we must go
to psychology to learn about the nature of children and to find out how
we can influence them. Psychology is therefore the basis of the science
of education.
Since different kinds of work demand, in some cases, different kinds of
ability, the psychology of individual differences can be of service in
selecting people for special kinds of work. That is to say, we must have
sometime, if we do not now, a psychology of professions and vocations.
Psychological investigations of the reliability of human evidence make
the science of service in the court room. The study of the laws of
attention and interest give us the psychology of advertising. The study
of suggestion and abnormal states make psychology of use in medicine. It
may be said, therefore, that psychology, once abstract and unrelated to
any practical interests, will become the most useful of all sciences, as
it works out its problems and finds the laws of human behavior.
At present, the greatest service of psychology is to education. So true
is this that a department has grown up called "educational psychology,"
which constitutes at the present time the most important subdivision of
psychology. While in this book we treat briefly of the various
applications of psychology, we shall have in mind chiefly its
application to education.
=The Science of Education.= Owing to the importance which psychology has
in the science of education, it will be well for us to make some inquiry
into the nature of education. If the growth, development, and learning
of children are all controlled and determined by definite causal
factors, then a systematic statement of all these factors would
constitute the science of education. In order to see clearly whether
there is such a science, or whether there can be, let us inquire more
definitely as to the kind of problems a science of education would be
expected to solve.
There are four main questions which the science of education must solve:
(1) What is the aim of education? (2) What is the nature of education?
(3) What is the nature of the child? (4) What are the most economical
methods of changing the child from what it is into what it ought to be?
The first question is a sociological question, and it is not difficult
to find the answer. We have but to inquire what the people wish their
children to become. There is a pretty general agreement, at least in the
same community, that children should be trained in a way that will make
them socially efficient. Parents generally wish their children to become
honest, truthful, sympathetic, and industrious. It should be the aim of
education to accomplish this social ideal. It should be the aim of the
home and the school to subject children to such influences as will
enable them to make a living when grown and to do their proper share of
work for the community and state, working always for better things, and
having a sympathetic attitude toward neighbors. Education should also do
what it can to make people able to enjoy the world and life to the
fullest and highest extent. Some such aim of education as this is held
by all our people.
The second question is also answered. Psychological analysis reveals the
fact that education is a process of becoming adjusted to the world. It
is the process of acquiring the habits, knowledge, and ideals suited to
the life we are to live. The child in being educated learns what the
world is and how to act in it--how to act in all the various situations
of life.
The third question--concerning the nature of the child--cannot be so
briefly answered. In fact, it cannot be fully answered at the present
time. We must know what the child's original nature is. This means that
we must know the instincts and all the other inherited capacities and
tendencies. We must know the laws of building up habits and of acquiring
knowledge, the laws of retention and the laws of attention. These
problems constitute the subject matter of educational psychology, and at
present can be only partially solved. We have, however, a very
respectable body of knowledge in this field, though it is by no means
complete.
The answer to the fourth question is in part dependent upon the progress
in answering the third. Economical methods of training children must be
dependent upon the nature of children. But in actual practice, we are
trying to find out the best procedure of doing each single thing in
school work; we are trying to find out by experimentation. The proper
way to teach children to read, to spell, to write, etc., must be
determined in each case by independent investigation, until our
knowledge of the child becomes sufficient for us to infer from general
laws of procedure what the procedure in a particular case should be. We
venture to infer what ought to be done in some cases, but generally we
feel insecure till we have proved our inference correct by trying out
different methods and measuring the results.
Education will not be fully scientific till we have definite knowledge
to guide us at every step. What should we teach? When should we teach
it? How should we teach it? How poorly we answer these questions at the
present time! How inefficient and uneconomical our schools, because we
cannot fully answer them! But they are answerable. We can answer them in
part now, and we know how to find out the answer in full. It is just a
matter of patient and extensive investigation. We must say, then, that
we have only the beginnings of a science of education. The problems
which a science of education must solve are almost wholly psychological
problems. They could not be solved till we had a science of psychology.
Experimental psychology is but a half-century old; educational
psychology, less than a quarter-century old. In the field of education,
the science of psychology may expect to make its most important
practical contribution. Let us, then, consider very briefly the problems
of educational psychology.
=Educational Psychology.= Educational psychology is that division of
psychology which undertakes to discover those aspects of human nature
most closely related to education. These are (1) the original nature of
the child--what it is and how it can be modified; (2) the problem of
acquiring and organizing experience--habit-formation, memory, thinking,
and the various factors related to these processes. There are many
subordinate problems, such as the problem of individual differences and
their bearing on the education of subnormal and supernormal children.
Educational psychology is not, then, merely the application of
psychology to education. It is a distinct science in itself, and its aim
is the solving of those educational problems which for their solution
depend upon a knowledge of the nature of the child.
=The Method of Psychology.= We have enumerated the various problems of
psychology, now how are they solved? The method of psychology is the
same as that of all other sciences; namely, the method of observation
and experiment. We learn human nature by observing how human beings act
in all the various circumstances of life. We learn about the human mind
by observing our own mind. We learn that we _see_ under certain
objective conditions, _hear_ under certain objective conditions,
_taste_, _smell_, _feel cold_ and _warm_ under certain objective
conditions. In the case of ourselves, we can know both our _actions_ and
our _mind_. In the case of others, we can know only their _actions_, and
must infer their mental states from our own in similar circumstances.
With certain restrictions and precautions this inference is legitimate.
We said the method of psychology is that of observation and experiment.
The experiment is observation still, but observation subjected to exact
methodical procedure. In a psychological experiment we set out to
provide the necessary conditions, eliminating some and supplying others
according to our object. The experiment has certain advantages. It
enables us to isolate the phenomena to be studied, it enables us to vary
the circumstances and conditions to suit our purposes, it enables us to
repeat the observation as often as we like, and it enables us to measure
exactly the factors of the phenomena studied.
=A Psychological Experiment.= Let us illustrate psychological method by a
typical experiment. Suppose we wish to measure the individual
differences among the members of a class with respect to a certain
ability; namely, the muscular speed of the right hand. Psychological
laboratories have delicate apparatus for making such a study. But let
us see how we can do it, roughly at least, without any apparatus. Let
each member of the class take a sheet of paper and a pencil, and make as
many strokes as possible in a half-minute, as shown in Figure I. The
instructor can keep the time with a stop watch, or less accurately with
the second hand of an ordinary watch. Before beginning the experiment,
the instructor should have each student taking the test try it for a
second or two. This is to make sure that all understand what they are to
do. When the instructor is sure that all understand, he should have the
students hold their pencils in readiness above the paper, and at the
signal, "Begin," all should start at the same time and make as many
marks as possible in the half-minute. The strokes can then be counted
and the individual scores recorded. The experiment should be repeated
several times, say six or eight, and the average score for each
individual recorded.
[Illustration: FIGURE I.--STROKES MADE IN THIRTY SECONDS
A test of muscular speed]
Whether the result in such a performance as this varies from day to day,
and is accidental, or whether it is constant and fundamental, can be
determined by repeating the experiment from day to day. This repetition
will also show whether improvement comes from practice.
If it is decided to repeat the experiment in order to study these
factors, constancy and the effects of practice, some method of studying
and interpreting the results must be found. Elaborate methods of doing
this are known to psychologists, but the beginner must use a simpler
method. When the experiment is performed for the first time, the
students can be ranked with reference to their abilities, the fastest
one being called "first," the second highest, "second," and so on down
to the slowest performer. Then after the experiment has been performed
the second time, the students can be again ranked.
A rough comparison can then be made as follows: Determine how many who
were in the best half in the first experiment are among the best half in
the second experiment. If most who were among the best half the first
time are among the best half in the second experiment, constancy in this
performance is indicated. Or we might determine how many change their
ranks and how much they change. Suppose there are thirty in the class
and only four improve their ranks and these to the extent of only two
places each. This would indicate a high degree of constancy. Two
different performances can be compared as above described. The abilities
on successive days can be determined by taking the average rank of the
first day and comparing it with the average rank of the second day.
If the effects of practice are to be studied, the experiments must be
kept up for many days, and each student's work on the first day compared
with his work on succeeding days. Then a graph can be plotted to show
the improvement from day to day. The average daily speed of the class
can be taken and a graph made to show the improvement of the class as a
whole. This might be plotted in black ink, then each individual student
could put on his improvement in red ink, for comparison. A group of
thirty may be considered as furnishing a fair average or norm in this
kind of performance.
In connection with this simple performance, making marks as fast as
possible, it is evident that many problems arise. It would take several
months to solve anything like all of them. It might be interesting, for
example, to determine whether one's speed in writing is related to this
simple speed in marking. Each member of the class might submit a plan
for making such a study.
The foregoing simple study illustrates the procedure of psychology in
all experimentation. A psychological experiment is an attempt to find
out the truth in regard to some aspect of human nature. In finding out
this truth, we must throw about the experiment all possible safeguards.
Every source of error must be discovered and eliminated. In the above
experiment, for example, the work must be done at the same time of day,
or else we must prove that doing it at different times of day makes no
difference. Nothing must be taken for granted, and nothing must be
assumed. Psychology, then, is like all the other sciences, in that its
method of getting its facts is by observation and experiment.
SUMMARY. Science is systematic, related knowledge. Each science has
a particular field which it attempts to explore and describe. The
field of psychology is the study of sensitivity, action, and
consciousness, or briefly, human behavior. Its main problems are
development, heredity, instincts, habits, sensation, memory,
thinking, and individual differences. Its method is observation and
experiment, the same as in all other sciences.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Make out a list of things about human nature which you would like to
know. Paste your list in the front of this book, and as you find your
questions answered in this book, or in other books which you may read,
check them off. At the end of the course, note how many remain
unanswered. Find out whether those not answered can be answered at the
present time.
2. Does everything you do have a cause? What kind of cause?
3. Human nature is shown in human action. Human action consists in
muscular contraction. What makes a muscle contract?
4. Plan an experiment the object of which shall be to learn something
about yourself.
5. Enumerate the professions and occupations in which a knowledge of
some aspect of human nature would be valuable. State in what way it
would be valuable.
6. Make a list of facts concerning a child, which a teacher ought to
know.
7. Make a complete outline of Chapter I.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, Chapters I, II, and V.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapter I.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapter I.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapter I.
CHAPTER II
DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE AND OF THE INDIVIDUAL
=Racial Development.= The purpose of this chapter is to make some inquiry
concerning the origin of the race and of the individual. In doing this,
it is necessary for us first of all to fix in our minds the idea of
causality. According to the view of all modern science, everything has a
cause. Nothing is uncaused. One event is the result of other previous
events, and is in turn the cause of other events that follow. Yesterday
flowed into to-day, and to-day flows into to-morrow. The world as it
exists to-day is the result of the world as it existed yesterday. This
is true not only of the inorganic world--the world of physics and
chemistry--but it is true of living things as well. The animals and
plants that exist to-day are the descendants of others that lived
before. There is probably an unbroken line of descent from the first
life that existed on the earth to the living forms of to-day.
Not only does the law of causality hold true in the case of our bodies,
but of our minds as well. Our minds have doubtless developed from
simpler minds just as our bodies have developed from simpler bodies.
That different grades and types of minds are to be found among the
various classes of animals now upon the earth, no one can doubt, for the
different forms certainly show different degrees of mentality.
According to the evidence of those scientists who have studied the
remains of animals found in the earth's crust, there is a gradual
development of animal forms shown in successive epochs. In the very
oldest parts of the earth's crust, the remains of animal life found are
very simple. In later formations, the remains show an animal life more
complex. The highest forms of animals, the mammals, are found only in
the more recent formations. The remains of man are found only in the
latest formations.
Putting these two facts together--(1) that the higher types of mind are
found to-day only in the higher types of animals, and (2) that a gradual
development of animal forms is shown by the remains in the earth's
crust--the conclusion is forced upon us that mind has passed through
many stages of development from the appearance of life upon the earth to
the present time. Among the lower forms of animals to-day one sees
evidence of very simple minds. In amoebas, worms, insects, and fishes,
mind is very simple. In birds, it is higher. In mammals, it is higher
still. Among the highest mammals below man, we see manifestations of
mind somewhat like our own. These grades of mentality shown in the
animals of to-day represent the steps in the development of mind in the
animals of the past.
We cannot here go into the proof of the doctrine of development. For
this proof, the reader must be referred to zoölogy. One further point,
however, may be noted. If it is difficult for the reader to conceive of
the development of mind on the earth similar to the development of
animals in the past, let him think of the development of mind in the
individual. There can certainly be no doubt of the development of mind
in an individual human being. The infant, when born, shows little
manifestation of mentality; but as its body grows, its mind develops,
becoming more and more complex as the individual grows to maturity.
=The World as Dynamic.= The view of the world outlined above, and held by
all scientific men of the present time, may be termed the _dynamic_
view. Man formerly looked upon the world as static, a world where
everything was fixed and final. Each thing existed in itself and for
itself, and in large measure independent of all other things. We now
look upon things and events as related and dependent. Each thing is
dependent upon others, related to others.
Man not only _lives in_ such a world, but is _part of_ such a world. In
this world of constant and ceaseless change, man is most sensitive and
responsive. Everything may affect him. To all of the constant changes
about him he must adjust himself. He has been produced by this world,
and to live in it he must meet its every condition and change. We must,
then, look upon human nature as something coming out of the past and as
being influenced every moment by the things and forces of the present.
Man is not an independent being, unaffected by everything that happens;
on the contrary, he is affected by all influences that act upon him.
Among these influences may be mentioned weather, climate, food, and
social forces.
The condition of the various organs of a child's body determine, to some
extent, the effect which these various forces have upon it. If a child's
eyes are in any way defective, making vision poor, this tremendously
influences his life. Not only is such a child unable to see the world as
it really is, but the eyestrain resulting from poor vision has serious
effects on the child, producing all sorts of disorders. If a child
cannot hear well or is entirely deaf, many serious consequences follow.
In fact, every condition or characteristic of a child that is in any way
abnormal may lead on to other conditions and characteristics, often of a
serious nature. The growth of adenoids, for example, may lead to a
serious impairment of the mind. Poor vision may affect the whole life
and character of the individual. The influence of a parent, teacher, or
friend may determine the interest of a child and affect his whole life.
The correct view of child life is that the child is affected, in greater
or less degree, by every influence which acts upon him.
=Significance of Development and Causality.= What are the consequences of
the view just set forth? What is the significance of the facts that have
been enumerated? It is of great consequence to our thinking when we come
to recognize fully the idea of causality. We then fully accept the fact
that man's body and mind are part of a causal and orderly world.
Let us consider, for example, the movement of a muscle. Every such
movement must be caused. The physiologist has discovered what this cause
is. Ordinarily and normally, a muscle contracts only when stimulated by
a nerve current. Tiny nerve fibrils penetrate every muscle, ending in
the muscle fibers. The nerve-impulse passing into the fibers of the
muscles causes them to contract. The nerve stimulus itself has a cause;
it ordinarily arises directly or indirectly from the stimulation of a
sense organ. And the sense organs are stimulated by outside influences,
as was explained previously.
Not only are our movements caused, but our sensations, our ideas, and
our feelings follow upon or are dependent upon some definite bodily
state or condition. The moment that we recognize this we see that our
sensations, ideas, and feelings are subject to control. It is only
because our minds are in a world of causality, and subject to its laws,
that education is possible. We can bring causes to bear upon a child and
change the child. It is possible to build up ideas, ideals, and habits.
And ideas, ideals, and habits constitute the man. Training is possible
only because a child is a being that can be influenced. What any child
will be when grown depends upon what kind of child it was at the
beginning and upon the influences that affect it during its early life
while it is growing into maturity. We need have no doubt about the
outcome of any particular child if we know, with some degree of
completeness, the two sets of factors that determine his life--his
inheritance and the forces that affect this inheritance. We can predict
the future of a child to the extent that we know and understand the
forces that will be effective in his life.
The notion of causality puts new meaning into our view of the _training_
of a child. The doctrine of development puts new meaning into our notion
of the _nature_ of a child. We can understand man only when we view him
genetically, that is, in the light of his origin. We can understand a
child only in the light of what his ancestors have been.
As these lines are being written, the greatest, the bloodiest war of
history is in progress. Men are killing men by thousands and hundreds of
thousands. How can we explain such actions? Observation of children
shows that they are selfish, envious, and quarrelsome. They will fight
and steal until they are taught not to do such things. How can we
understand this? There is no way of understanding such actions until we
come to see that the children and men of to-day are such as they are
because of their ancestors. It has been only a few generations,
relatively speaking, since our ancestors were naked savages, killing
their enemies and eating their enemies' bodies. The civilized life of
our ancestors covers a period of only a few hundred years. The
pre-civilized life of our ancestors goes back probably thousands and
thousands of years. In the relatively short period of civilization, our
real, original nature has been little changed, perhaps none at all. The
modern man is, at heart, the same old man of the woods.
The improvements of civilization form what is called a social heritage,
which must be impressed upon the original nature of each individual in
order to have any effect. Every child has to learn to speak, to write,
to dress, to eat with knife and fork; he must learn the various social
customs, and to act morally as older people dictate. The child is by
nature bad, in the sense that the nature which he inherits from the past
fits him better for the original kind of life which man used to live
than it does for the kind of life which we are trying to live now. This
view makes us see that training a child is, in a very true sense,
_making him over again_. The child must be trained to subdue and control
his original impulses. Habits and ideals that will be suitable for life
in civilized society _must be built up_. The doctrine of the Bible in
regard to the original nature of man being sinful, and the necessity of
regeneration, is fundamentally correct. But this regeneration is not so
much a sudden process as it is the result of long and patient
building-up of habits and ideals.
One should not despair of this view of child-life. Neither should one
use it as an excuse for being bad, or for neglecting the training of
children. On the contrary, taking the genetic view of childhood should
give us certain advantages. It makes us see more clearly the _necessity_
of training. Every child must be trained, or he will remain very much a
savage. In the absence of training, all children are much alike, and all
alike bad from our present point of view. The chief differences in
children in politeness and manners generally, in morals, in industry,
etc., are due, in the main, to differences in training. It is a great
help merely to know how difficult the task of training is, and that
training there must be if we are to have a civilized child. We must take
thought and plan for the education and training of our children. The
task of education is in part one of changing human nature. This is no
light task. It is one that requires, in the case of each child, some
twenty years of hard, patient, persistent work.
=Individual Development.= Heredity is a corollary of evolution. Individual
development is intimately related to racial development. Indeed, racial
development would be impossible without heredity in the individual. The
individual must carry on and transmit what the race hands down to him.
This will be evident when we explain what heredity means.
By heredity we mean the likeness between parent and offspring. This
likeness is a matter of form and structure as well as likeness of action
or response. Animals and plants are like the parents in form and
structure, and to a certain extent their responses are alike when the
individuals are placed in the same situation. A robin is like the parent
robins in size, shape, and color. It also hops like the parent birds,
sings as they do, feeds as they do, builds a similar nest, etc. But the
likeness in action is dependent upon likeness in structure. The young
robin acts as does the old robin, because the nervous mechanism is the
same, and therefore a similar stimulus brings about a similar response.
Most of the scientific work in heredity has been done in the study of
the transmission of physical characteristics. The main facts of heredity
are evident to everybody, but not many people realize how far-reaching
is the principle of resemblance between parent and offspring. From
horses we raise horses. From cows we raise cows. The children of human
beings are human. Not only is this true, but the offspring of horses are
of the same stock as the parents. Not only are the colts of the same
stock as the parents, but they resemble the parents in small details.
This is also true of human beings. We expect a child to be not only of
the same race as the parents, but to have family resemblances to the
parents--the same color of hair, the same shape of head, the same kind
of nose, the same color of eyes, and to have such resemblances as moles
in the same places on the skin, etc. A very little investigation reveals
likenesses between parent and offspring which we may not have expected
before.
However, if we start out to hunt for facts of heredity, we shall perhaps
be as much impressed by differences between parent and child as we shall
by the resemblances. In the first place, every child has two parents,
and it is often impossible to resemble both. One cannot, for example, be
both short and tall; one cannot be both fair and dark; one cannot be
both slender and heavy; one cannot have both brown eyes and blue. In
some cases, the child resembles one parent and not the other. In other
cases, the child looks somewhat like both parents but not exactly like
either. If one parent is white and the other black, the child is
neither as white as the one parent nor as black as the other.
The parents of a child are themselves different, but there are four
grandparents, and each of them different from the others. There are
eight great grandparents, and all of them different. If we go back only
seven generations, covering a period of perhaps only a hundred and fifty
years, we have one hundred and twenty-eight ancestors. If we go back ten
generations, we have over a thousand ancestors in our line of descent.
Each of these people was, in some measure, different from the others.
Our inheritance comes from all of them and from each of them.
How do all of these diverse characteristics work out in the child? In
the first place, it seems evident that we do not inherit our bodies as
wholes, but in parts or units. We may think of the human race as a whole
being made up of a great number of unit characters. No one person
possesses all of them. Every person is lacking in some of them. His
neighbor may be lacking in quite different ones. Now one parent
transmits to the child a certain combination of unit characters; the
other parent, a different combination. These characteristics may not all
appear in the child, but all are transmitted through it to the next
generation, and they are transmitted purely. By being transmitted
purely, we mean that the characteristic does not seem to lose its
identity and disappear in fusions or mixtures. The essential point in
this doctrine of heredity is known as Mendelism; it is the principle of
inheritance through the pure transmission of unit characters.
An illustration will probably make the Mendelian principle clear. Let us
select our illustration from the plant world. It is found that if white
and yellow corn are crossed, all the corn the first year, resulting from
this crossing, will be yellow. Now, if this hybrid yellow corn is
planted the second year, and freely cross-fertilized, it turns out that
one fourth of it will be white and three fourths yellow. But this yellow
consists of three parts: one part being pure yellow which will breed
true, producing nothing but yellow; the other two parts transmit white
and yellow in equal ratio. That is to say, these two parts are hybrids,
the result of crossing white with yellow. It is not meant that one can
actually distinguish these two kinds of yellow, the pure yellow and the
hybrid yellow, but the results from planting it show that one third of
the yellow is pure and that the other two thirds transmit white and
yellow in equal ratio.
The main point to notice in all this is that when two individuals having
diverse characteristics are crossed, the characteristics do not fuse and
disappear ultimately, but that the two characteristics are transmitted
in equal ratio, and each will appear in succeeding generations, and will
appear pure, just as if it had not been crossed with something
different. The first offspring resulting from the cross--known as
hybrids--may show either one or the other of the diverse
characteristics, or, when such a thing is possible, even a blending of
the two characteristics. But whatever the actual appearance of the first
generation of offspring resulting from crossing parents having diverse
characteristics, their germ-cells transmit the diverse characteristics
in equal proportion, as explained above.
When one of the diverse characteristics appears in the first generation
of offspring and the other does not appear, or is not apparent, the one
that appears is said to be _dominant_, while the one not appearing is
said to be _recessive_. In our example of the yellow and white corn,
yellow is dominant and white recessive. And it must be remembered that
the white corn that appears in the second generation will breed true
just as if it had never been crossed with the yellow corn. One third of
the yellow of the second generation would also breed true if it could be
separated from the other two thirds.
It is not here claimed that Mendelism is a universal principle, that all
characteristics are transmitted in this way. However, the results of the
numerous experiments in heredity lead one to expect this to be the case.
Most of the experiments have been with lower animals and with plants,
but recent experiments and statistical studies show that Mendelism is an
important factor in human heredity, in such characteristics as color of
hair and eyes and skin, partial color blindness, defects of eye, ear,
and other important organs.
The studies that have been made of human heredity have been, for the
most part, studies of the transmission of physical characteristics. Very
little has been done that bears directly upon the transmission of mental
characteristics. But our knowledge of the dependence of mind upon body
should prepare us to infer mental heredity from physical heredity. Such
studies as throw light on the question bear us out in making such an
inference.
The studies that have been more directly concerned with mental heredity
are those dealing with the resemblances of twins, studies of heredity in
royalty, studies of the inheritance of genius, and studies of the
transmission of mental defects and defects of sense organs. The results
of all these studies indicate the inheritance of mental characteristics
in the same way that physical characteristics are transmitted. Not only
are human mental characteristics transmitted from parent to offspring,
but they seem to be transmitted in Mendelian fashion.
Feeble-mindedness, for example, seems to be a Mendelian character and
recessive. From the studies that have been made, it seems that two
congenitally feeble-minded parents will have only feeble-minded
children. Feeble-mindedness acts in heredity as does the white corn in
the example given above. If one parent only is feeble-minded, the other
being normal, all of the children will be normal, just as all of the
corn, in the first generation after the crossing, was yellow. But these
children whose parents are the one normal and the other feeble-minded,
while themselves normal, transmit feeble-mindedness in equal ratio with
normality. It works out as follows: If a feeble-minded person marry a
person of sound mind and sound stock, the children will all be of sound,
normal mind. If these children take as husbands and wives men and women
who had for parents one normal and one feeble-minded person, their
children will be one fourth feeble-minded and three fourths of them
normal.
To summarize the various conditions: If a feeble-minded person marry a
feeble-minded person, all the children will be feeble-minded. If a
feeble-minded person marry a sound, normal person (pure stock), all the
children will be normal. If the children, in the last case, marry others
like themselves as to origin, one fourth of their offspring will be
feeble-minded. If such hybrid children marry feeble-minded persons, one
half of the offspring will be feeble-minded. It is rash to prophesy, but
future studies of heredity may show that Mendelism, or some
modification of the principle, always holds true of mind as well as of
body.
Little can be said about the transmission of particular definite mental
traits, such as the various aspects of memory, association, attention,
temperament, etc. Before we can speak with any certainty here, we must
make very careful experimental studies of these mental traits in parents
and offspring. No such work has been done. All we have at the present
time is the result of general observation.
=Improvement of the Race.= Eugenics is the science of improvement of the
human race by breeding. While we can train children and thereby make
them much better than they would be without such training, this training
does not improve the stock. The improvement of the stock can be
accomplished only through breeding from the best and preventing the poor
stock from leaving offspring. This is a well-known principle in the
breeding of domestic animals.
It is doubtless just as true in the case of human beings. The hygienic
and scientific rearing of children is good for the children and makes
their lives better, but probably does not affect their offspring. We
should not forget that all the social and educational influences die
with the generation that receives them. They must be impressed by
training on the next generation or that generation will receive no
influence from them. The characters which we acquire in our lifetime
seem not to be transmitted to our children, except through what is known
as social heredity, which is merely the taking on of characteristics
through imitation. Our children must go through all the labor of
learning to read, write, spell, add, multiply, subtract, and divide,
which we went through. Moral traits, manners and customs, and other
habits and ideals of social importance must be acquired by each
successive generation.
=Heredity _versus_ Environment.= The question is often asked whether
heredity or the influence of environment has the most to do with the
final outcome of one's life. It is a rather useless question to ask, for
what a human being or anything else in the world does depends upon what
it is itself and what the things and forces are that act upon it.
Heredity sets a limitation for us, fixes the possibilities. The
circumstances of life determine what we will do with our inherited
abilities and characteristics. Hereditary influences incline us to be
tall or short, fat or lean, light or dark. The characteristics of our
memory, association, imagination, our learning capacity, etc., are
determined by heredity. Of course, how far these various aspects develop
is to some extent dependent upon the favorable or unfavorable influences
of the environment. What is possible for us to do is settled by
heredity; what we may actually do, what we may have the opportunity to
do, is largely a matter of the circumstances of life.
In certain parts of New England, the number of men who become famous in
art, science, or literature is very great compared to the number in some
other parts of our country. As far as we have any evidence, the native
stocks are the same in the two cases, but in New England the influences
turn men into the direction of science, art, and literature. Everything
there is favorable. In other parts of the country, the influences turn
men into other spheres of activity. They become large landowners, men of
business and affairs.
The question may be asked whether genius makes its way to the front in
spite of unfavorable circumstances. Sometimes it doubtless does. But
pugnacity and perseverance are not necessarily connected with
intellectual genius. Genius may be as likely to be timid as belligerent.
Therefore unfavorable circumstances may crush many a genius.
The public schools ought to be on the watch for genius in any and all
kinds of work. When a genius is found, proper training ought to be
provided to develop this genius for the good of society as well as for
the good of the individual himself. A few children show ability in
drawing and painting, others in music, others in mechanical invention,
some in literary construction. When it is found that this ability is
undoubtedly a native gift and not a passing whim, special opportunity
should be provided for its development and training. It will be better
for the general welfare, as well as for individual happiness, if each
does in life that for which he is by nature best fitted. For most of us,
however, there is not much difference in our abilities. We can do one
thing as well as we can many other things. But in a few there are
undoubted special native gifts.
SUMMARY. This is an orderly world, in which everything has a cause.
All events are connected in a chain of causes and effects. Human
beings live in this world of natural law and are subject to it.
Human life is completely within this world of law and order and is a
part of it. Education is possible only because we can change human
beings by having influences act upon them.
Individuals receive their original traits from their ancestors,
probably as parts or units. Mendelism is the doctrine of the pure
transmission of unit characters. Eugenics is the science of
improving the human race by selective breeding. An individual's life
is the result of the interaction of his hereditary characteristics
and his environment.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Try to find rock containing the remains of animals. You can get
information on such matters from a textbook on geology.
2. Read in a geology about the different geological epochs in the
history of the earth.
3. Make a comparison of the length of infancy in the lower animals and
in man. What is the significance of what you find? What advantage does
it give man?
4. What is natural selection? How does it lead to change in animals?
Does natural selection still operate among human beings? (See a modern
textbook on zoölogy.)
5. By observation and from consulting a zoölogy, learn about the
different classes of animal forms, from low forms to high forms.
6. By studying domestic animals, see what you can learn about heredity.
Enumerate all the points that you find bearing upon heredity.
7. In a similar way, make a study of heredity in your family. Consider
such characteristics as height, weight, shape of head, shape of nose,
hair and eye color. Can you find any evidence of the inheritance of
mental traits?
8. Make a complete outline of Chapter II.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
DAVENPORT: _Heredity in Relation to Eugenics_.
KELLICOTT: _The Social Direction of Human Evolution_.
CHAPTER III
MIND AND BODY
=Gross Dependence.= The relation of mind to body has always been an
interesting one to man. This is partly because of the connection of the
question with that of life after death. An old idea of this relation,
almost universally held till recently, was that the mind or spirit lived
in the body but was more or less independent of the body. The body has
been looked upon as a hindrance to the mind or spirit. Science knows
nothing about the existence of spirits apart from bodies. The belief
that after death the mind lives on is a matter of faith and not of
science. Whether one believes in an existence of the mind after death of
the body, depends on one's religious faith. There is no scientific
evidence one way or the other. The only mind that science knows anything
about is bound up very closely with body. This is not saying that there
is no existence of spirit apart from body, but that at present such
existence is beyond the realm of science.
The dependence of mind upon body in a general way is evident to every
one, upon the most general observation and thought. We know the effect
on the mind of disease, of good health, of hunger, of fatigue, of
overwork, of severe bodily injury, of blindness or deafness. We have,
perhaps, seen some one struck upon the head by a club, or run over by an
automobile, and have noted the tremendous consequences to the person's
mind. In such cases it sometimes happens that, as far as we can see,
there is no longer any mind in connection with that body. The most
casual observation, then, shows that mind and body are in some way most
intimately related.
=Finer Dependence.= Let us note this relation more in detail, and, in
particular, see just which part of the body it is that is connected with
the mind. First of all, we note the dependence of mind upon sense
organs. We see only with our eyes. If we close the eyelids, we cannot
see. If we are born blind, or if injury or disease destroys the retinas
of the eyes or makes the eyes opaque so that light cannot pass through
to the retinas, then we cannot see.
Similarly, we hear only by means of the ears. If we are born deaf, or if
injury destroys some important part of the hearing mechanism, then we
cannot hear. In like manner, we taste only by means of the taste organs
in the mouth, and smell only with the organs of smell in the nose. In a
word, our primary knowledge of the world comes only through the sense
organs. We shall see presently just how this sensing or perceiving is
accomplished.
=Dependence of Mind on Nerves and Brain.= We have seen how in a general
way the mind is dependent on the body. We have seen how in a more
intimate way it is dependent on the special sense organs. But the part
of the body to which the mind is most directly and intimately related is
the nervous system. The sense organs themselves are merely modifications
of the nerve ends together with certain mechanisms for enabling stimuli
to act on the nerve ends. The eye is merely the optic nerve spread out
to form the retina and modified in certain ways to make it sensitive to
ether vibrations. In addition to this, there is, of course, the focusing
mechanism of the eye. So for all the sense organs; they are, each of
them, some sort of modification of nerve-endings which makes them
sensitive to some particular force or substance.
Let us make the matter clear by an illustration. Suppose I see a picture
on the wall. My eyes are directed toward the picture. Light from the
picture is refracted within the eyes, forming an image on each retina.
The retina is sensitive to the light. The light produces chemical
changes on the retina. These changes set up an excitation in the optic
nerves, which is conducted to a certain place in the brain, causing an
excitation in the brain. Now the important point is that when this
excitation is going on in the brain, _we are conscious, we see the
picture_.
As far as science can determine, we do not see, nor hear, nor taste, nor
smell, nor have any other sensation unless a sense organ is excited and
produces the excitation in the brain. There can be no doubt about our
primary, sensory experience. By primary, sensory experience is meant our
immediate, direct knowledge of any aspect of the world. In this field of
our conscious life, we are entirely dependent upon sense organs and
nerves and brain. Injuries to the eyes destroying their power to perform
their ordinary work, or injuries to the optic nerve or to the visual
center in the brain, make it impossible for us to see.
These facts are so self-evident that it seems useless to state them. One
has but to hold his hands before his eyes to convince himself that the
mind sees by means of eyes, which are physical sense organs. One has but
to hold his hands tight over his ears to find out that he hears by
means of ears--again, physical sense organs.
But simple and self-evident as the facts are, their acceptance must have
tremendous consequences to our thinking, and to our view of human
nature. If the mind is dependent in every feature on the body with its
sense organs, this must give to this body and its sense organs an
importance in our thought and scheme of things that they did not have
before. This close dependence of mind upon body must give to the body a
place in our scheme of education that it would not have under any other
view of the mind. We wish to emphasize here that this statement of the
close relation of the mind and body is not a theory which one may accept
or not. It is a simple statement of fact. It is a presupposition of
psychology. By "presupposition" is meant a fundamental principle which
the psychologist always has in mind. It is axiomatic, and has the same
place in psychology that axioms have in mathematics. All explanations of
the working of the mind must be stated in terms of nerve and brain
action, and stimulation of sense organs.
Since the sense organs are the primary and fundamental organs through
which we get experience, and since the sensations are the elementary
experiences out of which all mental life is built, it is necessary for
us to have a clear idea of the sense organs, their structure and
functions, and of the nature of sensations.
=Vision.= _The Visual Sense Organs._ The details of the anatomy of the eye
can be looked up in a physiological textbook. The essential principles
are very simple. The eye is made on the principle of a photographer's
camera. The retina corresponds to the sensitive plate of the camera. The
light coming from objects toward which the eyes are directed is focused
on the retina, forming there an image of the object. The light thus
focused on the retina sets up a chemical change in the delicate nerve
tissue; this excitation is transmitted through the optic nerve to the
occipital (back) part of the brain, and sets up brain action there. Then
we have visual sensation; we see the object.
The different colors that we see are dependent upon the vibration
frequency of the ether. The higher frequencies give us the colors blue
and green, and the lower frequencies give us the colors yellow and red.
The intermediate frequencies give us the intermediate colors blue-green
and orange. By vibration frequencies is meant the rate at which the
ether vibrates, the number of vibrations a second. If the reader wishes
to know something about these frequencies, such information can be found
in a textbook on physics.
It will be found that the vibration rates of the ether are very great.
It is only within a certain range of vibration frequency that sunlight
affects the retina. Slower rates of vibration than that producing red do
not affect the eye, and faster than that producing violet do not affect
the eye. The lightness and darkness of a color are dependent upon the
intensity of the vibration. Red, for example, is produced by a certain
vibration frequency. The more intense the vibration, the brighter the
red; the less intense, the darker the red.
When all the vibration frequencies affect the eyes at the same time, we
see no color at all but only brightness. This is due to the fact that
certain vibration frequencies neutralize each other in their effect on
the retina, so far as producing color is concerned. Red neutralizes
green, blue neutralizes yellow, violet neutralizes yellowish green,
orange neutralizes bluish green.
All variations in vision as far as color and brightness are concerned
are due to variations in the stimulus. Changes in vibration frequency
give the different colors. Changes in intensity give the different
brightnesses: black, gray, and white. All explanations of the many
interesting phenomena of vision are to be sought in the physiological
action of the eye.
Besides the facts of color and light and shade, already mentioned, some
further interesting visual phenomena may be mentioned here.
_Visual Contrast._ Every color makes objects near it take on the
antagonistic or complementary color. Red makes objects near appear
green, green makes them appear red. Blue makes near objects appear
yellow, while yellow makes them appear blue. Orange induces greenish
blue, and greenish blue induces orange. Violet induces yellowish green,
and yellowish green induces violet. These color-pairs are known as
antagonistic or complementary colors. Each one of a pair enhances the
effect of its complementary when the two colors are brought close
together. In a similar way, light and dark tints act as complementaries.
Light objects make dark objects near appear darker, and dark objects
make light objects near seem lighter.
These universal principles of contrast are of much practical
significance. They must be taken account of in all arrangements of
colors and tints, for example, in dress, in the arrangement of flowers
and shrubs, in painting.
_Color-Mixture._ If, on a rotating motor, disks of different colors--say
red and yellow--are placed and rotated, one sees on looking at them not
red or yellow but orange. This phenomenon is known as _color-mixture_.
The result is due to the simultaneous stimulation of the retina by two
kinds of ether vibration. If the colors used are a certain red and a
certain green, they neutralize each other and produce only gray. All the
pairs of complementary colors mentioned above act in the same way,
producing, if mixed in the right proportion, no color, but gray. If
colored disks not complementary are mixed by rotation on a motor, they
produce an intermediate color. Red and yellow give orange. Blue and
green give bluish green. Yellow and green give yellowish green. Red and
blue give violet or purple, depending on the proportion. Mixing pigments
gives, in general, the same results as mixing by means of rotating the
disks. The ordinary blue and yellow pigments give green when mixed,
because each of the two pigments contains green. The blue and yellow
neutralize each other, leaving green.
_Visual After-Images._ The stimulation of the retina has interesting
after effects. We shall mention here only the one known as _negative
after-images_. If one will place on the table a sheet of white paper,
and on this white paper lay a small piece of colored paper, and if he
will then gaze steadily at the colored paper for a half-minute, it will
be found that if the colored paper is removed one sees its complementary
color. If the head is not moved, this complementary color has the same
size and shape as the original colored piece of paper. The negative
after-image can be projected on a background at different distances, its
size depending on the distance of the background. The after-image will
be found to mix with an objective color in accordance with the
principles of color-mixture mentioned above.
After-image phenomena have some practical consequences. If one has been
looking at a certain color for some time, a half-minute or more, then
looks at some other color, the after-image of the first color mixes with
the second color.
_Adaptation._ The fact last mentioned leads us to the subject of
adaptation. If the eyes are stimulated by the same kind of light for
some time, the eyes become adapted to that light. If the light is
yellow, at first objects seem yellow, but after a time they look as if
they were illuminated with white light, losing the yellow aspect. But if
one then goes out into white light, everything looks bluish. The
negative after-image of the yellow being cast upon everything makes the
surroundings look blue, for the after-image of yellow is blue. All the
other colors act in a similar way, as do also black and white. If one
has been for some time in a dark room and then goes out to a lighter
place, it seems unusually light. And if one goes from the light to a
dark room, it seems unusually dark.
=Hearing or Audition.= Just as the eye is an organ sensitive to certain
frequencies of ether vibration, so the ear is an organ sensitive to
certain air vibrations. The reader should familiarize himself with the
physiology of the ear by reference to physiologies. The drum-skin, the
three little bones of the middle ear, and the cochlea of the inner ear
are all merely mechanical means of making possible the stimulation of
the specialized endings of the auditory nerve by vibrations of air.
As the different colors are due to different vibration frequencies of
the ether, so different pitches of sound are due to differences in the
rates of the air vibrations. The low bass notes are produced by the low
vibration frequencies. The high notes are produced by the high
vibration frequencies. The lowest notes that we can hear are produced by
about twenty vibrations a second, and the highest by about forty
thousand vibrations a second.
=Other Sense Organs.= We need not give a detailed statement of the facts
concerning the other senses. In each case the sense organ is some
special adaptation of the nerve-endings with appropriate apparatus in
connection to enable it to be affected by some special thing or force in
the environment.
In the case of taste, we find in the mouth, chiefly on the back and
edges of the tongue, organs sensitive to sweet, sour, salt, and bitter.
In the nose we have an organ that is sensitive to the tiny particles of
substances that float in the air which we breathe in through the nose.
In the skin we find several kinds of sense organs that give us the
sensations of cold and warmth, of pressure and pain. These are all
special and definite sensations produced by different kinds of organs.
The sense of warmth is produced by different organs from those which
produce the sense of cold. These organs can be detected and localized on
the skin. So, also, pain and touch or pressure have each its particular
organ.
Within the body itself we have sense organs also, particularly in the
joints and tendons and in the muscles. These give us the sensations
which are the basis of our perception of motion, and of the position of
the body and its members. In the semicircular canals of the inner ear
are organs that give us the sense of dizziness, and enable us to
maintain our equilibrium and to know up from down.
The general nature of the sense organs and of sensation should now be
apparent. The nervous system reaches out its myriad fingers to every
portion of the surface of the body, and within the body as well. These
nerve-endings are specially adapted to receive each its particular form
of stimulation. This stimulation of our sense organs is the basis or
cause of our sensations. And our sensations are the elementary stuff of
all our experience. Whatever thoughts we have, whatever ideas or images
we have, they come originally from our sensations. They are built up out
of our sensations or from these sensations as they exist in memory.
=Defects of Sense Organs.= The organs of sight and hearing are now by far
the most important of our sense organs. They enable us to sense things
that are at a distance. We shall therefore discuss defects of these two
organs only. Since sensations are the primary stuff out of which mind is
made, and since sight and hearing are the most important sense organs,
it is evident that our lives are very much dependent on these organs. If
they cannot do their work well, then we are handicapped. And this is
often the case.
The making of the human eye is one of the most remarkable achievements
of nature. But the making of a perfect eye is too big a task for nature.
She never makes a perfect eye. There is always some defect, large or
small. To take plastic material and make lenses and shutters and
curtains is a great task. The curvature of the front of the eye and of
the front and back of the crystalline lens is never quite perfect, but
in the majority of cases it is nearly enough perfect to give us good
vision. However, in about one third of school children the defect is
great enough to need to be corrected by glasses.
The principle of the correction of sight by means of glasses is merely
this:[1] When the focusing apparatus of the eye is not perfect, it can
be made so by putting in front of the eye the proper kind of lens. There
is nothing strange or mysterious about it. In some cases, the eye
focuses the light before it reaches the retina. Such cases are known as
nearsightedness and are corrected by having placed in front of the eyes
concave lenses of the proper strength. These lenses diverge the rays and
make them focus on the retina. In other cases, the eye is not able to
focus the rays by the time they reach the retina. In these cases, the
eyes need the help of convex lenses of the proper strength to make the
focus fall exactly on the retina.
[1] The teacher should explain these principles and illustrate by
drawings. Consult a good text in physiology. Noyes' University of
Missouri Extension Bulletin on eye and ear defects will be found most
useful.
Another defect of the eye, known as astigmatism, is due to the fact that
the eye does not always have a perfectly spherical front (cornea). The
curvature in one direction is different from that in others. For
example, the vertical curvature may be more convex than the horizontal.
Such a condition produces a serious defect of vision. It can be
corrected by means of cylindrical lenses of the proper strength so
placed before the eye as to correct the defect in curvature.
Still another defect of vision is known as presbyopia or farsightedness
due to old age. It has the following explanation: In early life, when we
look at near objects, the crystalline lens automatically becomes
thicker, more convex. This adjustment brings the rays to a focus on the
retina, which is required for good vision. As we get old, the
crystalline lens loses its power to change its adjustment for near
objects, although the eye may see at a distance as well as ever. The
old person, therefore, must wear convex glasses when looking at near
objects, as in reading and sewing.
Another visual defect of a different nature is known as partial color
blindness. The defects described above are due to misshapen eyes.
Partial color blindness is due to a defect of the retina which makes it
unable to be affected by light waves producing red and green. A person
with this defect confuses red and green. While only a small percentage
of the population has this defect, it is nevertheless very important
that those having it be detected. People having the defect should not be
allowed to enter occupations in which the seeing of red and green is
important. It was recently brought to the author's attention that a
partially color-blind man was selling stamps in a post office. Since two
denominations of stamps are distinguished by red and green colors, this
man made frequent mistakes. He was doing one of the things for which he
was specially unfitted. It is easy to detect color blindness by simple
tests.
So great is the importance of good vision in school work and the later
work of life, that every teacher should know how to make simple tests to
determine visual defects. Children showing any symptoms of eyestrain
should be required to have their visual defects corrected by a competent
oculist, and should be warned not to have the correction made by a
quack. There is great popular ignorance and even prejudice concerning
visual defects, and it is very important that teachers have a clear
understanding of the facts.
=Defects of Hearing.= Hearing defects are only about half as frequent as
those of sight. They are nearly all due to catarrhal infection of the
middle ear through the Eustachian tube. The careful and frequent
medical examination of school children cannot, therefore, be too
strongly emphasized. The deafness or partial deafness that comes from
this catarrhal infection can seldom be cured; it must be prevented by
the early treatment of the troubles which cause it.
SUMMARY. The mind is closely related to the body. Especially is it
dependent upon the brain, nerves, and sense organs. The sense organs
are special adaptations of the nerve-ends for receiving impressions.
Each sense organ receives only its particular type of impression.
The main visual phenomena are those of color-mixture, after-images,
adaptation, and contrast. Since sensation is the basis of mental
life, defects of the sense organs are serious handicaps and should
be corrected if possible. Visual defects are usually due to a
misshapen eyeball and can be corrected by proper glasses, which
should be fitted by an oculist. Hearing defects usually arise from
catarrhal trouble in the middle ear.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Make a study of the relation of the mind to the body. Enumerate the
different lines of evidence which you may find indicating their close
relationship.
2. Can you find any evidence tending to show that the mind is
independent of the body?
3. _Color-Mixture._ Colored disks can be procured from C. H. Stoelting
Company, Chicago. If a small motor is available, the disks can be
rotated on the motor and the colors mixed. Mix pairs of complementary
colors, also pairs of non-complementary colors, and note the result. A
simple device can be made for mixing colors, as follows: On a board
stand a pane of glass. On one side of the glass put a colored paper and
on the other side of the glass put a different color. By looking through
the glass you can see one color through transmitted light and the other
color through reflected light. By inclining the glass at different
angles you can get different proportions of the mixture, now more of one
color, now more of the other.
4. _Negative After-Images._ Cut out pieces of colored paper a half inch
square. Put one of these on a white background on the table. With elbows
on the table, hold the head in the hands and gaze at the colored paper
for about a half-minute, then blow the paper away and continue to gaze
at the white background. Note the color that appears. Use different
colors and tabulate the results. Try projecting the after-images at
different distances. Project the after-images on different colored
papers. Do the after-images mix with the colors of the papers?
5. An interesting experiment with positive after-images can be performed
as follows: Shut yourself in a dark closet for fifteen or twenty minutes
to remove all trace of stimulation of the retina. With the eyes covered
with several folds of thick black cloth go to a window, uncover the eyes
and take a momentary look at the landscape, immediately covering the
eyes again. The landscape will appear as a positive after-image, with
the positive colors and lights and shades. The experiment is best
performed on a bright day.
6. _Adaptation._ Put on colored glasses or hold before the eyes a large
piece of colored glass. Note that at first everything takes on the color
of the glass. What change comes over objects after the glasses have been
worn for fifteen or twenty minutes? Describe your experience after
removing the glasses. Plan and perform other experiments showing
adaptation. For illustration, go from a very bright room into a dark
room. Go from a very dark room to a light one. Describe your experience.
7. _Contrast._ Take a medium gray paper and lay it on white and various
shades of gray and black paper. Describe and explain what you find.
8. _Color Contrast._ Darken a room by covering all the windows except
one window pane. Cover it with cardboard. In the cardboard cut two
windows six inches long and one inch wide. Over one window put colored
glass or any other colored material through which some light will pass.
By holding up a pencil you can cast two shadows on a piece of paper.
What color are the shadows? One is a contrast color induced by the
other; which one? Explain the results.
9. Make a study of the way in which women dress. What do you learn about
color effects?
10. From the Stoelting Company you can obtain the Holmgren worsteds for
studying color blindness.
11. _Defective Vision._ Procure a Snellen's test chart and determine the
visual acuity of the members of the class. Seat the subject twenty feet
from the chart, which should be placed in a good light. While testing
one eye, cover the other with a piece of cardboard. Above each row of
letters on the chart is a number which indicates the distance at which
it can be read by a normal eye. If the subject can read only the
thirty-foot line, his vision is said to be 20/30; if only the forty-foot
line, the vision is 20/40. If the subject can read above the twenty-foot
line and complains of headache from reading, farsightedness is
indicated. If the subject cannot read up to the twenty-foot line,
nearsightedness or astigmatism is indicated.
12. _Hearing._ By consultation with the teacher of physics, plan an
experiment to show that the pitch of tones depends on vibration
frequency. Such an experiment can be very simply performed by rotating a
wheel having spokes. Hold a light stick against the spokes so that it
strikes each spoke. If the wheel is rotated so as to give twenty or
thirty strokes a second, a very low tone will be heard. By rotating the
wheel faster you get a higher tone. Other similar experiments can be
performed.
13. Acuity of hearing can be tested by finding the distance at which the
various members of the class can hear a watch-tick. The teacher can plan
an experiment using whispering instead of the watch-tick. (See the
author's _Examination of School Children_.)
14. By using the point of a nail, one can find the "cold spots" on the
skin. Warm the nail to about 40 degrees Centigrade and you can find the
"warm spots."
15. By touching the hairs on the back of the hand, you can stimulate the
"pressure spots."
16. By pricking the skin with the point of a needle, you can stimulate
the "pain spots."
17. The sense of taste is sensitive only to solutions that are sweet,
sour, salt, or bitter. Plan experiments to verify this point. What we
call the "taste" of many things is due chiefly to odor. Therefore in
experiments with taste, the nostrils should be stopped up with cotton.
It will be found, for example, that quinine and coffee are
indistinguishable if their odors be eliminated by stopping the nose. The
student should compare the taste of many substances put into the mouth
with the nostrils open with the taste of the same substances with the
nostrils closed.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
COLVIN AND BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapters VII and XII.
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, Chapters III, IV, VI,
and VII.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapters II, III, and IV.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapter II.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapter I, par. 3; also
Chapter II.
CHAPTER IV
INHERITED TENDENCIES
=Stimulus and Response.= We have learned something about the sense organs
and their functions. We have seen that it is through the sense organs
that the world affects us, stimulates us. And we have said that we are
stimulated in order that we may respond.
We must now inquire into the nature of our responses. We are moving,
active beings. But how do we move, how do we act when stimulated? Why do
we do one thing rather than another? Why do we do one thing at one time
and a different thing at another time?
Before we answer these questions it will be necessary for us to get a
more definite and complete idea of the nature of stimulus and response.
We have already used these terms, but we must now give a more definite
account of them. It was said in the preceding chapter that when a muscle
contracts, it must first receive a nerve-impulse. Now, anything which
starts this nerve-impulse is called the stimulus. The muscular movement
which follows is, of course, the response. The nervous system forms the
connection between the stimulus and response.
The stimulus which brings about a response may be very simple. Or, on
the other hand, it may be very complex. If one blows upon the eyelids of
a baby, the lids automatically close. The blowing is the stimulus and
the closing of the lids is the response. Both stimulus and response are
here very simple.
But sometimes the stimulus is more complex, not merely the simple
excitation of one sense organ, but a complicated stimulation of an
organ, or the simultaneous stimulation of several organs. In playing
ball, the stimulus for the batter is the on-coming ball. The response is
the stroke. This case is much more complex than the reflex closing of
the eyelids. The ball may be pitched in many different ways and the
response changes with these variations.
In piano playing, the stimulus is the notes written in their particular
places on the staff. Not only must the position of the notes on the
staff be taken into account, but also many other things, such as sharps
and flats, and various characters which give directions as to the manner
in which the music is to be played. The striking of the notes in the
proper order, in the proper time, and with the proper force, is the
response.
In typewriting, the stimulus is the copy, or the idea of what is to be
written, and the response is the striking of the keys in the proper
order. Speaking generally, we may say that the stimulus is the force or
forces which excite the sense organs, and thereby, through the nervous
system, bring about a muscular response.
This is the ordinary type of action, but we have already indicated a
different type. In speaking of typewriting we said the stimulus might be
either the copy or ideas. One can write from copy or dictation, in which
the stimulus is the written or spoken word, but one can also write as
one thinks of what one wishes to write. The latter is known as
_centrally initiated action_. That is to say, the stimulus comes from
within, in the brain, rather than from without.
Let us explain this kind of stimulation a little further. Suppose I am
sitting in my chair reading. I finish a chapter and look at my watch. I
notice that it is three o'clock, and recall that I was to meet a friend
at that time. The stimulus in this case is in the brain itself; it is
the nervous activity which corresponds to the idea of meeting my friend.
If we disregard the distinction between mind and body, we may say that
the stimulus for a response may be an idea as well as a perception, the
perception arising from the immediate stimulation of a sense organ, and
the idea arising from an excitation of the brain not caused by an
immediate stimulation of a sense organ.
=Instincts and Habits.= In human action it is evident that there is always
a stimulus to start the nerve-impulse which causes the action. If we
make inquiry concerning the connection between the stimulus and
response; if we ask how it has come about that a particular stimulus
causes a particular response rather than some other possible response,
we find two kinds of causes. In one case the causal connection is
established through heredity; in the other, the causal connection is
established during a person's lifetime through training.
A chicken, for example, hides under some cover the first time it hears
the cry of a hawk; it scratches the first time its feet touch sand or
gravel; it pecks the first time it sees an insect near by. An infant
closes its eyes the first time it feels cold wind blow upon them; it
cries the first time it feels pain; it clasps its fingers together the
first time a touch is felt inside them. The child's nervous system is so
organized that, in each of the cases named, the stimulus brings forth
the particular, definite response. These acts do not have to be
learned.
But it is quite different in typewriting and piano playing. One _must
learn_ what keys on the piano to strike in response to the various
situations of the notes as written in the music. One must also learn the
keys on the typewriter before he can operate a typewriter. And in the
case of other habits, we find, for example, that one does not respond by
saying "81" for 9 times 9; nor "13" for 6 plus 7; nor "8" for 15 minus
7; nor "8" for the square root of 64; nor "144" for the square of 12,
etc., until one has learned in each case.
Some connections between stimulus and response we have through
inheritance; all others are built up and established in one's lifetime,
particularly in the first thirty years of one's life.
We have spoken of bonds between stimulus and response, but have not
explained just what can be meant by a _bond_. In what sense are stimulus
and response bound together? A bond is a matter of greater permeability,
of less resistance in one direction through the nervous system than in
other directions. Nerves are conductors for nerve-currents. When a
nerve-current is started in a sense organ, it passes on through the path
of least resistance.
Now, some nerves are so organized and connected through inheritance as
to offer small resistance. This forms a ready-made connection between
stimulus and response. Muscular responses that are connected with their
stimuli through inherited bonds, by inherited nerve structure, are
called instincts. Those that are connected by acquired bonds are called
habits. Sucking, crying, laughing, are instinctive acts. Adding,
typewriting, piano playing, are habits.
The term _instinct_ may be given to the act depending upon inherited
structure, an inherited bond, or it may be given to the inherited bond
itself. Similarly, the term _habit_ may be given to an act that we have
had to learn or to the bond which we ourselves establish between
response and stimulus. In this book we shall usually mean by instinct an
action depending upon inherited structure and by habit an act depending
upon a bond established during lifetime. A good part of our early lives
is spent in building up bonds between stimuli and responses. This
establishing of bonds or connections is called _learning_.
=Appearance of Inherited Tendencies.= Not all of our inherited tendencies
are manifested immediately after birth, nor indeed in the earliest years
of childhood, but appear at different stages of the child's growth. It
has already been said that a child, soon after birth, will close its
eyelids when they are blown upon. The lids do not close at this time if
one strikes at them, but they will do this later. The proper working of
an instinct or an inherited tendency, then, depends upon the child's
having reached a certain state of development.
The maturing of an instinct depends upon both age and use, that is to
say, upon the age of the animal and the amount of use or exercise that
the instinctive activity has had. The most important factor, however,
seems to be age. While our knowledge of the dependence of an instinct
upon the age of the animal is not quite so definite in the case of human
instincts, the matter has been worked out in the case of chickens.
The experiment was as follows: Chickens were taken at the time of
hatching, and some allowed to peck from the first, while others were
kept in a dark room and not allowed to peck. When the chickens were
taken out of the dark room at the end of one, two, three, and four days,
it was found that in a few hours they were pecking as well as those
that had been pecking from birth. It seems probable, if we may judge
from our limited knowledge, that in the human child, activities are for
the most part dependent upon the age of the child, and upon the state of
development of the nervous system and of the organs of the body.
=Significance of Inherited Tendencies.= Although human nature is very
complex, although human action nearly always has some element of habit
in it, nevertheless, inborn tendencies are throughout life powerful
factors in determining action. This will at once be apparent if we
consider how greatly we are influenced by anger, jealousy, love, fear,
and competition. Now we do not have to learn to be jealous, to hate, to
love, to be envious, to fight, or to fear. These are emotions common to
all members of the human race, and their expression is an inborn
tendency. Throughout life no other influences are so powerful in
determining our action as are these. So, although most of our detailed
actions in life are habits which we learn or acquire, the fundamental
influences which decide the course of our action are inherited
tendencies.
=Classification of Instincts.= For convenience in treatment the instincts
are grouped in classes. Those instincts most closely related to
individual survival are called _individualistic_ instincts. Those more
closely related to the survival of the group are called _socialistic_.
Those individualistic tendencies growing out of periodic changes of the
environment may be called _environmental_ instincts. Those closely
related to human infancy, adapting and adjusting the child to the world
in which he lives, may be called _adaptive_. There is still another
group of inherited tendencies connected with sex and reproduction, which
are not discussed in this book.
We shall give a brief discussion of the instincts falling under these
various classes. It must be remembered, however, that the psychology of
the instincts is indefinite and obscure. It is difficult to bring the
instincts into the laboratory for accurate study. For our knowledge of
the instincts we are dependent, for the most part, on general
observation. We have had a few careful studies of the very earliest
years of childhood. However, although from the theoretical point of view
our knowledge of the instincts is incomplete, it is sufficient to be of
considerable practical value.
=The Individualistic Instincts.= Man's civilized life has covered but a
short period of time, only a few hundred or a few thousand years. His
pre-civilized life doubtless covered a period of millions of years. The
inborn tendencies in us are such as were developed in the long period of
savage life. During all of man's life in the time before civilization,
he was always in danger. He had many enemies, and most of these enemies
had the advantage of him in strength and natural means of defense.
Unaided by weapons, he could hardly hold his own against any of the
beasts of prey. So there were developed in man by the process of natural
selection many inherited responses which we group under the head of
_fear_ responses.
Just what the various situations are that bring forth these responses
has never been carefully worked out. But any situation that suddenly
puts an individual in danger of losing his life brings about
characteristic reactions. The most characteristic of the responses are
shown in connection with circulation and respiration. Both of these
processes are much interfered with. Sometimes the action is accelerated,
at other times it is retarded, and in some cases the respiratory and
circulatory organs are almost paralyzed. Also the small muscles of the
skin are made to contract, producing the sensation of the hair standing
on end. Just what the original use of all these responses was it is
difficult now to work out, but doubtless each served some useful
purpose.
Whether any particular situations now call forth inherited fear
responses in us is not definitely established. But among lower animals
there are certain definite and particular situations which do call forth
fear responses. On the whole, the evidence rather favors the idea of
definite fear situations among children. It seems that certain
situations do invariably arouse fear responses. To be alone in the dark,
to be in a strange place, to hear loud and sudden noises, to see large,
strange animals coming in threatening manner, seem universally to call
forth fear responses in children.
However, the whole situation must always be considered. A situation in
which the father or mother is present is quite different from one in
which they are both absent. But it is certain that these and other fears
are closely related to the age and development of the child. In the
earlier years of infancy, certain fears are not present that are present
later. And it can be demonstrated that the fears that do arise as
infancy passes on are natural and inherited and not the result of
experience.
Few of the original causes of fear now exist. The original danger was
from wild animals chiefly. Seldom are we now in such danger. But of
course this has been the case for only a short time. Our bodies are the
same sort of bodies that our ancestors had, therefore we are full of
needless fears. During the early years of a child's life, wise treatment
causes most of the fear tendencies to disappear because of disuse. On
the other hand, unwise treatment may accentuate and perpetuate them,
causing much misery and unhappiness. Neither the home nor the school
should play upon these ancestral fears. We should not try to get a child
to be good by frightening him; nor should we often use fear of pain as
an incentive to get a child to do his work.
Man has always been afraid, but he has also always been a fighter. He
has always had to fight for his life against the lower animals, and he
has also fought his fellow man. The fighting response is connected with
the emotions of anger, envy, and jealousy. A man is angered by anything
that interferes with his life, with his purposes, with whatever he calls
his own. We become angry if some one strikes our bodies, or attacks our
beliefs, or the beliefs of our dear friends, particularly of our
families. The typical responses connected with anger are such as faster
heart-beat, irregular breathing, congestion of the blood in the face and
head, tightening of the voluntary muscles, particularly a setting of the
teeth and a clinching of the fists. These responses are preparatory to
actual combat.
Anger, envy, and jealousy, and the responses growing out of them, have
always played a large part in the life of man. A great part of history
is a record of the fights of nations, tribes, and individuals. If the
records of wars and strifes, and the acts growing out of envy and
jealousy and other similar emotions should be taken out of history,
there would not be much left. Much of literature and art depict those
actions of man which grew out of these individualistic aspects of his
nature. Competition, which is an aspect of fighting, even to the present
day, continues to be one of the main factors in business and in life
generally. Briefly, fighting responses growing out of man's selfishness
are as old as man himself, and the inherited tendencies connected with
them are among the strongest of our natures.
In the training of children, one of the most difficult tasks is to help
them to get control over the fighting instinct and other selfish
tendencies. These tendencies are so deeply rooted in our natures that it
is hard to get control of them. In fact, the control which we do get
over them is always relative. The best we can hope to do is to get
control over our fighting tendencies in ordinary circumstances.
It is doubtful whether it would be good for us if the fighting spirit
should disappear from the race. It puts vim and determination into the
life of man. But our fighting should not be directed against our fellow
man. The fighting spirit can be retained and directed against evil and
other obstacles. We can learn to attack our tasks in a fighting spirit.
But surely the time has come when we should cease fighting against our
neighbors.
=Social Tendencies.= Over against our fighting tendencies we may set the
socialistic tendencies. Coöperative and sympathetic actions grow out of
original nature, just as truly as do the selfish acts. But the
socialistic tendencies are not, in general, as strong as are the
individualistic ones. What society needs is the strengthening of the
socialistic tendencies by use, and a weakening of at least some of the
individualistic tendencies, by control and disuse.
Socialistic tendencies show themselves in gangs and clubs formed by
children and adults. It is, therefore, a common practice now to speak of
the "gang" instinct. Human beings are pleased and content when with
other human beings and not content, not satisfied, when alone. Of course
circumstances make a difference in the desires of men, but the general
original tendency is as stated.
The gang of the modern city has the following explanation: Boys like to
be with other boys. Moreover, they like to be active; they want to be
doing something. The city does not provide proper means for the desired
activities, such as hunting, fishing, tramping, and boating. It does not
provide experiences with animals, such as boys have on the farm. Much of
the boy's day is spent in school in a kind of work not at all like what
he would do by choice. There is not much home life. Usually there is not
the proper parental control. Seldom do the parents interest themselves
in planning for the activities of their children. The result is that the
boys come together on the streets and form a club or gang. Through this
organization the boy's nature expresses itself. Without proper guidance
from older people, this expression takes a direction not good for the
future character and usefulness of the boy.
The social life of children should be provided for by the school in
coöperation with the home. The school or the schoolroom should
constitute a social unit. The teacher with the parents should plan the
social life of the children. The actual work of the school can be very
much socialized. There can be much more coöperation and much more group
work can be done in the school than is the case at present. And many
other social activities can be organized in connection with the school
and its work. Excursions, pageants, shows, picnics, and all sorts of
activities should be undertaken.
The schoolhouse should be used by the community as the place for many of
its social acts and performances. Almost every night, and throughout the
summer as well as in the winter, the people, young and old, should meet
at the school for some sort of social work or play. The Boy Scouts
should be brought under the control of the school to help fulfill some
of its main purposes.
=Environmental Instincts.= In this class there are at least two tendencies
which seem to be part of the original nature of man; namely, the
_wandering_ and the _collecting_ tendencies.
_Wandering._ The long life that our ancestors lived free and
unrestrained in the woods has left its effect within us. One of the
greatest achievements of civilization has been to overcome the inherited
tendencies to roam and wander, to the extent that for the most part we
live out our lives in one home, in one family, doing often but one kind
of work all our lives. Originally, man had much more freedom to come and
go and do whatever he wished.
Truancies and runaways are the result of original tendencies and desires
expressing themselves in spite of training, perhaps sometimes because of
the lack of training. In childhood and youth these original tendencies
should, to some extent, be satisfied in legitimate ways. Excursions and
picnics can be planned both for work and for play. If the child's
desires and needs can be satisfied in legitimate ways, then he will not
have to satisfy them illegitimately. The teaching itself can be done
better by following, to some extent, the lead of the child's nature.
Much early education consists in learning the world. Now, most of the
world is out of doors and the child must go out to find it. The teacher
should make use of the natural desires of the children to wander and
explore, as a means of educating them. The school work should be of such
a nature that much outdoor work will need to be done.
_Collecting._ It is in the nature of children to seize and, if possible,
carry away whatever attracts attention. This tendency is the basis of
what is called the collecting instinct. If one will take a walk with a
child, one can observe the operation of the collecting tendency,
particularly if the walk is in the fields and woods. The child will be
observed to take leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, nuts, pebbles, and in
fact everything that is loose or can be gotten loose. They are taken at
first aimlessly, merely because they attract attention. The original,
natural response of the child toward that which attracts attention is
usually to get it, get possession of it and take it along. It is easy to
see why such tendencies were developed in man. In his savage state it
was highly useful for him to do this. He must always have been on the
lookout for things which could be used as food or as weapons. He had to
do this to live. But one need not take a child to the woods to observe
this tendency. One can go to the stores. Till a child is trained not to
do it, he seizes and takes whatever attracts attention.
Just as the wandering tendencies can be used for the benefit of the
child, so can the collecting tendencies. Not only should the children
make expeditions to learn of the world, but specimens should be
collected so that they can be used to form a museum at the school which
will represent the surrounding locality. Geological, geographical,
botanical, and zoölogical specimens should be collected. The children
will learn much while making the collections, and much from the
collections after they are made.
"Education could profit greatly by making large demands upon the
collecting instinct. It seems clear that in their childhood is the time
when children should be sent forth to the fields and woods, to study
what they find there and to gather specimens. The children can form
naturalists' clubs for the purpose of studying the natural environment.
Such study should embrace rocks, soils, plants, leaves, flowers, fruits,
and specimens of the wood of the various trees. Birds and insects can be
studied and collected. The work of such a club would have a twofold
value. (1) The study and collecting acquaint the child with his natural
environment, and in doing it, afford a sphere for the activity of many
aspects of his nature. They take him out of doors and give an
opportunity for exploring every nook and corner of the natural
environment. The collecting can often be done in such a way as to appeal
to the group instincts. For example, the club could hold meetings for
exhibiting and studying the specimens, and sometimes the actual
collecting could be done in groups. (2) The specimens collected should
be put into the school museum, and the aim of this museum should be to
represent completely the local environment, the natural and physical
environment, and also the industrial, civil, and social environment. The
museum should be completely illustrative of the child's natural,
physical, and social surroundings. The museum would therefore be
educative in its making, and when it is made, it would have immense
value to the community, not only to the children but to all the people.
In this museum, of course, should be found the minerals, rocks, soils,
insects,--particularly those of economic importance,--birds, and also
specimens of the wild animals of the locality. If proper appeal is made
to the natural desire of the children, this instinct would soon be made
of service in producing a very valuable collection. The school museum in
which these specimens are placed should also include other classes of
specimens. There should be specimens showing industrial evolution, the
stages of manufacture of raw material, specimens of local historical
interest, pictures, documents, books. The museum should be made of such
a nature that parents would go there nearly as often as the children.
The school should be for the instruction of all the people of the
community. It should be the experiment station, the library, the
debating club, the art gallery for the whole community."[2]
[2] Pyle's _Outlines of Educational Psychology_, pp. 84-86.
=Imitation.= One of the fundamental original traits of human nature is the
tendency to imitate. Imitation is not instinctive in the strict meaning
of the word. Seeing a certain act performed does not, apart from
training and experience, serve as a stimulus to make a child perform a
similar act. Hearing a certain sound does not serve as a stimulus for
the production of the same sound. Nevertheless, there is in the human
child a tendency or desire to do what it sees others doing.
A few hours spent in observing children ought to convince any one of the
universality and of the strength of this tendency. As our experience
becomes organized, the idea of an act usually serves as the stimulus to
call it forth. However, this is not because the idea of an act, of
necessity, always produces the act. It is merely a matter of the
stimulus and the response _becoming connected in that way_ as the result
of experience. Our meaning is that an act can be touched off or prompted
by any stimulus. Our nervous organization makes this possible. The
particular stimulus that calls forth a particular response depends upon
how we have been trained, how we have learned. In most cases our acts
are coupled up with the ideas of the acts. We learn them that way.
In early life particularly, the connection between stimulus and response
is very close. When a child gets the idea of an act, he immediately
performs the act, if he knows how. Now, seeing another perform an act
brings the act clearly into the child's consciousness, and he proceeds
to perform it. But the act must be one which the child already knows how
to perform, otherwise his performance of it will be faulty and
incomplete. If he has never performed the particular act, seeing another
perform the act sets him to trying to do it and he may soon learn it. If
he successfully performs an act when he sees it done by another, the act
must be one which he already knows how to perform, and for whose
performance the idea has already served as a stimulus. Now if imitation
were instinctive in the strict sense, one could perform the act for the
first time merely from seeing another do it, without any previous
experience or learning. It is doubtful whether there are any such
inherited connections. It is, however, true that human beings are of
such a nature that, particularly in early life, they _like_ to do and
_want_ to do what they see others doing. This is one of the most
important aspects of human nature, as we shall see.
=Function and Importance of Imitation in Life.= Natural selection has
developed few aspects of human nature so important for survival as the
tendency to imitate, for this tendency quickly leads to a successful
adjustment of the child to the world in which he lives. Adult men and
women are successfully adjusted to their environment. Their adjustment
might be better, but it is good enough to keep them alive for a time.
Now, if children do as they see their parents doing, they will reach a
satisfactory adjustment. We may, therefore, say that the tendency to
imitate serves to adjust the child to his environment. It is for this
reason that imitation has been called an _adaptive instinct_. It would
perhaps be better to say merely that the _tendency_ to imitate is part
of the _original equipment of man_.
Imitation is distinctively a human trait. While it occurs in lower
animals it is probably not an important factor in adjusting them to
their environment. But in the human race it is one of the chief factors
in adjustment to environment. Imitation is one of the main factors in
education. Usually the quickest way to teach a child to do a thing is to
show him how.
Through imitation we acquire our language, manners, and customs. Ideals,
beliefs, prejudices, attitudes, we take on through imitation. The
tendency to imitate others coupled with the desire to be thought well of
by others is one of the most powerful factors in producing conformity.
They are the whips which keep us within the bounds of custom and
conventionality. The tendency to imitate is so strong that its results
are almost as certain as are those of inherited tendencies. It is almost
as certain that a child will be like his parents in speech, manners,
customs, superstitions, etc., as it is that he will be like them in form
of body. He not only walks and talks and acts like his parents, but he
thinks as they do. We, therefore, have the term _social heredity_,
meaning the taking on of all sorts of social habits and ideals through
imitation.
The part that imitation plays in the education of a child may be learned
by going to a country home and noting how the boy learns to do all the
many things about the farm by imitating his father, and how the girl
learns to do all the housework by imitating her mother. Imitation is the
basis of much of the play of children, in that their play consists in
large part of doing what they see older people doing. This imitative
play gives them skill and is a large factor in preparing for the work of
life.
=Dramatization.= Dramatization is an aspect of imitation, and is a means
of making ideas more real than they would otherwise be. There is nothing
that leads us so close to reality as action. We never completely know an
act till we have done it. Dramatization is a matter of carrying an idea
out into action. Ideas give to action its greatest fullness of meaning.
Dramatic representation should, therefore, have a prominent place in the
schools, particularly in the lower grades. If the child is allowed to
mimic the characters in the reading lesson, the meaning of the lesson
becomes fuller. Later on in the school course, dramatic representation
of the characters in literature and history is a means of getting a
better conception of these characters. In geography, the study of the
manners and customs and occupations of foreign peoples can be much
facilitated through dramatic representation. Children naturally have the
dramatic tendency; it is one aspect of the tendency to imitate. We have
only to encourage it and make use of it throughout the school course.
=Imitation in Ideals.= Imitation is of importance not only in acquiring
the actions of life but also in getting our ideals. Habits of thinking
are no less an aspect of our lives than are habits of acting. Our
attitudes, our prejudices, our beliefs, our moral, religious, and
political ideals are in large measure copied from people about us. The
family and social atmosphere in which one lives is a mold in which one's
mind is formed and shaped. We cannot escape the influence of this
atmosphere if we would. One takes on a belief that his father has, one
clings to this belief and interprets the world in the light of it. This
belief becomes a part of one's nature. It is a mental habit, a way of
looking at the world. It is as much a part of one as red hair or big
feet or a crooked nose. Probably no other influence has so much to do
with making us what we are as social beings as the influence of
imitation.
=Play.= Play is usually considered to be a part of the original equipment
of man. It is essentially an expression of the ripening instincts of
children, and not a specific instinct itself. It is rather a sort of
make-believe activity of all the instincts. Kittens and dogs may be seen
in play to mimic fighting. They bite and chew each other as in real
fighting, but still they are not fighting.
As the structures and organs of children mature, they demand activity.
This early activity is called play. It has several characteristics. The
main one is that it is pleasurable. Play activity is pleasurable in
itself. We do not play that we may get something else which we like, as
is the case with the activity which we call work. Play is an end in
itself. It is not a means to get something else which is intrinsically
valuable.
One of the chief values of play comes from its activity aspect. We are
essentially motor beings. We grow and develop only through exercise. In
early life we do not have to exert ourselves to get a living. Play is
nature's means of giving our organs the exercise which they must have to
bring them to maturity. Play is an expression of the universal tendency
to action in early life. Without play, the child would not develop,
would not become a normal human being.
All day long the child is ceaselessly active. The value of this activity
can hardly be overestimated. It not only leads to healthy growth, but is
a means through which the child learns himself and the world. Everything
that the child sees excites him to react to it or upon it. He gets
possession of it. He bites it. He pounds it. He throws it. In this way
he learns the properties of things and the characteristics of forces.
Through play and imitation, in a very few years the child comes to a
successful adjustment in his world.
Play and imitation are the great avenues of activity in early life. Even
in later life, we seldom accomplish anything great or worth while until
the thing becomes play to us, until we throw our whole being into it as
we do in play, until it is an expression of ourselves as play is in our
childhood. The proper use of play gives us the solution of many of the
problems of early education.
Play has two functions in the school: (1) Motor play is necessary to
growth, development, and health. The constant activity of the child is
what brings about healthy growth.
In the country it is not difficult for children to get plenty of the
proper kind of exercise, but in the larger cities it is difficult.
Nevertheless, opportunity for play should be provided for every child,
no matter what the trouble or expense, for without play children cannot
become normal human beings. Everywhere parents and teachers should plan
for the play life of the children.
(2) In the primary grades play can have a large place in the actual work
of the school. The early work of education is to a large extent getting
the tools of knowledge and thought and work--reading, spelling,
writing, correct speech, correct writing, the elementary processes of
arithmetic, etc. In many ways play can be used in acquiring these tools.
One aspect of play particularly should have a large place in education;
namely, the manipulative tendencies of children. This is essentially
play. Children wish to handle and manipulate everything that attracts
their attention. They wish to tear it to pieces and to put it together.
This is nature's way of teaching, and by it children learn the
properties and structures of things. They thereby learn what things do
and what can be done with them. Teachers and parents should foster these
manipulative tendencies and use them for the child's good. These
tendencies are an aspect of curiosity. We want to know. We are unhappy
as long as a thing is before us which we do not understand, which has
some mystery about it. Nature has developed these tendencies in us, for
without a knowledge of our surroundings we could not live. The child
therefore has in his nature the basis of his education. We have but to
know this nature and wisely use and manipulate it to achieve the child's
education.
SUMMARY. Instincts are inherited tendencies to specific actions.
They fall under the heads: individualistic, socialistic,
environmental, adaptive, sexual or mating instincts. These inherited
tendencies are to a large extent the foundation on which we build
education. The educational problem is to control and guide them,
suppressing some, fostering others. In everything we undertake for a
child we must take into account these instincts.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Make a study of the instincts of several animals, such as dogs, cats,
chickens. Make a list showing the stimuli and the inherited responses.
2. Make a study of the instincts of a baby. See how many inherited
responses you can observe. The simpler inherited responses are known as
_reflexes_. The closing of the eyelids mentioned in the text is an
example. How many such reflexes can you find in a child?
3. Make a special study of the fears of very young children. How many
definite situations can you find which excite fear responses in all
children? Each member of the class can make a list of his own fears. It
may then be seen whether any fears are common to all members of the
class and whether there are any sex differences.
4. Similarly, make a study of anger and fighting. What situations
invariably arouse the fighting response? In what definite, inherited
ways is anger shown? Do your studies and observations convince you that
the fighting instinct and other inherited responses concerned with
individual survival are among the strongest of inherited tendencies? Can
the fighting instinct be eliminated from the human race? Is it desirable
to eliminate it?
5. Make a study of children's collections. Take one of the grades and
find what collections the children have made. What different objects are
collected?
6. Outline a plan for using the collecting instinct in various school
studies.
7. With the help of the principal of the school make a study of some
specific cases of truancy. What does your finding show?
8. Make a study of play by watching children of various ages play. Make
a list of the games that are universal for infancy, those for childhood,
and those for youth. (Consult Johnson's _Plays and Games_.)
9. What are the two main functions of play in education? Why should we
play after we are mature?
10. Study imitation in very young children. Do this by watching the
spontaneous play of children under six. What evidences of imitation do
you find?
11. Outline the things we learn by imitation. What is your opinion of
the place which imitation has in our education?
12. Make a study of imitation as a factor in the lives of grown people.
Consider styles, fashions, manners, customs, beliefs, prejudices,
religious ideas, etc.
13. On the whole, is imitation a good thing or a bad thing?
14. Make a plan of the various ways in which dramatization can be
profitably used in the schools.
15. Make a study of your own ideals. What ideals do you have? Where did
you get them? What ideals did you get from your parents? What from
books? What from teachers? What from friends?
16. Show that throughout life inherited tendencies are the fundamental
bases from which our actions proceed, on which our lives are erected.
17. Make a complete outline of the chapter.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
COLVIN and BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapters III, VIII, IX, and X.
KIRKPATRICK: _Fundamentals of Child Study_, Chapters IV-XIII.
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, pp. 184-187.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapter X.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapters IV-IX.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapter VIII.
CHAPTER V
FEELING AND ATTENTION
=The Feelings.= Related to the instincts on one side and to habits on the
other are the feelings. In Chapter III we discussed sensation, and in
the preceding chapter, the instincts, but when we have described an act
in terms of instinct and sensation, we have not told all the facts.
For example, when a child sees a pretty red ball of yarn, he reaches out
to get it, then puts it into his mouth, or unwinds it, and plays with it
in various ways. It is all a matter of sensation and instinctive
responses. The perception of the ball--seeing the ball--brings about the
instinctive reaching out, grasping the ball, and bringing it to the
mouth. But to complete our account, we must say that the child is
_pleased_. We note a change in his facial expression. His eyes gleam
with pleasure. His face is all smiles, showing pleasant contentment.
Therefore we must say that the child not only sees, not only acts, but
the seeing and acting are _pleasant_. The child continues to look, he
continues to act, because the looking and acting bring joy.
This is typical of situations that bring pleasure. We want them
continued; we act in a way to make them continue. _We go out after the
pleasure-giving thing._
But let us consider a different kind of situation. A child sees on the
hearth a glowing coal. It instinctively reaches out and grasps it,
starts to draw the coal toward it, but instinctively drops it. This is
not, however, the whole story. Instead of the situation being pleasant,
it is decidedly unpleasant. The child fairly howls with pain. His face,
instead of being wreathed in smiles, is covered with tears. He did not
hold on to the coal. He did not try to continue the situation. On the
contrary, he dropped the coal, and withdrew the hand. The body
contracted and shrank away from the situation.
These two cases illustrate the two simple feelings, pleasantness and
unpleasantness. Most situations in life are either pleasant or
unpleasant. Situations may sometimes be neutral; that is, may arouse
neither the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness. But usually a
conscious state is either pleasant or unpleasant. A situation brings us
life, joy, happiness. We want it continued and act in a way to bring
about its continuance. Or the situation tends to take away our life,
brings pain, sorrow, grief, and we want it discontinued, and act in a
way to discontinue it.
These two simple forms of feeling perhaps arose in the beginning in
connection with the act of taking food. It is known that if a drop of
acid touches an amoeba, the animal shrinks, contracts, and tries to
withdraw from the death-bringing acid. On the other hand, if a particle
of a substance that is suitable for food touches the animal, it takes
the particle within itself. The particle is life-giving and brings
pleasure.
=The Emotions.= Pleasure and displeasure are the simple feelings. Most
situations in life bring about very complex feeling states known as
_emotions_. The emotions are made up of pleasure or displeasure mixed
or compounded with the sensations from the bodily reactions.
The circulatory system, the respiratory system, and nearly all the
involuntary organs of the body form a great sounding board which
instantly responds in various ways to the situations of life. When the
youth sees the pretty maiden and when he touches her hand, his heart
pumps away at a great rate, his cheeks become flushed, his breathing is
paralyzed, his voice trembles. He experiences the emotion of love. The
state is complex indeed. There is pleasantness, of course, but there is
in addition the feeling of all the bodily reactions.
When the mother sees her dead child lying in its casket, her head falls
over on her breast, her eyes fill with tears, her shoulders droop, her
chest contracts, she sobs, her breathing is spasmodic. Nearly every
organ of the body is affected in one way or another. The state is
_unpleasant_, but there is also the feeling of the manifold bodily
reactions.
So it is always. The biologically important situations in life bring
about, through hereditary connections in the nervous system, certain
typical reactions. These reactions are largely the same for the same
type of situation, and they give the particular coloring to each
emotion. It is evident that the emotions are closely related to the
instincts. The reflexes that take place in emotions are of the same
nature as the instincts. Each instinctive act has its characteristic
emotion. There are fear instincts and fear emotions. Fear is unpleasant.
In addition to its unpleasantness there is a multitude of sensations
that come from the body. The hair stands on end, the heart throbs, the
circulation is hastened, breathing is interrupted, the muscles are
tense. This peculiar mass of sensations, blended with the
unpleasantness, gives the characteristic emotion of fear. But we need
not go into an analysis of the various emotions of love, hate, envy,
grief, jealousy, etc. The reader can do this for himself.[3]
[3] See James' _Psychology, Briefer Course_, Chapter XXIV.
Nearly every organ of the body plays its part in the emotions: the
digestive organs, the liver, the kidneys, the throat and mouth, the
salivary glands, the eyes and tear glands, the skin muscles, the facial
muscles, etc. And every emotion is made up of pleasantness or
unpleasantness and the sensations produced by some combination of bodily
reactions.
It is well for us to remember the part that bodily conditions and states
play in the emotional life. The emotional state of a man depends upon
whether he has had his dinner or is hungry, whether the liver is working
normally, and upon the condition of the various secreting and excreting
organs and glands. In a word, it is evident that our emotions fall
within a world of cause and effect. _Our feeling states are caused._
=Importance in Life.= Our feelings and emotions are the fountains from
which nearly all our volitional actions flow. Feeling is the
_mainspring_ of life. Nearly everything we do is prompted by love, or
hate, or fear, or jealousy, or rivalry, or anger, or grief. If the
feelings have such close relation to action, then the schools must take
them into account, for by education we seek to control action. If the
feelings control action, then we must try to control the feelings. We
must get the child into a right state of mind toward the school, toward
his teacher, and toward his work. The child must like the school, like
the teacher, and _want_ to learn.
Moreover, we must create the right state of mind in connection with
each study, each task. The child must come to feel the need and
importance of each individual task as well as of each subject. The task
is then desirable, it is to be sought for and worked at, it is important
for life.
This is merely enlisting the child's nature in the interest of his
education. For motive, we must always look to the child's nature. The
two great forces which pull and drive are _pleasure_ and _pain_. Nature
has no other methods. Formerly the school used pain as its motive almost
exclusively. The child did his tasks to escape pain. For motive we now
use more often the positive influences which give pleasure, which pull
instead of drive. What will one not do _for_ the _loved_ one? What will
one not do _to_ the _hated_ one? The child who does not love his teacher
gets little good from school while under that teacher. Moreover, school
work is often a failure because it is so unreal, has so little relation
to an actual world, and seems foreign to any real needs of the child. No
one is going to work very hard unless the work is prompted by desire.
Our desires come from our needs. Therefore, if we are to enlist the
child's feelings in the service of his education, we must make the
school work vital and relate it, if possible, to the actual needs of the
child.
It must not be forgotten, however, that we must build up permanent
attitudes of respect for authority, obedience, and reverence for the
important things of life. Neither must it be forgotten that we can
create needs in the child. If in the education of the child we follow
only such needs as he has, we will make a fine savage of him but nothing
else. It is the business of the school to create in the child the right
kind of needs. As was pointed out in our study of the instincts, we
must make the child over again into what he ought to be. But this
cannot be a sudden process. One cannot arouse enthusiasm in a
six-year-old child over the beauties of higher mathematics. It takes ten
or fifteen years to do that, and it must be done little by little.
=Control of the Emotions.= Without training, we remain at the mercy of our
baser emotions. The child must be trained to control himself. Here is
where habit comes in to modify primitive action. The child can be
trained to inhibit or prevent the reactions that arise in hatred, envy,
jealousy, anger, etc. For a fuller discussion of this point we must wait
till we come to the discussion of habit and moral training.
=Mood and Temperament.= A mood is a somewhat extended emotional state
continuing for hours or days. It is due to a continuance of the factors
which cause it. The state of the liver and digestive organs may throw
one for days into a cross and ugly mood. When the body becomes normal,
the mood changes or disappears. Similarly, one may for hours or days be
overjoyed, or depressed, or morose, or melancholy. Parents and teachers
should look well to the matter of creating and establishing continuous
and permanent states of feeling that are favorable to work and
development.
Some people are permanently optimistic, others pessimistic. Some are
always joyful, others as constantly see only the dark side of life. Some
are always serious and solemn, others always gay, even giddy. These
permanent emotional attitudes constitute temperament, and are due to
fundamental differences within the body that are in some cases
hereditary. Crossness and moroseness, for example, may be due to a
dyspeptic condition and a chronically bad liver. The happy dispositions
belong to bodies whose organs are functioning properly, in which
assimilation is good--all the parts of the body doing their proper work.
Poor eyes which are under a constant strain, through the reflex effects
upon various organs of the body, are likely to develop a permanently
cross and irritable disposition. Through the close sympathetic relation
of the various organs, anything affecting one organ and interfering with
its proper action is likely to affect many other organs and profoundly
influence the emotional states of the body. In growing children
particularly, there are many influences which affect their emotions,
things of which we seldom think, such as the condition of vision and
hearing, the condition of the teeth, nose, and throat, and the condition
of all the important vital organs of the body. When a child's
disposition is not what we think it ought to be, we should try to find
out the causes.
=Training the Emotions.= The emotions are subject to training. The child
can be taught control. Moreover, he can be taught to appreciate and
enjoy higher things than mere animal pleasure; namely, art, literature,
nature, truth. The child thereby becomes a spiritual being instead of a
mere pig. The ideal of the school should be to develop men and women
whose baser passions are under control, who are calm, self-controlled,
and self-directed, and who get their greatest pleasure from the finer
and higher things of life, such as the various forms of music, the songs
of birds, the beauties and intricate workings of nature.
This is a wonderful world and a wonderful life, but the child may go
through the world without seeing it, and live his life without knowing
what it is to live. His eyes must be opened, he must be trained to see
and to feel. It is not the place here to tell how this is to be done.
This is not a book on methods of teaching. We can only indicate here
that the business of the school is not merely to teach people how to
make a living, but to teach them how to enjoy the living. There are many
avenues from which we get the higher forms of pleasure. There are really
many different worlds which we may experience: the world of animals, the
world of plants, the mechanical world, the chemical world, the world of
literature and of art, the world of music. It is the duty of the schools
to open up these worlds to the children, and make them so many
possibilities of joy and happiness.
The emotions and feelings, then, are not lawless and causeless, but are
a part of a world of law and order. They are themselves caused and
therefore subject to control and modification.
=Attention.= Attention, too, is related to inherited tendencies on the one
side and to habits on the other. If one is walking in the woods and
catches a glimpse of something moving in the trees, the eyes
_instinctively_ turn so that the person can get a better view of the
object. If one hears a sudden sound, the head is instinctively turned so
that the person can hear better. One stops, the body is held still and
rigid, breathing is slow and controlled--all to favor better hearing.
The various acts of attention are reflex and instinctive. But what is
attention? By attention we mean _sensory clearness_. When we say we are
attentive to a thing or subject, we mean that perceptions or ideas of
that thing or subject are _clear_ as compared to other perceptions and
ideas that are in consciousness at the same time. The contents of one's
consciousness, the perceptions and ideas that constitute one's mind at
any one moment are always arranged in an _attentive_ pattern, some
being clear, others unclear. The pattern constantly changes and shifts.
What is now clear and in the focus of consciousness, presently is
unclear and may in a moment disappear from consciousness altogether,
while other perceptions or ideas take its place.
The first question that arises in connection with attention is, What are
the causes of attention? The first group of causes are hereditary and
instinctive. The child attends to loud things, bright things, moving
things, etc. But as we grow older, the basis of attention becomes more
and more _habit_. An illustration will make this clear. I once spent a
day at a great exposition with a machinist. He was constantly attending
to things mechanical, when I would not even see them. He had spent many
years working with machinery, and as a result, things mechanical at once
attracted him. Similarly, if a man and a woman walk along a street
together and look in at the shop windows, the woman sees only hats,
dresses, ribbons, and other finery, while the man sees only cigars,
pipes, and automobile supplies. Every day we live, we are building up
habits of attending to certain types of things. What repeatedly comes
into our experience, easily attracts our attention to the exclusion of
other things.
=The Function of Attention.= Attention is the unifying aspect of
consciousness. There are always many things in consciousness, and we
cannot respond to all at once. The part of consciousness that is clear
and focal brings about action. The things to which we attend are the
things that count.
In later chapters we shall learn that in habit-formation, attention is
an important factor. We must attend to the acts we are trying to
make habitual. In getting knowledge, we must attend to what we are
trying to learn. In committing to memory, we must attend to the ideas
that we are trying to fix and make permanent. In thinking and reasoning,
those ideas become associated together that are together in attention.
Attention is therefore the controlling aspect of consciousness. It is
the basis of what we call _will_. The ideas that are clear and focal and
that persist in consciousness are the ideas that control our action.
When one says he has made up his mind, he has made a choice; that merely
means that a certain group of ideas persist in consciousness to the
exclusion of others. These are the ideas which ultimately produce
action. And it is our past experience that determines what ideas will
become focal and persist.
=Training the Attention.= There are two aspects of the training of
attention. (1) We can learn to hold ourselves to a task. When we sit
down to a table to study, there may be many things that tend to call us
away. There lies a magazine which we might read, there is a play at the
theater, there are noises outside, there is a friend calling across the
street. But we must study. We have set ourselves to a task and we must
hold fast to our purpose.
The young child cannot do this. He must be trained to do it. The
instruments used to train him are pleasure and pain, rewards and
punishments that come from parents. Gradually, slowly, the child gains
control over himself. No one ever amounts to anything till he can hold
himself to a task, to a fixed purpose. One must learn to form plans
extending over weeks, months, and years, and to hold unflinchingly to
them, just as one must hold himself to his study table and allow nothing
to distract or to interfere. No training a child can receive is more
important than this, for it gives him control over his life, it gives
him control over the ideas that are to become focal and determine
action. It is for this reason that we call such training a training of
attention. It might perhaps better be called a training of the will. But
the will is only the attentive consciousness. The idea that is clear,
that holds its own in consciousness, is the idea that produces action.
When we say that we _will_ to do a certain thing, all we can mean is
that the _idea of this act_ is clearest and holds its focal place in
consciousness to the exclusion of other ideas. It therefore goes over
into action.
(2) The training just discussed may be called a general training of
attention giving us a general power and control over our lives, but
there is another type of training which is specific. As with the
machinist mentioned above, so with all of us; we attend to the type of
thing that we have formed a habit of attending to. Continued experience
in a certain field makes it more and more easy to attend to things in
that field. One can take a certain subject and work at it day after day,
year after year. By and by, the whole world takes on the aspect of this
chosen subject. The entomologist sees bugs everywhere, the botanist sees
only plants, the mechanic sees only machines, the preacher sees only the
moral and religious aspects of action, the doctor sees only disease, the
mathematician sees always the quantitative aspect of things. Ideas and
perceptions related to one's chosen work go at once and readily to the
focus of consciousness; other things escape notice.
It is for this reason that we become "crankier" every year that we live.
We are attending to only one aspect of the world. While this blinds us
to other aspects of the world, it brings mastery in our individual
fields. We can, then, by training and practice, get a general control
over attention, and by working in a certain field or kind of work, we
make it easy to attend to things in that field or work. This to an
extent gives us control of our lives, of our destiny.
=Interest.= The essential elements of interest are attention and feeling.
When a person is very attentive to a subject and gets pleasure from
experience in that subject, we commonly say that he is _interested_ in
that subject.
Since the importance of attention and feeling in learning has already
been shown and will be further developed in the chapters which follow in
connection with the subjects of habit, memory, and thinking, little more
need be said here.
The key to all forms of learning is _attention_. The key to attention is
_feeling_. Feeling depends upon the nature of the child, inherited and
acquired. In our search for the means of arousing interest, we look
first to the original nature of the child, to the instincts and the
emotions. We look next to the acquired nature, the habits, the ideals,
the various needs that have grown up in the individual's life.
Educational writers have overemphasized the original nature of the child
as a basis of interest and have not paid enough attention to acquired
nature. We should not ask so much what a child's needs are, but what
they _ought_ to be. Needs can be created. The child's nature to some
extent can be changed. The problem of arousing interest is therefore one
of finding in the child's nature a basis for attention and pleasure. If
the basis is not to be found there, then it must be built up. How this
can be done, how human nature can be changed, is to some extent the main
problem of psychology. Every chapter in this book, it is hoped, will be
found to throw some light on the problem.
SUMMARY. The two elementary feeling states are pleasantness and
unpleasantness. The emotions are complex mental states composed of
feeling and the sensations from bodily reactions to the situations.
Feeling and emotion are the motive forces of life, at the bottom of
all important actions. The bodily reactions of emotions are reflex
and instinctive. Attention is a matter of the relative clearness of
the contents of consciousness. The function of attention is to unify
thought and action. It is the important factor in all learning and
thinking, for it is only the attentive part of consciousness that is
effective.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Make out a complete list of the more important emotions.
2. Indicate the characteristic expression of each emotion in your list.
3. Can you have an emotion without its characteristic expression? If,
for example, when a situation arises which ordinarily arouses anger in
you, you inhibit all the usual motor accompaniments of anger, are you
really angry?
4. Are the expressions of the same emotion the same for all people?
5. Try to analyze some of your emotional states: anger, or fear, or
grief. Can you detect the sensations that come from the bodily
reactions?
6. Try to induce an emotional state by producing its characteristic
reactions.
7. Try to change an emotional state to an opposite emotion; for example,
grief to joy.
8. Try to control and change emotional states in children.
9. Name some sensations that for you are always pleasant, others that
are always unpleasant--colors, sounds, tastes, odors, temperatures.
10. Confirm by observation the statement of the text as to the
importance of emotions in all the important actions of life.
11. To what extent do you have control of your emotional states? What
have you observed about differences in expression of deep emotions by
different people? In case of death in the family, some people wail and
moan and express their grief in the most extreme manner, while others do
not utter a sound and show great control. Why the difference?
12. Make an introspective study of your conscious states to note the
difference in clearness of the different processes that are going on in
consciousness. Do you find a constant shifting?
13. Perform experiments to show the effects of attention in forming
habits and acquiring knowledge.
(1) Perform tests in learning, using substitution tests as described in
Chapter X. Use several different keys. In some experiments have no
distractions, in others, have various distracting noises. What
differences do you find in the results?
(2) Try learning nonsense syllables, some lists with distractions,
others without distractions.
(3) Try getting the ideas from stories read to you, as in the logical
memory experiment described in Chapter X. Some stories should be read
without distractions, others with distractions.
14. Why are you unable to study well when under the influence of some
strong emotion?
15. Are you trained to the extent that you can concentrate on a task and
hold yourself to it for a long time?
16. Do you see that as far as will and attention and the emotions are
concerned, your life and character are in large measure in your own
hands?
17. Make a complete outline of the chapter.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
COLVIN and BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapters IV, V, and VI.
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, Chapter XIV, also
pp. 187-192 and pp. 370-371.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapters V and XI.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapter XIV.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapters IV, VIII, and XI.
CHAPTER VI
HABIT
=The Nature of Habit.= We now turn from man's inherited nature to his
acquired nature. Inherited tendencies to action we have called
instincts; acquired tendencies to action we shall call habits. We can
best form an idea of the nature of habit by considering some concrete
cases.
Let us take first the case of a man forming the habit of turning out the
basement light. It usually happens that when a man has an electric light
in the basement of his house, it is hard for him at first to think to
turn out the light at night when he retires, and as a consequence the
light often burns all night. This is expensive and unnecessary, so there
is a strong incentive for the man to find a plan which will insure the
regular turning-off of the light at bedtime. The plan usually hit upon
is the following: The electric switch that controls the basement light
is beside the basement stairway. The man learns to look at the switch as
he comes up the stairs, after preparing the furnace fire for the night,
and learns to take hold of the switch when he sees it and turn off the
light. Coming up the stairs means to look at the switch. Seeing the
switch means to turn it. Each step of the performance touches off the
next. The man sees that in order to make sure that the light will always
be turned off, the acts must all be made automatic, and each step must
touch off the next in the series. At first, the man leaves the light
burning about as often as he turns it off. After practicing for a time
on the scheme, the different acts become so well connected that he
seldom leaves the light burning. We say that he has formed the _habit_
of turning off the light.
For a second illustration, let us take the process of learning that nine
times nine equals eighty-one. At first, one does not say or write
"eighty-one" when one sees "nine times nine," but one can acquire the
habit of doing so. It does not here concern us how the child learns what
the product of nine times nine is. He may learn it by counting, by being
told, or by reading it in a book. But however he first learns it, he
fixes it and makes it automatic and habitual by _continuing_ to say or
to write, "nine times nine equals eighty-one." The essential point is
that at first the child does not know what to say when he hears or sees
the expression "nine times nine," but after long practice he comes to
give automatically and promptly the correct answer. For the definite
problem "nine times nine" there comes the definite response
"eighty-one."
For a third illustration, let us take the case of a man tipping his hat
when he meets a lady. A young boy does not tip his hat when he meets a
lady until he has been taught to do so. After he learns this act of
courtesy he does it quite automatically without thinking of it. For the
definite situation, meeting a lady of his acquaintance, there comes to
be established the definite response, tipping the hat. A similar habit
is that of turning to the right when we meet a person. For the definite
situation, meeting a person on the road or street or sidewalk, there is
established the definite response, turning to the right. The response
becomes automatic, immediate, certain.
There is another type of habit that may properly be called an
intellectual habit, such as voting a certain party ticket, say the
Democratic. When one is a boy, one hears his father speak favorably of
the Democratic party. His father says, "Hurrah for Bryan," so he comes
to say, "Hurrah for Bryan." His father says, "I am a Democrat," so he
says he is a Democrat. He takes the side that his father takes. In a
similar way we take on the same religious notions that our parents have.
It does not always happen this way, but this is the rule. But no matter
how we come to do it, we do adopt the creed of some party or some
church. We adopt a certain way of looking at public questions, and a
certain way of looking at religious questions. For certain rather
definite situations, we come to take definite stands. When we go to the
booth to vote, we look at the top of the ballot to find the column
marked "Democratic," and the definite response is to check the
"Democrat" column. Of course, some of us form a different habit and
check the "Republican" column, but the psychology of the act is the
same. The point is that we form the Democratic habit or we form the
Republican habit; and the longer we practice the habit, the harder it is
to change it.
In the presidential campaign of 1912, Roosevelt "bolted" from the
Republican party. It was hard for the older Republicans to follow him.
While one occasionally found a follower of Roosevelt who was gray, one
usually found the old Republicans standing by the old party, the younger
ones joining the Progressive party. It is said that when Darwin
published "The Origin of Species," very few old men accepted the
doctrine of evolution. The adherents of the new doctrine were nearly
all young men. So there is such a thing as an intellectual habit. One
comes to take a definite stand when facing certain definite intellectual
situations.
Similar to the type of habits which we have called intellectual is
another type which may be called "moral." When we face the situation of
reporting an occurrence, we can tell the truth or we can lie. We can
build up the habit of meeting such situations by telling the truth on
all occasions. We can learn to follow the maxim "Tell the truth at all
times, at all hazards." We can come to do this automatically, certainly,
and without thought of doing anything else.
Most moral situations are fairly definite and clear-cut, and for them we
can establish definite forms of response. We can form the habit of
helping a person in distress, of helping a sick neighbor, of speaking
well of a neighbor; we can form habits of industry, habits of
perseverance. These and other similar habits are the basis of morality.
The various kinds of habits which we have enumerated are alike in
certain fundamental particulars. In all of them there is a definite
situation followed by a definite response. One sees the switch and turns
off the light; he sees the expression "nine times nine" and says
"eighty-one"; he sees a lady he knows and tips his hat; in meeting a
carriage on the road, he turns to the right; when he has to vote, he
votes a certain ticket; when he has to report an occurrence, he tells it
as it happened. There is, in every case, a definite situation followed
by a definite response.
Another characteristic is common to all the cases mentioned above,
_i.e._ the response is acquired, it does not come at first. In every
instance we might have learned to act differently. We could form the
habit of always leaving the light burning; could just as easily say
"nine times nine equals forty"; we could turn to the left; we could vote
the Republican ticket. We can form bad moral habits as well as good
ones, perhaps more easily. The point is, however, that we acquire
definite ways of acting for the same situations, and these definite ways
of acting are called habits.
=Habit and Nerve-Path.= It has already been stated that a habit is a
tendency toward a certain type of action in a certain situation. The
basis of this tendency is in the nervous system. In order to understand
it we must consider what the nervous system is like. Nerves terminate at
one end in a sense organ and at the other end ultimately in a muscle.
In Figure II, A is a sense organ, B a nerve going from the sense organ
to the brain C. D, E, F, G, and H are motor nerves going from the brain
to the muscles. Now, let us show from the diagram what organization
means and what tendency means. At first when the child sees the
expression "nine times nine," he does not say "eighty-one." The stimulus
brings about no definite action. It is as likely to go out through E or
F as through D. But suppose we can get the child to say "nine times nine
equals eighty-one." We can write the expression on the blackboard and
have the child look at it and say "nine times nine equals eighty-one."
Suppose the act of saying "eighty-one" is brought about by the
nerve-current going out through nerve-chain D. By repetition, we
establish a bond. A stimulus of a particular kind comes through A, goes
over B to C, and out over D, making muscles at M bring about a very
definite action in saying "eighty-one."
[Illustration: FIGURE II.--THE ORGANIZATION OF TENDENCIES]
From the point of view of physiology, the process of habit-formation
consists in securing a particular nerve coupling, establishing a
particular nerve path, so that a definite form of stimulation will bring
about a definite form of response. A nerve tendency is simply the
likelihood that a stimulus will take a certain course rather than any
other. This likelihood is brought about by getting the stimulus to take
the desired route through the nervous system to a group of muscles and
to continue following this route. The more times it passes the same way,
the greater is the probability that at any given time the stimulus will
take the accustomed route and bring about the usual response. At first
any sort of action is possible. A nerve stimulus can take any one of the
many routes to the different muscles. By chance or by conscious
direction, the stimulus takes a certain path, and by repetition we fix
and make permanent this particular route. This constitutes a nerve
tendency or habit.
=Plasticity.= Our discussion should have made it clear that habit is
acquired nature, while instinct is inherited nature. Habit is acquired
tendency while instinct is inherited tendency. The possibility of
acquiring habits is peculiarly a human characteristic. While inanimate
things have a definite nature, a definite way of reacting to forces
which act upon them, they have little, if any, possibility of varying
their way of acting. Water might be said to have habits. If one cools
water, it turns to ice. If we heat it, it turns to steam. But it
_invariably_ does this. We cannot teach it any different way of acting.
Under the same conditions it always does the same thing.
Plants are very much like inanimate things. Plants have definite ways of
acting. A vine turns around a support. A leaf turns its upper surface to
the light. But one cannot teach plants different ways of acting. The
lower forms of animals are somewhat like plants and inanimate objects.
But to a very slight extent they are variable and can form habits. Among
the higher animals, such as dogs and other domestic animals, there is a
greater possibility of forming habits. In man there are the greatest
possibilities of habit-formation. In man the learned acts or habits are
many as compared to the unlearned acts or instincts; while among the
lower animals the opposite is the case--their instincts are many as
compared to their habits.
We may call this possibility of forming habits _plasticity_. Inanimate
objects such as iron, rocks, sulphur, oxygen, etc., have no plasticity.
Plants have very little possibility of forming habits. Lower animals
have somewhat more, and higher animals still more, while man has the
greatest possibility of forming habits. This great possibility of
forming habits is one of the main characteristics of man. Let us
illustrate the contrast between man and inanimate objects by an example.
If sulphur is put into a test tube and heated, it at first melts and
becomes quite thin like water. If it is heated still more, it becomes
thick and will not run out of the tube. It also becomes dark. Sulphur
_always_ does this when so treated. It cannot be taught to act
differently. Now the action of sulphur when heated is like the action of
a man when he turns to the right upon meeting a person in the street.
But the man has to acquire this habit, while the sulphur does not have
to learn its way of acting. Sulphur always acted in this way, while man
did not perform his act at first, but had to learn it by slow
repetition.
Everything in the world has its own peculiar nature, but man is unique
in that his nature can be very much changed. To a large extent, a man is
_made_, his nature is _acquired_. After we become men and women, we have
hundreds and thousands of tendencies to action, definite forms of
action, that we did not have when young. Man's nature might be said to
consist in his tendencies to action. Some of these tendencies he
inherits; these are his instincts. Some of these he acquires; these are
his habits.
=What Habits Do for Us.= We have found out what habits are like; let us
now see what they do for us. What good do they accomplish for us? How
are we different after forming a habit from what we were before? We can
best answer these questions by a consideration of concrete cases.
Typewriting will serve very well the purpose of illustration. We shall
give the result of an actual experiment in which ten university students
took part. During their first half hour of practice, they wrote an
average of 120 words. At the end of forty-five hours of practice, they
were writing an average of 680 words in a half hour. This was an
increase of speed of 560 per cent. An expert typist can write about
3000 words in a half hour. Such a speed requires much more than
forty-five hours practice, and is attained by the best operators only.
[Illustration: FIGURE III.--LEARNING CURVES
The upper graph shows the improvement in speed of a group of students
working two half hours a day. The lower curve shows the improvement of a
group working ten half-hours a day.]
In the foregoing experiment, the students improved in accuracy also. At
the beginning of the work, they made 115 errors in the half hour. At the
end of the practice, with much faster speed, they were making only
327 errors in a half hour. The actual number of errors had increased
280 per cent. The increase in errors was therefore exactly half as much
as the increase in speed. This, of course, was a considerable increase
in accuracy, for while the speed had increased to 5.6 times what it had
been at the beginning, the errors had increased only 2.8 times. The
subjects in this experiment paid much more attention to speed than they
did to accuracy. If they had emphasized accuracy, they would have been
doing almost perfect work at the end of the practice, and their speed
would have been somewhat less. Practice, then, not only develops speed
but also develops accuracy.
There are also other results. At the beginning of work with the
typewriter, there is much waste of energy and much fatigue. The waste of
energy comes from using unnecessary muscles, and the fatigue is partly
due to this waste of energy. But even apart from this waste of energy,
an habituated act is performed with less fatigue. The various muscles
concerned become better able to do their work. As a result of
habituation there is, then, greater speed, greater accuracy, less waste
of energy, and less fatigue.
If we look not at the changes in our work but at the changes in
ourselves, the changes in our minds due to the formation of habits, we
find still other results. At the beginning of practice with the
typewriter, the learner's whole attention is occupied with the work.
When one is learning to do a new trick, the attention cannot be divided.
The whole mind must be devoted to the work. But after one has practiced
for several weeks, one can operate the typewriter while thinking about
something else. We say that the habituated act sinks to a lower level of
consciousness, meaning that as a habit becomes more and more fixed, less
and less attention is devoted to the acts concerned.
Increased skill gives us pleasure and also gives us confidence in our
ability to do the thing. Corresponding to this inner confidence is outer
certainty. There is greater objective certainty in our performance and a
corresponding inner confidence. By objective certainty, we mean that a
person watching our performance, becomes more and more sure of our
ability to perform, and we ourselves feel confidence in our power of
achievement.
Now that we have shown the results of habituation let us consider
additional illustrations. In piano playing, the stimuli are the notes as
written in the music. We see the notes occupying certain places on the
scale of the music. A note in a certain place means that we must strike
a certain key. At first the response is slow, we have to hunt out each
note on the keyboard. Moreover, we make many mistakes; we strike the
wrong keys just as we do in typewriting. We are awkward, making many
unnecessary movements, and the work is tiresome and fatiguing. After
long practice, the speed with which we can manipulate the keys in
playing the piano is wonderful. Our playing becomes accurate, perfect.
We do it with ease, with no unnecessary movements. We can play the
piano, after we become skilled, without paying attention to the actual
movements of our hands. We can play the piano while concentrating upon
the meaning of the music, or while carrying on a conversation, or while
thinking about something else. As a rule, pleasure and confidence come
with skill. Playing a difficult piece on the piano involves a skill
which is one of the most complicated that man achieves. It is possible
only through habituation of the piano-playing movements.
Nailing shingles on a roof illustrates well the various aspects of
habituation. The expert carpenter not only nails on many more shingles
in a day than does the amateur, but he does it better and with more
ease, and with much less fatigue. The carpenter knows exactly how much
he can do in a day, and each particular movement is certain and sure.
The carpenter has confidence in, and usually prides himself on, this
ability, thus getting pleasure out of his work.
The operations in arithmetic illustrate most of the results of
habituation. Practice in addition makes for speed and accuracy. In a few
weeks' time we can very much increase our speed and accuracy in adding,
or in the other arithmetical operations.
The foregoing examples are sufficient, although they could be multiplied
indefinitely. Almost any habit one might name would show clearly most of
the results enumerated. The most important aspects of habituation may be
summed up in the one word _efficiency_. Habituation gives us speed and
accuracy. Speed and accuracy mean skill. Skill means efficiency.
=How Habits Are Formed.= It is clear from the foregoing discussion that
the essential thing in a habit is the definiteness of the connection
between the stimulus and the response, between the situation and the
reaction to the situation. Our question now is, how is this definiteness
of connection established? The answer is, _through repetition_. Let us
work the matter out from a concrete case, such as learning to play the
piano. In piano playing the stimulus comes from the music as printed on
the staff. A note having a certain position on the staff indicates that
a certain key is to be struck. We are told by our music teacher what
keys on the piano correspond to the various notes on the staff, or we
may learn these facts from the instruction book. It makes no difference
how we learn them; but after we know these facts, we must have practice
to give us skill. The mere knowledge will not make us piano players. In
order to be skillful, we must have much practice not only in striking
the keys indicated by the various note positions, but with the various
combinations of notes. For example, a note on the second space indicates
that the player must strike the key known as "A." But "A" may occur with
any of the other notes, it may precede them or it may follow them. We
must therefore have practice in striking "A" in all these situations. To
have skill at the piano, we must mechanize many performances. We must be
able to read the notes with accuracy and ease. We must practice so much
that the instant we see a certain combination of notes on the staff, our
hands immediately execute the proper strokes. Not only must we learn
what keys on the piano correspond to the various notes of the music, but
the notes have a temporal value which we must learn. Some are to be
sounded for a short time, others for a longer time. We have eighth
notes, quarter notes, half notes, etc. Moreover, the signature of the
music as indicated by the sharps or flats changes the whole situation.
If the music is written in "A sharp" then when "A" is indicated on the
staff, we must not strike the white key known as "A," but the black key
just above, known as "A sharp."
Briefly, in piano playing, the stimulus comes from the characters
printed on the staff. The movements which these characters direct are
very complicated and require months and years of practice. We must
emphasize the fact that practice alone gives facility, years of
practice. But after these years of practice, one can play a piece of
music at sight; that is, the first stimulus sets off perfectly a very
complicated response. This sort of performance is one of the highest
feats of skill that man accomplishes.
To get skill, then, one must practice. But mere repetition is not
sufficient. For practice to be most effective, one must put his whole
mind on what he is doing. If he divides his attention between the acts
which he is practicing and something else, the effect of the practice in
fixing and perfecting the habit is slight. It seems that when we are
building up a new nerve-path which is to be the basis of a new habit,
the nervous energies should not be divided; that the whole available
nervous energy should be devoted to the acts which we are repeating.
This is only another way of saying that when we are practicing to
establish a habit, we should attend to what we are doing and to nothing
else. But after the habit-connection is once firmly established, we can
attend to other things while performing the habitual act. The habitual
action will go on of itself. We may say, then, that in order to be able
to do a thing with little or no attention, we must give much attention
to it at first.
Another important factor in habit-formation is pleasure. The act which
we are practicing must give us pleasure, either while we are doing it or
as a result. Pleasurable results hasten habit-formation. When we
practice an act in which we have no interest, we make slow progress or
none at all. Now the elements of interest are attention and pleasure. If
we voluntarily attend to a thing and its performance gives us pleasure,
or pleasure results from it, we say we are interested in it. The secret
of successful practice is interest. Repeatedly in laboratory experiments
it happens that a student loses interest in the performance and
subsequently makes little, if any, progress. One of the biggest problems
connected with habit-formation is that of maintaining interest.
A factor which prevents the formation of habits is that of exceptions.
If a stimulus, instead of going over to the appropriate response,
produces some other action, there is an interference in the formation of
the desired habit. The effect of an exception is greater than the mere
neglect of practice. The _exception opens up another path_ and tends to
make future action uncertain. Particularly is this true in the case of
moral habits. Forming moral habits is usually uphill work anyway, in
that we have instincts to overcome. Allowing exceptions to enter, in the
moral sphere, usually means a slipping back into an old way of acting,
thereby weakening much the newly-made connection.
In any kind of practice, when we become fatigued we make errors. If we
continue to practice when fatigued, we form connections which we do not
wish to make and which interfere with the desired habits.
=Economy of Practice.= The principles which we have enumerated and
illustrated are fairly general and of universal validity. There are
certain other factors which we may discuss here under the head of
economical procedure. To form a habit, we must practice. But how long
should we practice at one time? This is an experimental problem and has
been definitely solved. It has been proved by experiment that we can
practice profitably for as long a time as we can maintain a high degree
of attention, which is usually till we become fatigued. This time is not
the same for all people. It varies with age, and in the case of the same
person it varies at different times. If ordinary college students work
at habit-formation at the highest point of concentration, they get the
best return for a period of about a half hour. It depends somewhat on
the amount of concentration required for the work and the stage of
fixation of the habit, _i.e._ whether one has just begun to form the
habit or whether it is pretty well fixed. For children, the period of
successful practice is usually much less than a half hour--five, ten,
fifteen, twenty minutes, depending upon the age of the child and the
kind of work.
The best interval between periods of practice is the day, twenty-four
hours. If one practices in the morning for a half hour, one can practice
again in the afternoon with nearly as much return as he would secure the
next day, but not quite. In general, practice is better, gives more
return, if spread out. To practice one day as long as one can work at a
high point of efficiency, and then to postpone further practice till the
next day, gives one the most return for the time put in. But if one is
in a hurry to form a habit, one can afford to practice more each day
even if the returns from the practice do diminish proportionately.
This matter has been tried out on the typewriter. If one practices for
ten half hours a day with half-hour rests between, one does not get so
much return for his time as he would if he should spread it out at the
rate of one or two half-hour practices a day. But by working ten half
hours a day, one gets much more efficiency in the same number of days
than if he should practice only one or two half hours a day. This point
must not be misunderstood. We do not mean that one must not work at
anything longer than a half hour a day. We mean that if one is forming a
habit, his time counts for more in forming the habit if spread out at
the rate of a half hour or an hour a day, than it does if put in at a
faster rate. Therefore if one is in no hurry and can afford to spread
out his time, he gets the best return by so doing, and the habit is more
firmly fixed than if formed hurriedly. But if one is in a hurry, and has
the time to devote to it, he can afford to concentrate his practice up
to five hours or possibly more in a day, provided that rest intervals
are interspersed between periods of practice.
There is one time in habit-formation when concentrated practice is most
efficient. That is at the beginning. In a process as complicated as
typewriting, so little impression is made at the beginning by a short
period of practice that progress is but slight. On the first day, one
should practice about four or five times to secure the best returns, a
half hour each time.
=What the Teacher Can Do.= Now, let us see how the teacher can be of
assistance to the pupil in habit-formation. The teacher should have a
clear idea of the nature of the habit to be formed and should
demonstrate the habit to the pupil. Suppose the habit is so simple a
thing as long division. The teacher should explain each step in the
process. She should go to the blackboard and actually solve a number of
problems in long division, so that the pupils can see just how to do it.
After this the pupils should go to the board and solve a problem
themselves. The reason for this procedure is that it is most economical.
If the children are left to get the method of doing long division from a
book, they will not be able to do it readily and will make mistakes. A
teacher can explain a process better than it can be explained in a book.
By giving a full explanation and demonstration and then by requiring the
children to work a few problems while she watches for mistakes,
correcting them at once, the teacher secures economy of effort and time.
The first step is to demonstrate the habit to the pupils; the second, to
have them do the act, whatever it is, correcting their mistakes; the
third, to require the pupils to practice till they have acquired skill.
The teacher must make provision for practice.
=What Parents Can Do.= Parents can be of very great assistance to children
who are forming habits.
(1) They can coöperate with the school, which is directing the child in
the systematic formation of a great system of habits. The teacher should
explain these habits to the parents so that they may know what the
teacher is trying to do. Quite often the home and the school are working
at cross purposes. The only way to prevent this is for them to work in
the closest coöperation, with the fullest understanding of what is being
undertaken for the child. Parents and teachers should often meet
together and talk over the work of training the children of the
community. Parents should have not merely a general understanding of the
work of the school, but they should know the details undertaken. The
school often assigns practice work to be done at home in reading,
writing, arithmetic. Parents should always know of these assignments and
should help the children get the necessary practice. They can do this by
reminding the child of the work, by preparing a suitable place where the
work may be done, and by securing quiet for the practice. Children like
play and it is easy for them to forget their necessary work. Parents can
be of the greatest service to childhood and youth by holding the
children to their responsibilities and duties.
Few parents take any thought of whether their children are doing all
possible for their school progress. Few of those who do, make definite
plans and arrangements for the children to accomplish the necessary
practice and study. This is the parent's duty and responsibility.
Moreover, parents are likely to feel that children have no rights, and
think nothing of calling on them in the midst of their work to do some
errand. Now, children should work about the house and help their
parents, but there should be a time for this and a separate time for
study and practice on school work.
When a child sits down for serious practice on some work, his time
should be sacred and inviolable. Instead of interfering with the child,
the parents should do everything in their power to make this practice
possible and efficient. In their relations with their children perhaps
parents sin more in the matter of neglecting to plan for them than in
any other way. They plan for everything else, but they let their
children grow up, having taken no definite thought about helping them to
form their life habits and to establish these habits by practice. When a
child comes home from school, the mother should find out just what work
is to be done before the next day and should plan the child's play and
work in such a way as to include all necessary practice. If all parents
would do this, the value to the work of the school and to the life of
the child would be incalculable.
(2) Just as one of the main purposes of the teacher is to help the child
gain initiative, so it is one of the greatest of the parents' duties.
Parents must help the children to keep their purposes before them.
Children forget, even when they wish to remember. Often, they do not
want to remember. The parents' duty is to get the child to _want_ to
remember, and to help him to remember, whether he wants to or not. One
of the main differences between childhood and maturity is that the child
lives in the present, his purposes are all immediate ones. Habits always
look forward, they are for future good and use. Mature people have
learned to look forward and to plan for the future. They must,
therefore, perform this function for the children. They must look
forward and see what the child should learn to do, and then see that he
learns to do it.
(3) Parents must help children to plan their lives in general and in
detail; _i.e._ in the sense of determining the ideals and habits that
will be necessary for those lives. The parents must do this with the
help of the child. The child must not be a blind follower, but as the
child's mind becomes mature enough, the parent must explain the matter
of forming life habits, and must show the child that life is a structure
that he himself is to build. Life will be what he makes it, and the time
for forming character is during early years. The parent must not only
tell the child this but must help him to realize the truth of it, must
help him continually, consistently.
(4) Of course it is hardly necessary to say that the parent can help
much, perhaps most, by example. The parent must not only tell the child
what to do but must _show_ him how it should be done.
(5) Parents can help in the ways mentioned above, but they can also help
by coöperating among themselves in planning for the training of the
children of the community. One parent cannot train his children
independently of all the other people in the community. There must be a
certain unity of ideals and aims. Therefore, not only is there need for
coöperation between parents and teachers but among parents themselves.
Although they coöperate in everything else, they seldom do in the
training of their children. The people of a community should meet
together occasionally to plan for this common work.
=Importance of Habit in Education and Life.= A man is the sum of his
habits and ideals. He has language habits; he speaks German, or French,
or English. He has writing habits, spelling habits, reading habits,
arithmetic habits. He has political habits, religious habits. He has
various social habits, habitual attitudes which he takes toward his
fellows. He has moral habits--he is honest and truthful, or he is
dishonest and untruthful. He always looks on the bright side, or else on
the dark side of events. All these habits and many more, he has. They
are structures which he has built. One's life, then, is the sum of his
tendencies, and these tendencies one establishes in early life.
This view gives an importance to the work of the school which is derived
from no other view. The school is not a place where we get this little
bit of information, or the other. It is the place where we are molded,
formed, and shaped into the beings we are to be. The school has not
risen to see the real importance of its work. Its aims have been low and
its achievements much lower than its aims. Teachers should rise to the
importance of their calling. Their work is that of gods. They are
creators. They do not make the child. They do not give it memory or
attention or imagination. But they are creators of tendencies,
prejudices, religions, politics, and other habits unnumbered. So that in
a very real sense, the school, with all the other educational
influences, makes the man. We do not give a child the capacity to learn,
but we can determine what he shall learn. We do not give him memory, but
we can select what he shall remember. We do not make the child as he is
at the beginning, but we can, in large measure, determine the world of
influences which complete the task of _making_.
In the early part of life every day and every hour of the day
establishes and strengthens tendencies. Every year these tendencies
become stronger. Every year after maturity, we resist change. By
twenty-five or thirty, "character has set like plaster." The general
attitude and view of the world which we have at maturity, we are to hold
throughout life. Very few men fundamentally change after this. It takes
a tremendous influence and an unusual situation to break one up and make
him an essentially different man after maturity. Every year a "crank"
becomes "crankier."
It is well that this is so. Everything in the world costs its price.
Rigidity is the price we pay for efficiency. In order to be efficient,
we must make habitual the necessary movements. After they are
habituated, they resist change. But habit makes for regularity and
order. We could not live in society unless there were regularity,
order, fixity. Habit makes for conservatism. But conservatism is
necessary for order. In a sense, habit works against progress. But
permanent improvement without habit would be impossible, for permanent
progress depends upon holding what we gain. It is well for society that
we are conservative. We could not live in the chaos that would exist
without habit. Public opinion resists change. People refuse to accept a
view that is different from the one they have held. We could get nowhere
if we continually changed, and it is well for us that we continue to do
the old way to which we have become accustomed, till a new and better
one is shown beyond doubt. Even then, it is probably better for an old
person to continue to use the accustomed methods of a lifetime. Although
better methods are developed, they will not be so good for the old
person as those modes of action that he is used to. The possibility of
progress is through new methods which come in with each succeeding
generation.
When we become old we are not willing to change, but the more reasonable
of us are willing that our children should be taught a better way.
Sometimes, of course, we find people who say that what was good enough
for them is good enough for their children. Most of us think better, and
wish to give our children a "better bringing up than ours has been."
These considerations make clear the importance of habit in life. They
should also make clear a very important corollary. If habits are
important in life, then it is the duty of parents and teachers to make a
careful selection of the habits that are to be formed by the children.
The habits that will be necessary for the child to form in order to meet
the various situations of his future life, should be determined. There
should be no vagueness about it. Definite habits, social, moral,
religious, intellectual, professional, etc., will be necessary for
efficiency. We should know what these various habits are, and should
then set about the work of establishing them with system and
determination, just as we would the building of a house. Much school
work and much home training is vague, indefinite, uncertain, done
without a clear understanding of the needs or of the results. We
therefore waste time, years of the child's life, and the results are
unsatisfactory.
=Drill in School Subjects.= In many school subjects, the main object is to
acquire skill in certain processes. As previously explained, we can
become skillful in an act only by repetition of the act. Therefore, in
those subjects in which the main object is the acquiring of skill, there
must be much repetition. This repetition is called drill. The matter of
economical procedure in drill has already been considered, but there are
certain problems connected with drill that must be further discussed.
Drill is usually the hardest part of school work. It becomes monotonous
and tiresome. Moreover, drill is always a means. It is the means by
which we become efficient. Take writing, for example. It is not an end
in itself; it is the means by which we convey thoughts. Reading is a
means by which we are able to get the thought of another. In acquiring a
foreign language, we have first to master the elementary tools that will
enable us to make the thought of the foreign language our own.
It seems that the hardest part of education always comes first, when we
are least able to do it. It used to be that nearly all the work of the
school was drill. There was little school work that was interesting in
itself. In revolt against this kind of school, many modern educators
have tried to plan a curriculum that would be interesting to the child.
In schools that follow this idea, there is little or no drill, pure and
simple. There is no work that is done for the sole purpose of acquiring
skill. The work is so planned that, in pursuing it, the child will of
necessity have to perform the necessary acts and will thereby gain
efficiency. In arithmetic, there is no adding, subtracting, multiplying,
or dividing, only as such things must be done in the performance of
something else that is interesting in itself. For example, the child
plays store and must add up the sales. The child plays bean bag and must
add up the score. Practice gained in this indirect way is known as
incidental drill. Direct drill consists in making a direct approach; we
wish to be efficient at adding, so we practice adding as such and not
merely as incidental to something else.
This plan of incidental drill is in harmony with the principle of
interest previously explained. There are several things, however, that
must be considered. The proper procedure would seem to be to look
forward and find out in what directions the child will need to acquire
skill and then to help him acquire it in the most economical way and at
the proper time. Nature has so made us that we like to do a new trick.
When we have taught a child how to add and subtract, he likes to perform
these operations because the operations themselves give pleasure.
Therefore much repetition can be allowed and much skill acquired by a
direct approach to the practice. When interest drags, incidental drill
can be fallen back upon to help out the interest. Children should be
taught that certain things must be done, certain skill must be acquired.
They should accept some things on the authority of elders. They should
be taught to apply themselves and to give their whole attention to a
thing that must be done. A desire for efficiency can be developed in
them. The spirit of competition can sometimes be effectively used to add
interest to drill. Of course, interest and attention there must be, and
if it cannot be secured in one way, it must be in another.
Experiments have abundantly shown the value of formal drill, that is to
say, drill for drill's sake. If an arithmetic class is divided, one half
being given a few minutes' drill on the fundamental operations each day
but otherwise doing exactly the same work as the other half of the
class, the half receiving the drill acquires much more skill in the
fundamental operations and, besides, is better at reasoning out problems
than the half that had no drill. The explanation of the latter fact is
doubtless that the pupils receiving the drill acquire such efficiency in
the fundamental operations that these cause no trouble, leaving all the
energies of the pupils for reasoning out the problems.
It has been shown experimentally that a direct method of teaching
spelling is more efficient than an indirect method. It is not to be
wondered at that such turns out to be the case. For in a direct
approach, the act that we are trying to habituate is brought more
directly before consciousness, receiving that focal attention which is
necessary for the most efficient practice in habit-formation. If one
wishes to be a good ball pitcher, one begins to pitch balls, and
continues pitching balls day after day, morning, noon, and night. One
does not go about it indirectly. If one wishes to be a good shot with a
rifle, one gets a rifle and goes to shooting. Similarly, if one wishes
to be a good adder, the way to do is to begin adding, not to begin doing
something else. Of course any method that will induce a child to realize
that he ought to acquire a certain habit, is right and proper. We must
do all we can to give a child a desire, an interest in the thing that he
is trying to do. But there is no reason why the thing should not be
faced directly.
=Rules for Habit Formation.= In the light of the various principles which
we have discussed, what rules can be given to one forming habits? The
evident answer is, to proceed in accordance with established principles.
We may, however, bring the most important of these principles together
in the form of rules which can serve as a guide and help to one forming
habits.
(1) _Get initiative._ By this is meant that a person forming a habit
should have some sustaining reason for doing it, some end that is being
sought. This principle will be of very little use to young children,
only to those old enough to appreciate reasons and ends. In arithmetic,
for example, a child should be shown what can be accomplished if he
possesses certain skill in addition, subtraction, and multiplication. It
is not always possible for a young person to see why a certain habit
should be formed. For the youngest children, the practice must be in the
form of play. But when a child is old enough to think, to have ideals
and purposes, reasons and explanations should be worked out.
(2) _Get practice._ If you are to have skill, you must practice.
Practice regularly, practice hard while you are doing it. Throw your
whole life into it, as if what you are doing is the most important
thing in the world. Practice under good conditions. Do not think that
just any kind of practice will do. Try to make conditions such that they
will enable you to do your best work. Such conditions will not happen by
chance. You must make them happen. You must make conditions favorable.
You must seek opportunities to practice. You must realize that your life
is in the making, that _you_ are making it, that it is to a large extent
composed of habits. These habits you are building. They are built only
by practice. Get practice. When practicing, fulfill the psychological
conditions. Work under the most favorable circumstances as to length of
periods, intervals, etc.
(3) _Allow no exceptions._ You should fully realize the great influence
of exceptions. When you start in to form a habit, allow nothing to turn
you from your course. Whether the habit is some fundamental moral habit
or the multiplication table, be consistent, do not vacillate. Nothing is
so strong as consistent action, nothing so weak as doubtful, wavering,
uncertain action. Have the persistence of a bull dog and the regularity
of planetary motion.
=Transfer of Training.= Our problem now is to find out whether forming one
habit helps one to form another. In some cases it does. The results of a
recent experiment performed in the laboratory of educational psychology
in the University of Missouri, will show what is meant. It was found
that if a person practiced distributing cards into pigeon holes till
great proficiency was attained, and then the numbering of the boxes or
pigeon holes was changed, the person could learn the new numbering and
gain proficiency in distributing the cards in the new way more quickly
than was the case at first. Similarly, if one learns to run a
typewriter with a certain form of keyboard, one can learn to operate a
different keyboard much more quickly than was the case in learning the
first keyboard.
It is probable that the explanation of this apparent transfer is that
there are common elements in the two cases. Certain bonds established in
the first habit are available in the second. In the case of distributing
the cards, many such common elements can be made out. One gains facility
in reading the numbering of the cards. The actual movement of the hand
in getting to a particular box is the same whatever the number of the
box. One acquires schemes of associating and locating the boxes, schemes
that will work in both cases. But suppose that one spends fifteen days
in distributing cards according to one scheme of numbering, and then
changes the numbering and practices for fifteen days with the new
numbering, at the end of the second fifteen days one has more skill than
at the close of the first fifteen days. In fact, in five days one has as
much skill in the new method as was acquired in fifteen days in the
first method. However, and this is an important point, the speed in the
new way is not so great as the speed acquired in thirty days using one
method or one scheme all the time. Direct practice on the specific habit
involved is always most efficient.
One should probably never learn one thing _just because_ it will help
him in learning something else, for that something else could be more
economically learned by direct practice. Learning one language probably
helps in learning another. A year spent in learning German will probably
help in learning French. But two years spent in learning French will
give more efficiency in French than will be acquired by spending one
year on German and then one year on French. If the only reason for a
study is that it helps in learning something else, then this study
should be left out of the curriculum. If the only reason for studying
Latin, for example, is that it helps in studying English, or French, or
helps in grammar, or gives one a larger vocabulary in English on account
of a knowledge of the Latin roots, then the study of the language cannot
be justified; for all of these results could be much more economically
and better attained by a direct approach. Of course, if Latin has a
justification in itself, then these by-products are not to be despised.
The truth seems to be that habits are very specific things. A definite
stimulus goes over to a definite response. We must decide what habits we
need to have established, and then by direct and economical practice
establish these habits. It is true that in pursuing some studies, we
acquire habits that are of much greater applicability in the affairs of
life than can be obtained from other studies. When one has acquired the
various adding habits, he has kinds of skill that will be of use in
almost everything that is undertaken later. So also speaking habits,
writing habits, spelling habits, moral habits, etc., are of universal
applicability. Whenever one undertakes to do a thing that involves some
habit already formed, that thing is more easily done by virtue of that
habit. One could not very well learn to multiply one number by another,
such as 8,675,489 by 439,857, without first learning to add.
This seems to be all there is to the idea of the transfer of training.
One gets an act, or an idea, or an attitude, or a point of view that is
available in a new thing, thereby making the new thing easier. The
methods one would acquire in the study of zoölogy would be, many of
them, directly applicable in the study of botany. But, just as truly,
one can acquire habits in doing one thing that will be a direct
hindrance in learning another thing. Knocking a baseball unfits one for
knocking a tennis ball. The study of literature and philosophy probably
unfits one for the study of an experimental science because the methods
are so dissimilar, in some measure antagonistic.
=Habit and Moral Training.= By moral training, we mean that training which
prepares one to live among his fellows. It is a training that prepares
us to act in our relations with our fellow men in such a way as to bring
happiness to our neighbors as well as to ourselves. Specifically, it is
a training in honesty, truthfulness, sympathy, and industry. There are
other factors of morality but these are the most important. It is
evident at once that moral training is the most important of all
training. This is, at any rate, the view taken by society; for if a man
falls short in his relations with his fellows, he is punished. If the
extent of his falling is very great, his liberty is entirely taken away
from him. In some cases, he is put to death. Moral training, in addition
to being the most important, is also the most difficult. What the public
schools can do in this field is quite limited. The training which the
child gets on the streets and at home almost overshadows it.
=Nature of Moral Training.= A good person is one who does the right social
thing at the right time. The more completely and consistently one does
this, the better one is. What kind of training can one receive that will
give assurance of appropriate moral action? Two things can be done to
give a child this assurance. The child can be led to form proper ideals
of action and proper habits of action. By ideal of action, we mean that
the child should know what the right action is, and have a desire to do
it. Habits of action are acquired only through action. As has been
pointed out in the preceding pages, continued action of a definite kind
develops a tendency to this particular action. One's character is the
sum of his tendencies to action. These tendencies can be developed only
through practice, through repetition. Moral training, therefore, has the
same basis as all other training, that is, in habits. The same procedure
that we use in teaching the child the multiplication table is the one to
use in developing honesty. In the case of the tables, we have the child
say "fifty-six" for "eight times seven." We have him do this till he
does it instantly, automatically. Honesty and truthfulness and the other
moral virtues can be fixed in the same way.
=Home and Moral Training.= The home is the most important factor in moral
training. This is largely because of the importance of early habits and
attitudes. Obedience to parents and respect for authority, which in a
large measure underlie all other moral training, must be secured and
developed in the early years of childhood. The child does not start to
school till about six years old. At this age much of the foundation of
morality is laid. Unless the child learns strict obedience in the first
two or three years of life, it is doubtful whether he will ever learn it
aright. Without the habit of implicit obedience, it is difficult to
establish any other good habit.
Parents should understand that training in morality consists, in large
measure, in building up habits, and should go about it in a systematic
way. As various situations arise in the early life of a child, the
parents should obtain from him the appropriate responses. When the
situations recur, the right responses should be again secured. Parents
should continue to insist upon these responses till tendencies are
formed for the right response to follow when the situation arises. After
continued repetition, the response comes automatically. The good man or
woman is the one who does the right thing as the situation presents
itself, does it as a matter of course because it is his nature. He does
not even think of doing the wrong thing.
One of the main factors in child training is consistency. The parent
must inflexibly require the right action in the appropriate situation.
Good habits will not be formed if parents insist on proper action one
day but on the next day allow the child to do differently.
Parents must plan the habits which they wish their children to form and
execute these plans systematically, exercising constant care. Parents,
and children as well, would profit from reading the plan used by
Franklin. Farseeing and clear-headed, Franklin saw that character is a
structure which one builds, so he set about this building in a
systematic way. For a certain length of time he practiced on one virtue,
allowing no exceptions in this one virtue. When this aspect of his
character had acquired strength, he added another virtue and then tried
to keep perfect as to both.[4]
[4] See _Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin_.
=The School and Moral Training.= In this, as in all other forms of
training, the school is supplementary to the home. The teacher should
have well in mind the habits and ideals that the home has been trying to
develop and should assist in strengthening the bonds. The school can do
much in developing habits of kindness and sympathy among the children.
It can develop civic and social ideals and habits. Just how it can best
do this is a question. Should moral ideals be impressed systematically
and should habits be formed at the time these ideals are impressed, or
should the different ideals be instilled and developed as occasion
demands? This is an experimental problem, and that method should be
followed which produces the best results. It is possible that one
teacher may use one method best while a different teacher will have
better success with another method.
More important than the question of a systematic or an incidental method
is the question of making the matter vital when it is taken up. Nothing
is more certain than that mere knowledge of right action will not insure
right action. In a few hours one can teach a child, as matters of mere
knowledge, what he should do in all the important situations of life;
but this will not insure that he will henceforth do the right things.
There are only two ways by which we can obtain any assurance that right
action will come. The first way is to secure right habits of response.
We must build up tendencies to action. Tendencies depend upon previous
action. The second way is to help the child to analyze moral situations
and see what results will follow upon the different kinds of action.
There can be developed in a child a desire to do that which will bring
joy and happiness to others, rather than pain and sorrow. But this
analysis of moral situations is not enough to insure right moral action;
there must be practice in doing the right thing. The situation must go
over to the right response to insure its going there the next time. The
first thing in moral training is to develop habits. Then, as soon as
the child is old enough he can strengthen his habits by a careful
analysis of the problem why one should act one way rather than another.
This adds motive; and motive gives strength and assurance.
SUMMARY. Habits are acquired tendencies to specific actions in
definite situations. They are fixed through repetition. They give us
speed, accuracy, and certainty, they save energy and prevent
fatigue. They are performed with less attention and become
pleasurable. The main purpose of education is to form the
habits--moral, intellectual, vocational, cultural--necessary for
life. Habits and ideals are the basis of our mature life and
character. Moral training is essentially like other forms of
training, habit being the basis.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Practice on the formation of some habit until considerable skill is
acquired. Draw a learning curve similar to the one on page 95, showing
the increase in skill. A class experiment can be performed by the use of
a substitution test. Take letters to represent the nine digits, then
transcribe numbers into the letters as described on page 192. Keep a
record of successive five-minute periods of practice till all have
practiced an hour. This gives twelve practice periods for the
construction of a learning curve. The individual experiments should be
more difficult and cover a longer period. Suitable experiments for
individual practice are: learning to operate a typewriter, pitching
marbles into a hole, writing with the left hand, and mirror writing. The
latter is performed by standing a mirror vertically on the table,
placing the paper in front and writing in such a way that the letters
have the proper form and appearance when seen in the mirror. The subject
should not look at his hand but at its reflection in the mirror. A piece
of cardboard can be supported just over the hand so that only the image
of the hand in the mirror can be seen.
2. A study of the interference of habit can be made as follows: Take
eight small boxes and arrange them in a row. Number each box plainly. Do
not number them consecutively, but as follows, 5, 7, 1, 8, 2, 3, 6, 4.
Make eighty cards, ten of each number, and number them plainly. Practice
distributing the cards into the boxes. Note the time required for each
distribution. Continue to distribute them till considerable skill is
acquired. Then rearrange the order of the boxes and repeat the
experiment. What do the results show?
3. Does the above experiment show any transfer of training? Compare the
time for each distribution in the second part of the experiment, _i.e._
after the rearrangement of the boxes, with the time for the
corresponding distribution in the first part of the experiment. The
question to be answered is: Are the results of the second part of the
experiment better than they would have been if the first part had not
been performed? State your results and conclusions and compare with the
statements in the text.
4. A study of the effects of spreading out learning periods can be made
as follows: Divide the class into two equal divisions. Let one division
practice on a substitution experiment as explained in Exercise 1, for
five ten-minute periods of practice in immediate succession. Let the
other division practice for five days, ten minutes a day. What do the
results indicate? The divisions should be of equal ability. If the first
ten-minute practice period shows the sections to be of unequal ability,
this fact should be taken into account in making the comparisons. Test
sheets can be prepared by the teacher, or they can be obtained from the
Extension Division of the University of Missouri.
5. An experiment similar to No. 4 can be performed by practicing adding
or any other school exercise. Care must be taken to control the
experiment and to eliminate disturbing factors.
6. Try the card-distributing experiment with people of different ages,
young children, old people, and various ages in between. What do you
learn? Is it as easy for an old person to form a habit as it is for a
young person? Why?
7. If an old person has no old habits to interfere, can he form a new
habit as readily as can a young person?
8. Cite evidence from your own experience to prove that it is hard for
an old person to break up old habits and form new ones which interfere
with the old ones.
9. Do you find that you are becoming "set in your ways?"
10. What do we mean by saying that we are "plastic in early years"?
11. Have you planned your life work? Are you establishing the habits
that will be necessary in it?
12. Is it an advantage or a disadvantage to choose one's profession or
occupation early?
13. Attention often interferes with the performance of a habitual act.
Why is this?
14. If a man removes his vest in the daytime, he is almost sure to wind
his watch. On the other hand if he is up all night, he lets his watch
run down. Why?
15. Do you know of people who have radically changed their views late in
life?
16. Try to teach a dog or a cat a trick. What do you learn of importance
about habit-formation?
17. What branches taught in school involve the formation of habits that
are useful throughout life?
18. Make a list of the moral habits that should be formed in early
years.
19. Write an essay on _Habit and Life_.
20. Make a complete outline of the chapter.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
COLVIN AND BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapters XI and XVII.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, pp. 48-59; also Chapter XV.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapters X, XI, and XII.
ROWE: _Habit Formation_, Chapters V-XIII.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, p. 169, par. 37.
CHAPTER VII
MEMORY
=Perceptions and Ideas.= In a previous chapter, brief mention was made of
the difference between perceptions and ideas. This distinction must now
be enlarged upon and made clearer. Perceptions arise out of our sensory
life. We see things when these things are before our eyes. We hear
things when these things produce air vibrations which affect our ears.
We smell things when tiny particles from them come into contact with a
small patch of sensitive membrane in our noses. We taste substances when
these substances are in our mouths. Now, this seeing, hearing, smelling,
tasting, etc., is _perceiving_. We perceive a thing when the thing is
actually at the time affecting some one or more of our sense organs. A
perception, then, results from the stimulation of a sense organ.
Perception is the process of perceiving, sensing, objects in the
external world.
Ideas are our _seeming_ to see, hear, smell, taste things when these
things are not present to the senses. This morning I saw, had a
_perception_ of, a robin. To-night in my study, I have an _idea_ of a
robin. This morning the robin was present. Light reflected from it
stimulated my eye. To-night, as I have an idea of the robin, it is not
here; I only seem to see it. The scene which was mine this morning is
now revived, reproduced. We may say, therefore, that ideas are the
conscious representatives of objects which are not present to the
senses. Ideas are revived experiences.
Revived experience is memory. Since it is memory that enables us to live
our lives over again, brings the past up to the present, it is one of
the most wonderful aspects of our natures. The importance of memory is
at once apparent if we try to imagine what life would be without it. If
our life were only perceptual, if it were only the sights and sounds and
smells and tastes of the passing moment, it would have little meaning,
it would be bare and empty. But instead of our perceptions being our
whole life, they are only the starting points of life. Perceptions serve
to arouse groups of memory images or ideas, and the groups of ideas
enrich the passing moment and give meaning to the passing perceptions,
which otherwise would have no meaning.
Suppose I am walking along the street and meet a friend. I see him,
speak to him, and pass on. But after I have passed on, I have ideas. I
think of seeing my friend the day before. I think of what he said and of
what he was doing, of what I said and of what I was doing. Perhaps for
many minutes there come ideas from my past experience. These ideas were
aroused by the perception of my friend. The perception was momentary,
but it started a long train of memory ideas.
I pass on down the street and go by a music store. Within the store, a
victrola is playing _Jesus, Lover of My Soul_. The song starts another
train of memory ideas. I think of the past, of my boyhood days and
Sunday school, my early home and many scenes of my childhood. For
several minutes I am so engrossed with the memory images that I
scarcely notice anything along the street. Again, the momentary
perception, this time of sounds, served to revive a great number of
ideas, or memories, of the past.
These illustrations are typical of our life. Every moment we have
perceptions. These perceptions arouse ideas of our past life and
experience. One of these ideas evokes another, and so an endless chain
of images passes along. The older we become, the richer is our
ideational life. While we are children, the perceptions constitute the
larger part of our mental life, but as we become older, larger and
larger becomes the part played by our memory images or ideas. A child is
not content to sit down and reflect, giving himself up to the flow of
ideas that come up from his past experience, but a mature person can
spend hours in recalling past experience. This means that the older we
grow, the more we live in the past, the less we are bound down by the
present, and when we are old, instead of perceptions being the main part
of mental life, they but give the initial push to our thoughts which go
on in an endless chain as long as we live.
=The Physiological Basis of Memory.= It will be remembered that the basis
of perception is the agitation of the brain caused by the stimulation of
a sense organ by an external thing or force. If there is no stimulation
of a sense organ, there is no sensation, no perception. Now, just as the
basis of sensation and perception is brain activity, so it is also the
basis of ideas. In sensation, the brain activity is set up from without.
In memory, when we have ideas, the brain activity is set up from within
and is a fainter revival of the activity originally caused by the
stimulation of the sense organ. Our ideas are just as truly conditioned
or caused by brain activity as are our sensations.
Memory presents many problems, and psychologists have been trying for
many years to solve them. We shall now see what they have discovered and
what is the practical significance of the facts.
=Relation of Memory to Age and Sex.= It is a common notion that memory is
best when we are young, but such is not the case. Numerous experiments
have shown that all aspects of memory improve with age. Some aspects of
memory improve more than others, and they improve at different times and
rates; but all aspects do improve. From the beginning of school age to
about fourteen years of age the improvement of most aspects of memory is
rapid.
If we pronounce a number of digits to a child of six, it can reproduce
but few of them, a child of eight or ten can reproduce more, a child of
twelve can reproduce still more, and an adult still more. If we read a
sentence to children of different ages, we find that the older children
can reproduce a longer sentence. If we read a short story to children of
different ages, and then require them to reproduce the story in their
own words, the older children reproduce more of the story than do the
young children.[5]
[5] See age and sex graphs, pp. 184, 188, 189.
Girls excel boys in practically all the aspects of memory.
In rote memory, that is, memory for lists of unrelated words, there is
not much difference; but the girls are somewhat better. However, in the
ability to remember the ideas of a story, girls excel boys at every age.
This superiority of girls over boys is not merely a matter of memory. A
girl is superior to a boy of the same age in nearly every way. This is
merely a fact of development. A girl develops faster than a boy, she
reaches maturity more quickly, in mind as well as in body. Although a
girl is lighter than a boy at birth, on the average she gains in weight
faster and is heavier at twelve than a boy of the same age. She also
gains faster in height, and for a few years in early adolescence is
taller than a boy of the same age. Of course, boys catch up and finally
become much taller and heavier than girls. Similarly, a girl's mind
develops faster than the mind of a boy, as shown in memory and other
mental functions.
=The Improvement of Memory by Practice.= All aspects of memory can be
improved by practice, some aspects much, other aspects little. The
memory span for digits, or letters, or words, or for objects cannot be
much improved, but memory for ideas that are related, as the ideas of a
story, can be considerably improved. In extensive experiments conducted
in the author's laboratory, it was found that a person who at first
required an hour to memorize the ideas in a certain amount of material,
could, after a few months' practice, memorize the same amount in fifteen
minutes. And in the latter case the ideas would be better remembered
than they were at the beginning of the experiment. Not only could a
given number of ideas be learned in less time, but they would be better
retained when learned in the shorter time. If a person comes to us for
advice as to how to improve his memory, what should we tell him? In
order to answer the question, we must consider the factors of a good
memory.
=Factors of a Good Memory.= (1) The first requirement is to get a good
impression in the beginning. Memory is revived experience. The more
vivid and intense the first experience, the more sure will be the later
recall. So if we wish to remember an experience, we must experience it
in the first place under the most favorable conditions. The thing must
be seen clearly, it must be understood, it must be in the focus of
consciousness.
The best teaching is that which leads the child to get the clearest
apprehension of what is taught. If we are teaching about some concrete
thing, a plant, a machine, we should be sure that the child sees the
essential points, should be sure that the main principles enter his
consciousness. We should find out by questioning whether he really does
clearly understand what we are trying to get him to understand. Often we
think a pupil or student has forgotten, when the fact is that he never
really knew the thing which we wished to have him remember.
The first requisite to memory, then, is to _know in the first place_. If
we wish to remember knowledge, the knowledge must be seen in the
clearest light, really _be_ knowledge, at the outset. Few people ever
really learn how to learn. They never see anything clearly, they never
stick to a point till it is apprehended in all its relations and
bearings; consequently they forget, largely because they never really
knew in the fullest sense.
Most teaching is too abstract. The teacher uses words that have no
meaning to the pupil. Too much teaching deals with things indirectly. We
study _about_ things instead of studying things. In geography, for
example, we study about the earth, getting our information from a book.
We read about land formations, river courses, erosion, etc., when
instead we should study these objects and processes themselves. The
first thing in memory, then, is clear apprehension, clear understanding,
vivid and intense impression.
(2) The second thing necessary to memory is to repeat the experience.
First we must get a clear impression, then we must repeat the experience
if we would retain it. It is a mistake to believe that if we have once
understood a thing, we will always thereafter remember it. We must think
our experiences over again if we wish to fix them for permanent
retention.
We must organize our experience. To organize experience means to think
it over in its helpful relations. In memory, one idea arouses another.
When we have one idea, what other idea will this arouse? It depends on
what connections this idea has had in our minds in the past. It depends
on the associations that it has, and associations depend on our thinking
the ideas over together.
Teachers and parents should help children to think over their
experiences in helpful, practical relations. Then in the future, when an
idea comes to mind, it brings along with it other ideas that have these
helpful, practical relations. We must not, then, merely repeat our
experiences, but must repeat them in helpful connections or
associations. In organizing our experience, we must systematize and
classify our knowledge.
One of the chief differences in men is in the way they organize their
knowledge. Most of us have experiences abundant enough, but we differ in
the way we work over and organize these experiences. Organization not
only enables us to remember our experience, but brings our experience
back in the right connections.
The advice that should be given to a student is the following: Make sure
that you understand. If the matter is a lesson in a book, go through it
trying to get the main facts; then go through it again, trying to see
the relation of all the facts. Then try to see the facts in relation to
your wider experience. If it is a history lesson, think of the facts of
the lesson in their relation to previous chapters. Think of the details
in their bearing on wider and larger movements.
A teacher should always hold in mind the facts in regard to memory, and
should make her teaching conform to them. She should carefully plan the
presentation of a new topic so as to insure a clear initial impression.
A new topic should be presented orally by the teacher, with abundant
illustration and explanation. It cannot be made too concrete, it cannot
be made too plain and simple.
Then after the teacher has introduced and made plain the new topic, the
pupil reads and studies further. At the next recitation of the class,
the first thing in order should be a discussion, on the part of the
pupils. This will help the pupils to get the facts cleared up and will
help the teacher to find out whether the pupils have the facts right.
The first part of the recitation should also be a time for questions.
Everything should now be made clear, if there are any errors or
misunderstandings on the pupil's part. Of course any procedure in a
recitation should depend upon the nature of the material and to some
extent on the stage of advancement of the pupil; but in general such a
procedure as that just outlined will be most satisfactory and
economical: first clear initial presentation by the teacher; then
reading and study on the part of the pupil, and third, discussions on
the following day.
Teachers should also endeavor to show students how to study to the best
advantage. Pupils do not know how to study. They do not know what to
look for, and do not know how to find it after they know what they are
looking for. They should be shown. Of course, some of them learn without
help how to study. But some never learn, and it would be a great saving
of time to help all of them master the arts of study and memorizing.
A very important factor in connection with memory is the matter of
meaning. If a person will try to memorize a list of nonsense words, he
will find that it is much more difficult than to memorize words that
have meaning. This is a significant fact. It means that as material
approaches nonsense, it is difficult to memorize. Therefore we should
always try to grasp the meaning of a thing, its significance. In
science, let us always ask, what is the meaning of this fact? What
bearing does it have on other facts? How does it affect the meaning of
other facts?
=Kinds of Memories.= We should not speak of memory as if it were some sort
of power like muscular strength. We should always speak of _memories_.
Memories may be classified from several different points of view: A
classification may be based on the kind of material, as memory for
concrete things, the actual objects of experience, on the one hand, and
memory for abstract material, such as names of things, their attributes
and relations, on the other. Again, we can base a classification on the
type of ideation to which the material appeals, as auditory memory,
visual memory, motor memory. We can also base a classification on the
principle of _meaning_. This principle of classification would give us
at least three classes: memory for ideas as expressed in sentences,
logical memory; memory for series of meaningful words not logically
related in sentences, rote memory; memory for series of meaningless
words, a form of rote memory. This classification is not meant to be
complete, but only suggestive. With every change in the kind of
material, the method of presenting the material to the subject, or the
manner in which the subject deals with the material, there may be a
change in the effectiveness of memory.
While these different kinds or aspects of memory may have some relation
to one another, they are to some extent independent. One may have a good
rote memory and a poor logical memory, or a poor rote memory and a good
logical memory. That is to say, one may be very poor at remembering the
exact words of a book, but be good at remembering the meaning, the
ideas, of the book. One may be good at organizing meaningful material
but poor at remembering mere words. On the other hand, these conditions
may be reversed; one may remember the words but never get the meaning.
It is of course possible that much of this difference is due to habit
and experience, but some of the difference is beyond doubt due to
original differences in the nervous system and brain. These differences
should be determined in the case of all children. It is quite a common
thing to find a feeble-minded person with a good rote memory, but such a
person never has a good logical memory. One can have a good rote memory
without understanding, one cannot have a good logical memory without
understanding.
Let us now ask the question, why can one remember better words that are
connected by logical relations than words that have no such connection?
If we read to a person a list of twenty nonsense words, the person can
remember only two or three; but if a list of twenty words connected in a
sentence were read to a person, in most cases, all of them would be
reproduced. The reason is that the words in the latter case are not new.
We already know the words. They are already a part of our experience. We
have had days, perhaps years, of experience with them. All that is now
new about them is perhaps a slightly new relation.
Moreover, the twenty words may contain but one, or at most only a few,
ideas, and in this case it is the ideas that we remember. The ideas hold
the words together. If the twenty words contain a great number of ideas,
then we cannot remember all of them from one reading. If I say, "I have
a little boy who loves his father and mother very much, and this boy
wishes to go to the river to catch some fish," one can easily remember
all these words after one reading. But if I say, "The stomach in all the
Salmonidæ is syphonal and at the pylorus are fifteen to two hundred
comparatively large pyloric coeca"; although this sentence is shorter,
one finds it more difficult to remember, and the main reason is that the
words are not so familiar.
=Memory and Thinking.= What is the relation of memory to thinking and the
other mental functions? One often hears a teacher say that she does not
wish her pupils to depend on memory, but wishes them to reason things
out. Such a statement shows a misunderstanding of the facts; for
reasoning itself is only the recall of ideas in accordance with the laws
of association. Without memory, there would be no reasoning, for the
very material of thought is found to be the revived experiences which we
call ideas, memories.
One of the first requisites of good thinking is a reliable memory. One
must have facts to reason, and these facts must come to one in memory to
be available for thought. If one wishes to become a great thinker in a
certain field, he must gain experience in that field and organize that
experience in such a way as to remember it and to recall it when it is
wanted.
What one does deplore is memory for the mere words with no understanding
of the meaning. In geometry, for example, a student sometimes commits to
memory the words of a demonstration, with no understanding of the
meaning. Of course, that is worse than useless. One should remember the
meaning of the demonstration. If one has memorized the words only, he
cannot solve an original problem in geometry. But if he has understood
the meaning of the demonstration, then he recalls it, and is enabled to
solve the problem. If one does not remember the various facts about the
relationships in a triangle, he cannot solve a problem of the triangle
until he has worked out and discovered the necessary facts. Then memory
would make them available for the solution of the problem.
=Memory and School Standing.= That memory plays a large part in our life
is evident; and, of course, it is an important factor in all school
work. It matters not what we learn, if we do not remember it. The author
has made extensive experiments to determine the relation that memory has
to a child's progress in school.
The method used was to give logical memory tests to all the children in
a school and then rank the children in accordance with their abilities
to reproduce the story used in the test. Then they were ranked according
to their standing in their studies. A very high correlation was found.
On the whole, the pupils standing highest in the memory tests were found
to stand highest in their studies. It is true, of course, that they did
not stand highest merely because they had good memories, but because
they were not only better in memory, but were better in most other
respects too. Pupils that are good in logical memory are usually good in
other mental functions.
A test of logical memory is one of the best to give us an idea of the
school standing of pupils. Not only is the retention of ideas of very
great importance itself, but the acquiring of ideas, and the organizing
of them in such a way as to remember them involves nearly all the mental
functions. The one who remembers well ideas logically related, is the
one who pays the closest attention, the one who sees the significance,
the one who organizes, the one who repeats, the one who turns things
over in his mind. A logical memory test is therefore, to some extent, a
test of attention, association, power of organization as well as of
memory; in a word, it is a test of mental power.
Other things being equal, a person whose power of retention is good has
a great advantage over his fellows who have poor ability to remember.
Suppose we consider the learning of language. The pupil who can look up
the meaning of a word just once and remember it has an advantage over
the person who has to look up the meaning of the word several times
before it is retained. So in any branch of study, the person who can
acquire the facts in less time than another person, has the extra time
for learning something else or for going over the same material and
organizing it better. The scientist who remembers all the significant
facts that he reads, and sees their bearing on his problems, has a great
advantage over the person who does not remember so well.
Of course, there are certain dangers in having a good memory, just as
there is danger in being brilliant generally. The quick learner is in
danger of forming slovenly habits. A person who learns quickly is likely
to form the habit of waiting till the last minute to study his lesson
and then getting a superficial idea of it. The slow learner must form
good habits of study to get on at all.
Teachers and parents should prevent the bright children from forming bad
habits of study. The person who learns quickly and retains well should
be taught to be thorough and to use the advantage that comes from
repetition. The quick learner should not be satisfied with one attack on
his lesson, but should study the lesson more than once, for even the
brilliant learner cannot afford to neglect the advantages that come from
repetition. A person with poor memory and only mediocre ability
generally can make up very much by hard work and by work that takes
advantage of all the laws of economical learning. But he can never
compete successfully with the person who works as hard as he does and
who has good powers of learning and retention.
The author has found that in a large class of a hundred or more, there
is usually a person who has good memory along with good mental ability
generally, and is also a hard worker. Such a person always does the best
work in the class. A person with poor memory and poor mental powers
generally cannot hope to compete with a person of good memory, good
mental powers generally, if that person is also a good worker.
=Learning and Remembering.= A popular fallacy is expressed in the saying
"Easy come, easy go." The person who is the best learner is also the
best in retaining what is learned, provided all other conditions are the
same. This matter was determined in the following way: A logical memory
test was given to all the children in a city school system. A story was
read to the pupils and then reproduced by them in writing. The papers
were corrected and graded and nothing more was said about the test for
one month. Then at the same time in every room, the teachers said, "You
remember the story I read to you some time ago and which I asked you to
reproduce. Well, I wish to see how much of the story you still
remember." The pupils were then required to write down all the story
that they could recall.
It was found that, in general, the children who write the most when the
story is first read to them, write the most after the lapse of a month,
and the poorest ones at first are the poorest ones at the end of the
month. Of course, the correspondence is not perfect, but in some cases,
in some grades, it is almost so.
The significance of this experiment is very great. It means that the
pupil who gets the most facts from a lesson will have the most facts at
any later time. This is true, of course, only if other things are equal.
If one pupil studies about the matter more, reflects upon it, repeats it
in his mind, of course this person will remember more, other things
being equal. But if neither reviews the matter, or if both do it to an
equal extent, then the one who learns the most in the first place,
remembers the most at a later time.
I have also tested the matter out in other ways. I have experimented
with a group of men and women, by reading a passage of about a page in
length, repeating the reading till the subject could reproduce all the
facts. It was found that the person who acquired all the facts from the
fewest readings remembered more of the facts later. It must be said that
there is less difference between the subjects later than at first.
In the laboratory of Columbia University a similar experiment was
performed, but in a somewhat different way. Students were required to
commit to memory German vocabularies and were later tested for their
retention of the words learned. It was found that those who learned the
most words in a given time, also retained the largest percentage of what
had been learned. It should not be surprising that this is the case. The
quick learner is the one who makes the best use of all the factors of
retention, the factors mentioned in the preceding paragraph--good
attention, association, organization, etc.
Another experiment performed in the author's laboratory bears out the
above conclusions. A group of students were required to commit to memory
at one sitting a long list of nonsense syllables. The number of
repetitions necessary to enable each student to reproduce them was
noted. One day later, the students attempted to reproduce the syllables.
Of course they could not, and they were then required to say them over
again till they could just repeat them from memory. The number of
repetitions was noted. The number of repetitions was much less than on
the first day. On the third day, the process was repeated. The number of
repetitions was fewer still. This relearning was kept up each day till
each person could repeat the syllables from memory without any study.
It was found that the person who learned the syllables in the fewest
repetitions the first time, relearned them in the fewest repetitions on
succeeding days. All the experiments bearing on the subject point to the
same conclusion; namely, that the quick learner, if other things are
equal, retains at least as well as the slow learner, and usually retains
better.
=Transfer of Memory Training.= We have said above that there are many
kinds or aspects of memory. It has also been said that we can improve
memory by practice. Now, the question arises, if we improve one aspect
of memory, does this improve all aspects? This is an important question;
moreover, it is one to be settled by experiment and not by argument.
The most extensive and thorough experiment was performed by an English
psychologist, Sleight. The experiment was essentially as follows: He
took a large number of pupils and tested the efficiency of the various
aspects of their memory. He then took half of them and trained one
aspect of their memory until there was considerable improvement. The
other section had no memory training meanwhile. After the training, both
groups again had all aspects of their memory tested. Both groups showed
improvement in all aspects because the first tests gave them some
practice, but the group that had been receiving the training was no
better in those aspects not trained than was the group receiving no
training at all. Aspects of memory much like the one trained showed some
improvement, but other aspects did not.
The conclusion is that memory training is specific, that it affects only
the kind of memory trained, and related memories. This is in harmony
with what we learned about habit. When we receive training, it affects
only the parts of us trained and other closely related parts.
=Learning by Wholes.= We do not often have to commit to memory verbatim,
but when we do, it is important that we should know the most economical
way. Experiments have clearly demonstrated that the most economical way
is to read the entire selection through from beginning to end and
continue to read it through in this way till the matter is learned by
heart.
In long selections, the saving by this method is considerable. A pupil
is not likely to believe this because if he spends a few minutes
learning in this manner, he finds that he cannot repeat a single line,
while if he had concentrated on one line, he could have repeated at
least that much. This is true; but although he cannot repeat a single
line by the whole procedure, he has learned nevertheless. It would be a
good thing to demonstrate this fact to a class; then the pupils would be
satisfied to use the most economical procedure. The plan holds good
whether the matter be prose or poetry.
But experiments have been carried on only with verbatim learning. The
best procedure for learning the facts so that one can give them in one's
own words has not yet been experimentally determined.
=Cramming.= An important practical question is whether it pays to go over
a great amount of material in a very short time, as students often do
before examinations. From all that has been said above, one could infer
the solution to this problem. Learning and memorizing are to some extent
a growth, and consequently involve time.
There is an important law of learning and memory known as Jost's law,
which may be stated as follows: If we repeat or renew associations, the
repetitions have most value for the old associations. Therefore when we
learn, we should learn and then later relearn. This will make for
permanent retention. Of course, if we wish to get together a great mass
of facts for a temporary purpose and do not care to retain them
permanently, cramming is the proper method. If we are required to pass
an examination in which a knowledge of many details is expected and
these details have no important permanent value, cramming is justified.
When a lawyer is preparing a case to present to a court, the actual,
detail evidence is of no permanent value, and cramming is justified.
But if we wish to acquire and organize facts for their permanent value,
cramming is not the proper procedure. The proper procedure is for a
student to go over his work faithfully as the term of school proceeds,
then occasionally review. At the end of the term, a rapid review of the
whole term's work is valuable. After one has studied over matter and
once carefully worked it out, a quick view again of the whole subject is
most valuable, and assists greatly in making the acquisition permanent.
But if the matter has not been worked out before, the hasty view of the
material of the course, while it may enable one to pass the examination,
has no permanent value.
=Function of the Teacher in Memory Work.= The function of a teacher is
plainly to get the pupils to learn in accordance with the laws of memory
above set forth; but there are certain things that a teacher can do that
may not have become evident to the reader. It has been learned in
experiments in logical memory that when a story is read to a subject and
the subject attempts to reproduce it, certain mistakes are made. When
the story is read again, it is common for the same mistakes to be made
in the recall. Certain ideas were apprehended in a certain way; and,
when the piece is read again, the subject pays no more attention to the
ideas already acquired and reported, and they are therefore reported
wrongly as they were in the first place. Often the subject does not
notice the errors till his attention is called to them.
This suggests an important function of the teacher in connection with
the memory work of the pupils. This function is to correct mistakes in
the early stages of learning. A teacher should always be on the watch to
find the errors of the pupils and to correct them before they are fixed
by repetition.
A teacher should, also, consider it her duty to test the memory
capacities of the pupils and to give each the advice that the case
demands.
=Some Educational Inferences.=--There are certain consequences to
education that follow from the facts of memory above set forth that are
of considerable significance. Many things have been taught to children
on the assumption that they could learn them better in childhood than
later, because it was thought that memory and the learning capacity were
better in childhood. But both of these assumptions are false. As
children grow older their learning capacity increases and their memories
become better.
It has particularly been held that rote memory is better in childhood
and that therefore children should begin their foreign language study
early. It is true that as far as _speaking_ a foreign language is
concerned, the earlier a child begins it the better. But this is not
true of learning to read the language. The sounds of the foreign
language that we have not learned in childhood in speaking the mother
tongue are usually difficult for us to make. The organs of speech become
set in the way of their early exercise. In reading the foreign language,
correct pronunciation is not important. We are concerned with _getting_
the thought, and this is possible without pronouncing at all. Reference
to graphs on pages 190 and 191 will show that rote memory steadily
improves throughout childhood and youth. The author has performed
numerous experiments to test this very point. He has had adults work
side by side with children at building up new associations of the rote
memory type and found that always the adult could learn faster than the
child and retain better what was learned.
The experience of language teachers in college and university does not
give much comfort to those who claim that language study should be begun
early. These teachers claim that the students who have had previous
language study do no better than those who have had none. It seems,
however, that there certainly ought to be _some_ advantage in beginning
language study early and spreading the study out over the high school
period. But what is gained does not offset the tremendous loss that
follows from requiring _all_ high school students to study a foreign
language merely to give an opportunity for early study to those who are
to go on in the university with language courses. A mature university
student that has a real interest in language and literature can begin
his language study in the university and make rapid progress. Some of
the best classical scholars whom the author knows began their language
study in the university. While it would have been of some advantage to
them to have begun their language study earlier, there are so few who
should go into this kind of work that society cannot afford to make
provision for their beginning the study in the high school.
The selection and arrangement of the studies in the curriculum must be
based on other grounds than the laws of memory. What children make most
progress in and need most to know are the concrete things of their
physical and social environment. Children must first learn the
world--the woods and streams and birds and flowers and plants and
animals, the earth, its rocks and soils and the wonderful forces at work
in it. They must learn man,--what he is and what he does and how he does
it; how he lives and does his work and how he governs himself. They
should also learn to read and to write their mother tongue, and should
learn something of that great store of literature written in the mother
tongue.
The few that are to be scholars in language and literature must wait
till beginning professional study before taking up their foreign
language; just as a person who is to be a lawyer or physician must also
wait till time to enter a university before beginning special
professional preparation. The child's memory for abstract conceptions is
particularly weak in early years; hence studies should be so arranged as
to acquaint the child with the concrete aspects of the world first, and
later to acquaint him with the abstract relations of things. Mathematics
should come late in the child's life, for the same reason. Mathematics
deals with quantitative relations which the child can neither learn nor
remember profitably and economically till he is more mature. The child
should first learn the world in its descriptive aspects.
=Memory and Habit.= The discussion up to this point should have made it
clear to the reader that memory is much the same thing as habit. Memory
considered as retention depends upon the permanence of the impression on
the brain; but in its associative aspects depends on connections between
brain centers, as is the case with habit. The association of ideas,
which is the basis of their recall, is purely a matter of habit
formation.
When I think of George Washington, I also think of the Revolution, of
the government, of the presidency, of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson,
etc., because of the connections which these ideas have had in my mind
many times before. There is a basis in the brain structure for these
connections. There is nothing in any _idea_ that connects it with
another idea. Ideas become connected because of the _way in which we
experience them_, and the reason one idea calls up another idea is
because the brain process that is the cause of one idea brings about
another brain process that is the cause of a second idea. The whole
thing is merely a matter of the way the brain activities become
organized. Therefore the various laws of habit-formation have
application to memory in so far as memory is a matter of the association
of ideas, based on brain processes.
One often has the experience of trying to recall a name or a fact and
finds that he cannot. Presently the name or fact may come, or it may not
come till the next day or the next week. What is the cause of this
peculiar phenomenon? The explanation is to be found in the nervous
system. When one tries to recall the name and it will not come to mind,
there is some temporary block or hindrance in the nerve-path that leads
from one center to the other and one cannot think of the name till the
obstruction is removed. We go on thinking about other things, and in the
meantime the activities going on in the brain remove the obstruction; so
when the matter comes up again, the nerve current shoots through, and
behold, the name comes to mind.
[Illustration: FIGURE IV--ASSOCIATIVE CONNECTIONS
The diagram represents schematically the neural basis of the association
of ideas.]
Now the only preventive of such an occurrence is to be found in the law
of habit, for the block ordinarily occurs in case of paths or bonds not
well established. We must _think together_ the things we wish to have
associated. Repetition is the key to the situation, repetition which is
the significant thing in habit-formation, repetition which is the only
way of coupling two things which we wish to have associated together.
Of course, there is no absolute coupling of two ideas. One sometimes
forgets his own name. When we are tired or ill, things which were the
most closely associated may not hang together. But those ideas hold
together in the firmest way that have been experienced together most
often in a state of attention. The diagram on page 147 illustrates
schematically the neural connections and cross-connections which are the
bases of the association of ideas, the circles _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, _E_,
and _F_ represent brain processes which give rise to ideas, and the
lines represent connecting paths. Note that there are both direct and
indirect connections.
SUMMARY. Sensation and perception give us our first experience with
things; memory is revived experience. It enables us to live our
experience over again and is therefore one of the most important
human traits. The physiological basis of memory is in the brain and
nervous system. Memory improves with practice and up to a certain
point with the age of the person. It is better in girls than in
boys. Good memory depends on vivid experience in the first place and
on organization and repetition afterward. The person who learns
quickly usually retains well also. Memory training is specific. The
extension of the learning process over a long time is favorable to
memory. Memory ideas are the basis of thinking and reasoning.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. The teacher can test the auditory memory of the members of the class
for rote material by using letters. It is better to omit the vowels,
using only the consonants. Prepare five groups of letters with eight
letters in a group. Read each group of letters to the class, slowly and
distinctly. After reading a group, allow time for the students to write
down what they recall, then read the next group and so proceed till the
five groups have been read. Grade the work by finding the number of
letters reproduced, taking no account of the position of the letters.
2. In a similar way, test visual memory, using different combinations of
letters. Write the letters plainly on five large squares of cardboard.
Hold each list before the class for as long a time as it took to read a
group in experiment No. 1.
3. Test memory for words in a similar way. Use simple words of one
syllable, making five lists with eight words in a list.
4. Test memory for objects by fastening common objects on a large
cardboard and holding the card before the class. Put eight objects on
each card and prepare five cards. Expose them for the same length of
time as in experiment No. 2.
5. Test memory for _names_ of objects by preparing five lists of names,
eight names in a list, and reading the names as in experiment No. 1.
6. You now have data for the following study: Find the average grade of
each student in the different experiments. Find the combined grade of
each student in all the above experiments. Do the members of the class
hold the same rank in all the tests? How do the boys compare with the
girls? How does memory for objects compare with memory for names of
objects? How does auditory memory compare with visual? What other points
do you learn from the experiments?
7. The teacher can make a study of the logical memory of the members of
the class by using material as described on page 184. Make five separate
tests, using stories that are well within the comprehension of the class
and that will arouse their interest. Sufficient material will be found
in the author's _Examination of School Children_ and Whipple's _Manual_.
However, the teacher can prepare similar material.
8. Do the students maintain the same rank in the separate tests of
experiment No. 7? Rank all the students for their combined standing in
all the first five tests. Rank them for their combined standing in the
logical memory tests. Compare the two rankings. What conclusions are
warranted?
9. You have tested, in experiment No. 7, logical memory when the
material was read to the students. It will now be interesting to compare
the results of No. 7 with the results obtained by allowing the students
to read the material of the test. For this purpose, select portions from
the later chapters of this book. Allow just time enough for the
selection to be read once slowly by the students, then have it
reproduced as in the other logical memory experiment. Give several
tests, if there is sufficient time. Find the average grade of each
student, and compare the results with those obtained in No. 7. This will
enable you to compare the relative standing of the members of the
class, but will not enable you to compare the two ways of acquiring
facts. For this purpose, the stories would have to be of equal
difficulty. Let the members of the class plan an experiment that would
be adequate for this purpose.
10. A brief study of the improvement of memory can be made by practicing
a few minutes each day for a week or two, as time permits, using
material that can be easily prepared, such as lists of common words. Let
the members of the class plan the experiment. Use the best plan.
11. The class can make a study of the relation of memory to school
standing in one of the grades below the high school. Give at least two
tests for logical memory. Give also the rote memory tests described on
page 189. Get the class standing of the pupils from the teacher. Make
the comparison as suggested in Chapter I, page 15. Or, the correlation
can be worked out accurately by following the directions given in the
_Examination of School Children_, page 58, or in Whipple's _Manual_,
page 38.
12. Let the members of the class make a plan for the improvement of
their memory for the material studied in school. Plan devices for
learning the material better and for fixing it in memory. At the end of
the course in psychology, have an _experience_ meeting and study the
results reported.
13. Prepare five lists of nonsense syllables, with eight in a list. Give
them as in experiment No. 3, and compare the results with those of that
experiment. What do the results indicate as to the value to memory of
_meaningful_ material? What educational inferences can you make? In
preparing the syllables, put a vowel between two consonants, and use no
syllable that is a real word.
14. A study of the effects of distractions on learning and memory can be
made as follows: Let the teacher select two paragraphs in later chapters
of this book, of equal length and difficulty. Let the students read one
under quiet conditions and the other while an electric bell is ringing
in the room. Compare the reproductions in the two cases.
15. From the chapter and from the results of all the memory tests, let
the students enumerate the facts that have educational significance.
16. Make a complete outline of the chapter.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
COLVIN and BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapter XV.
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, pp. 165-170.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapters VI and VIII.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapter XIII.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapter VII.
CHAPTER VIII
THINKING
In Chapter III we learned about sensation. We found that when a sense
organ is stimulated by its appropriate type of stimulus, this
stimulation travels through the sensory nerves and sets up an excitation
in the brain. This excitation in the brain gives us sensation. We see if
the eye is stimulated. We hear if the ear is stimulated, etc. In
Chapter VII we learned that after the brain has had an excitation giving
rise to sensation, it is capable of reviving this excitation later. This
renewal or revival of a brain excitation gives us an experience
resembling the original sensation, only usually fainter and less stable.
This revived experience is called _image_ or _idea_. The general process
of retention and revival of experience is, as we have seen, known as
memory. An idea, then, is a bit of revived experience. A perception is a
bit of immediate or primary experience. I am said to perceive a chair if
the chair is present before me, if the light reflected from the chair is
actually exciting my retinas. I have an _idea_ of the chair when I
_seem_ to see it, when the chair is not before me or when my eyes are
shut. These distinctions were pointed out in the preceding chapter. Let
us now proceed to carry our study of ideas further.
=Association of Ideas.= The subject of the association of ideas can best
be introduced by an experiment. Take a paper and pencil, and think of
the word "horse." Write this word down, and then write down other words
that come to mind. Write them in the order in which they come to mind.
Do this for three or four minutes, and try the experiment several times,
beginning with a different word each time. Make a study of the lists of
words. Compare the different lists and the lists written by different
students.
In the case of the writer, the following words came to mind in the first
few seconds: horse, bridle, saddle, tail, harness, buggy, whip, man,
sky, stars, sun, ocean. Why did these words come, and why did they come
in that order? Why did the idea "horse" suggest the idea "bridle"? And
why did "bridle" suggest "saddle"? Is there something in the nature of
ideas that couples them with certain other ideas and makes them _always_
suggest the other ideas? No, there is not. Ideas become coupled together
in our experience, and the coupling is in accordance with our
experience. Things that are together in our experience become coupled
together as ideas. The idea "horse" may become coupled with any other
idea. The general law of the association of ideas is this: Ideas are
joined together in memory or revived experience as they were joined in
the original or perceptive experience.
But the matter is complicated by the fact that things are experienced in
different connections in perceptive experience. I do not always
experience "horse" together with "bridle." I sometimes see horses in a
pasture eating clover. So, as far as this last experience is concerned,
when I think "horse" I should also think "clover." I sometimes see a
horse running when a train whistles, so "whistle" and "horse" should be
coupled in my mind. A horse once kicked me on the shoulder, so "horse"
and "shoulder" should be connected in my mind. And so they are. The very
fact that these various experiences come back to me proves that they are
connected in my mind in accordance with the original experiences. The
revival of various horse experiences has come to me faster than I could
write them down, and they are all bound together in my memory. If I
should write them all out, it would take many hours, perhaps days.
Not only are these "horse ideas" bound together with one another, but
they are bound more or less directly, more or less closely, to
everything else in my life. I can, therefore, pass in thought from the
idea "horse" to any other idea, directly or indirectly. Now, in any
given case, what idea will actually come first after I have the idea
"horse"? This depends upon the tendencies established in the nervous
system. The brain process underlying the idea "horse" has connections
with many other processes and tends to excite these processes. The
factors that strengthen these tendencies or connections are the
frequency, recency, primacy, and vividness of experience. Let us
consider, in some detail, each of these factors.
=Primacy of Experience.= A strong factor in determining association is the
_first experience_. The first, the original, coupling of ideas tends to
persist. The first connection is nearly always a strong one, and is also
strengthened by frequent repetition in memory. Our first experience with
people and things persists with great strength, across the years, in
spite of other associations and connections established later. Just now
there comes to mind my first experience with a certain famous scientist.
It was many years ago. I was a student in an eastern university. This
man gave a public lecture at the opening of the session. I remember many
details of the occurrence with great vividness. Although I studied under
this man for three years, no other experience with him is more prominent
than the first. First experiences give rise to such strong connections
between ideas that these connections often persist and hold their own as
against other connections depending upon other factors.
The practical consequences of this factor in teaching are, of course,
evident. Both teachers and parents should take great care in the matter
of the first experiences of children. If the idea-connections of first
experiences are likely to persist, then these connections should be
desirable ones. They should not be useless connections, nor should they,
ordinarily, be connections that will have to be radically undone later.
Usually it is not economical to build up connections between ideas that
will not serve permanently, except in cases in which the immaturity of
the mind makes such a procedure necessary.
=Recency of Experience.= The most recent connection of ideas is relatively
strong, and is often the determining one. But the most recent connection
must be very recent or it has no especial value. If I have seen a
certain friend to-day, and his name is brought to mind now, to-day's
experience with him will likely be brought to mind _first_. But if my
last seeing him was some days or months ago, the idea-connection of the
last meeting has no great value. Of course, circumstances always alter
the matter. Perhaps we should say in the last instance that, other
things being equal, the last experience has no special value. If the
last experience was an unusual one, such as a death or a marriage, then
it has a value due to its vividness and intensity and its emotional
aspects. These factors not only add strength to the connections made at
the time but are the cause of frequent revivals of this last experience
in memory in the succeeding days. All these factors taken together often
give a last experience great associative strength, even though the last
experience is not recent.
=Frequency of Experience.= The most frequent connection of ideas is
probably the most important factor of all in determining future
associations. The first connection is but one, and the last connection
is but one, while repeated connections may be many in number.
Connections which recur frequently usually overcome all other
connections. Hence frequency is the dominant factor in association. Most
of the strength of first connections is due to repetitions in memory
later. The first experience passes through the mind again and again as
memory, and thereby becomes strengthened. The fact that repetition of
connections establishes these connections is, of course, the
justification of drill and review in school studies. The practical needs
of life demand that certain ideas be associated so that one calls up the
other. Teachers and parents, knowing these desirable connections,
endeavor to fix them in the minds of children by repetition. The
important facts of history, literature, civics, and science we endeavor,
by means of repetition, to fasten in the child's mind.
=Vividness and Intensity of Experience.= A vivid experience is one that
excites and arouses us, strongly stimulating our feelings. Such
experiences establish strong bonds of connection. When I think of a
railroad wreck, I think of one in which I participated. The experience
was vivid, intense, and aroused my emotions. I hardly knew whether I was
dead or alive. Then, secondly, I usually think of a wreck which I
witnessed in childhood. A train plunged through a bridge and eighteen
cars were piled up in the ravine. The experience was vivid and produced
a deep and lasting impression on me.
The practical significance of this factor is, of course, great. When
ideas are presented to pupils these ideas should be made clear. Every
conceivable device should be used to clarify and explain,--concrete
demonstration, the use of objects and diagrams, pictures and drawings,
and abundant oral illustration. We must be sure that the one taught
understands, that the ideas become focal in consciousness and take hold
of the individual. This is the main factor in what is known as
"interest." An interesting thing is one that takes hold of us and
possesses us so that we cannot get away from it. Such experiences are
vivid and have rich emotional connections or accompaniments. Ideas that
are experienced together at such times are strongly connected.
=Mental Set or Attitude.= Another influence always operative in
determining the association of ideas is mental set. By mental set we
mean the mood or attitude one is in,--whether one is sad or glad, well
or ill, fresh or fatigued, etc. What one has just been thinking about,
what one has just been doing, are always factors that determine the
direction of association. One often notices the effects of mental set in
reading newspapers. If one's mind has been deeply occupied with some
subject and one then starts to read a newspaper, one may actually
miscall many of the words in the article he is reading; the words are
made to fit in with what is in his mind. For example, if one is all
wrought up over a wedding, many words beginning with "w" and having
about the same length as the word "wedding," will be read as "wedding."
Mental set may be permanent or temporary. By permanent we mean the
strong tendencies that are built up by continued thought in a certain
direction. One becomes a Methodist, a Democrat, a conservative, a
radical, a pessimist, an optimist, etc., by continuity of similar
experiences and similar reactions to these experiences. Germans, French,
Irish, Italians, Chinese, have characteristic sets or ways of reacting
to typical situations that may be called racial. These prejudicial ways
of reacting may be called racial sets or attitudes. Religious,
political, and social prejudices may all be called sets or attitudes.
Temporary sets or attitudes are leanings and prejudices that are due to
temporary states of mind. The fact that one has headache, or
indigestion, or is in a hurry, or is angry, or is hungry, or is
emotionally excited over something will, for the time, be a factor in
determining the direction of association.
One of the tasks of education is to build up sets or attitudes,
permanent prejudices, to be constant factors in guiding association and,
consequently, action. We wish to build up permanent attitudes toward
truth, honesty, industry, sympathy, zeal, persistence, etc. It is
evident that attitude is merely an aspect of habit. It is an habitual
way of reacting to a definite and typical situation. This habitual way
is strengthened by repetition, so that set or attitude finally, after
years of repetition, becomes a part of our nature. Our prejudices become
as strong, seemingly, as our instinctive tendencies. After a man has
thought in a particular groove for years, it is about as sure that he
will come to certain definite conclusions on matters in the line of his
thought as that he would give typical instinctive or even reflex
reactions. We know the direction association will take for a
Presbyterian in religious matters, for a Democrat in political matters,
with about as much certainty as we know what their actions will be in
situations that evoke instinctive reactions.
=Thinking and Reasoning.= Thinking is the passing of ideas in the mind.
This flow of ideas is in accordance with the laws of association above
discussed. The order in which the ideas come is the order fixed by
experience, the order as determined by the various factors above
enumerated.
In early life, one's mind is chiefly perceptual, it is what we see and
hear and taste and smell. As one grows older his mind grows more and
more ideational. With increasing age, a larger and larger percentage of
our mental life is made up of ideas, of memories. The child lives in the
present, in a world of perceptions. A man is not so much tied down to
the present; he lives in memory and anticipation. He thinks more than
does the child. A man is content to sit down in his chair and think for
hours at a time, a child is not. This thinking is the passing of ideas,
now one, then another and another. These ideas are the survivals or
revivals of our past experience. The order of their coming depends on
our past experience.
As I sit here and write, there surge up out of my past, ideas of creeks
and rivers and hills, horses and cows and dogs, boys and girls, men and
women, work and play, school days, friends,--an endless chain of ideas.
This "flow" of ideas is often started by a perception. For
illustration, I see a letter on the table, a letter from my brother. I
then have a visual image of my brother. I think of him as I saw him
last. I think of what he said. I think of his children, of his home, of
his boyhood, and our early life together. Then I think of our mother and
the old home, and so on and on. Presently I glance at a history among my
books, and immediately think of Greece and Athens and the Acropolis,
Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, schoolmates and teachers, and friends
connected in one way or another with my college study of Greek.
In this description of the process of thinking, I have repeatedly used
the words "think of." I might have said instead, "there came to mind
ideas of Athens, ideas of friends," etc. Thinking, then, is a general
term for our idea-life.
Reasoning is a form of thinking. Reasoning, too, is a flow of ideas. But
while reasoning is thinking, it is a special form of thinking; it is
thinking to a purpose. In thinking as above described and illustrated,
no immediate ends of the person are served; while in reasoning some end
is always sought. In reasoning, the flow of ideas must reach some
particular idea that will serve the need of the moment, the need of the
problem at hand. Reasoning, then, is controlled thinking, thinking
centering about a problem, about a situation that one must meet.
The statement that reasoning is _controlled_ thinking needs some
explanation, for the reader at once is likely to want to know what does
the controlling. There is not some special faculty or power that does
the controlling. The control is exercised by the set into which one is
thrown by the situation which confronts one. The set puts certain
nerve-tracts into readiness to conduct, or in other words, makes
certain groups of ideas come into mind, and makes one satisfied only if
the right ideas come. As long as ideas come that do not satisfy, the
flow keeps on, taking one direction and then another, in accordance with
the way our ideas have become organized. An idea finally comes that
satisfies. We are then said to have reached a conclusion, to have made
up our mind, to have solved our problem.
But the fact that we are satisfied is no sure sign that the problem is
correctly solved. It means only that our past experiences, available at
the time through association, say that the conclusion is right. Or, in
more scientific terms, that the conclusion is in harmony with our past
experience, as it has been organized and made available through
association. There is not within us a little being, a reasoner, that
sits and watches ideas file by and passes judgment upon them. The real
judge is our nervous system with its organized bonds or connections.
An illustration may make the matter clearer: A boy walking along in the
woods comes to a stream too wide for him to jump across. He wishes to be
on the other side, so here is a situation that must be met, a problem
that must be solved. A flow of ideas is started centering about the
problem. The flow is entirely determined and directed by past experience
and the present situation. The boy pauses, looks about, and sees on the
bank a pole and several large stones. He has walked on poles and on
fences, he therefore sees himself putting the pole across the stream and
walking on it. This may be in actual visual imagery, or it may be in
words. He may merely say, "I will put the pole across and walk on it."
But, before having time to do it, he may recall walking on poles that
turned. He is not then satisfied with the pole idea. The perception of
stones may next become clear in his mind, and if no inhibiting or
hindering idea comes up, the stone idea carries him into action. He
piles the stones into the stream and walks across.
As was mentioned above, the flow of ideas may take different forms. The
imagery may take any form but is usually visual, auditory, motor, or
verbal.
Further discussion of the point that reasoning is determined by past
experience may be necessary. Suppose the teacher ask the class a number
of different questions, moral, religious, political. Many different
answers to the questions will be received, in some cases as many answers
to the questions as there are pupils. Ask whether it is ever right to
steal, whether it is ever right to lie, whether it is ever right to
fight, whether it is ever right to disobey a parent or teacher, whether
oak is stronger than maple, whether iron expands more when heated than
does copper, whether one should always feed beggars, etc. The answers
received, in each case, depend on the previous experience of the pupils.
The more nearly alike the experiences of the pupils, the more nearly
alike will be the answers. The more divergent the experiences, the more
different will be the answers.
The basis of reasoning is ultimately the same sort of thing as the basis
of habit. We have repeated experiences of the same kind. The ideas of
these experiences become welded together in a definite way. Association
between certain groups of ideas becomes well fixed. Later situations
involving these groups of ideas set up definite trains of association.
We come always to definite conclusions from the same situations
provided that we are in the same mental set and the factors involved are
the same.
Throughout early life we have definite moral and religious ideas
presented to us. We come to think in definite ways about them or with
them. It therefore comes about that every day we live, we are
determining the way we shall in the future reason about things. We are
each day getting the material for the solution of the problems that will
be presented to us by future situations. And the reason that one of us
will solve those problems in a different way from another is because of
having somewhat different experiences, and of organizing them in a
different way.
=Meaning and the Organization of Ideas.= In the preceding paragraphs we
have several times spoken of the organization of ideas. Let us now see
just what is meant by this expression. Intimately connected with the
organization of ideas is _meaning_. What is the meaning of an idea? The
meaning of an idea is another idea or group of ideas that are very
closely associated with it. When there comes to mind an idea that has
arisen out of repeated experience, there come almost immediately with it
other ideas, perhaps vivid images which have been connected with the
same experience. Suppose the idea is of a horse. If one were asked,
"What is a horse?" ideas of a horse in familiar situations would present
themselves. One may see in imagination a horse being driven, ridden,
etc., and he would then answer, "Why, a horse is to ride," or "A horse
is to drive," or "A horse is a domestic animal," etc.
Again, "What is a cloud? What is the sun? What is a river? What is
justice? What is love?" One says, "A cloud is that from which rain
falls," or "A cloud is partially condensed vapor. The sun is a round
thing in the sky that shines by day. A river is water flowing along in a
low place through the land. Justice is giving to people what they
deserve. Love is that feeling one has for a person which makes him be
kind to that person." The answer that one gives depends on age and
experience.
But it is evident that when a person is asked what a thing is or what is
the meaning of a thing, he has at once ideas that have been most closely
associated with the idea in question. Now, since the most important
aspect of a thing is what we can do with it, what use it can be to us,
usually meaning centers about _use_. A chair is to sit in, bread is to
eat, water is to drink, clothes are to wear, a hat is a thing to be worn
on one's head, a shovel is to dig with, a car is to ride in, etc.
Use is not quite so evident in such cases as the following: "Who was
Cæsar? Who was Homer? Who is Edison? What was the Inquisition? What were
the Crusades?" However, one has, in these cases, very closely associated
ideas, and these ideas do center about what we have done with these men
and events in our thinking. "Cæsar was a warrior. Homer was a writer of
epics. Edison is an inventor," etc. These men and events have been
presented to us in various situations as standing for various things in
the history of the world. And when we think of them, we at once think of
what they did, the place they fill in the world. This constitutes their
meaning.
It is evident that an idea may have many meanings. And the meaning that
may come to us at any particular moment depends upon the situation. A
chair, for example, in one situation, may come to mind as a thing to sit
in; in another situation, as a thing to stand in the corner and look
pretty; in another, a thing to stand on so that one may reach the top
shelf in the pantry; in another, a thing to strike a burglar with; in
another, a thing to knock to pieces to be used to make a fire.
The meaning of a thing comes from our experience with it, and the thing
usually comes to have more and more meanings as our experience with it
increases. When we meet something new, it may have practically no
meaning. Suppose we find a new plant in the woods. It has little
meaning. We may be able to say only that it is a plant, or it is a small
plant. We touch it and it pricks us, and it at once has more meaning. It
is a plant that pricks. We bite into it and find it bitter. It is then a
plant that is bitter, etc. In such a way, objects come to have meaning.
They acquire meaning according to the connections in which we experience
them and they may take on different meanings for different persons
because of the different experiences of these persons. The chief
interest we have in objects is in what use we can make of them, how we
can make them serve our purposes, how we can make them contribute to our
pleasure.
The organization of experience is the connecting, through the process of
association, of the ideas that arise out of our experience. Our ideas
are organized not only in accordance with the way we experience them in
the first place, but in accordance with the way we think them later in
memory. Of course, ideas are recalled in accordance with the way we
experience them, but since they are experienced in such a multitude of
connections, they are recalled later in these various connections and it
is possible in recall to repeat one connection to the exclusion of
others.
Organization can therefore be a selective process. Although "horse" is
experienced in a great variety of situations or connections, for our
purposes we can select some one or more of these connections and by
repetition in recalling it, strengthen these connections to the
exclusion of others. Herein lies one of the greatest possibilities in
thinking and reasoning, which enables us, to an extent, to be
independent of original experience. We must have had experience, of
course, but the strength of bonds between ideas need not depend upon
original experience, but rather upon the way in which these ideas are
recalled later, and especially upon the number of times they are
recalled.
It is in the matter of the organization of experience that teachers and
parents can be of great help to young people. Children do not know what
connections of ideas will be most useful in the future. People who have
had more experience know better and can, by direction and suggestion,
lead the young to form, and strengthen by repetition, those connections
of ideas that will be most useful later.
In the various school studies, a mass of ideas is presented. These
ideas, isolated or with random connections, will be of little service to
the pupils. They must be organized with reference to future use. This
organization must come about through thinking over these ideas in
helpful connections. The teacher knows best what these helpful
connections are and must help the pupil to make them.
Suppose the topic studied in history is the Battle of Bunker Hill. The
teacher should assist the child to think the battle over in many
different connections. There are various geographical, historical, and
literary aspects of the battle that are of importance. These aspects
should be brought to mind and related by being thought of together.
Thinking things together binds them together as ideas; and later when
one idea comes, the others that have been joined with it in the past in
thought, come also. Therefore, in studying the Battle of Bunker Hill,
the pupil not only reads about it, but gets a map and studies the
geography of it, works out the causes that led up to the battle, studies
the consequences that followed, reads speeches and poems that have been
made and written since concerning the battle, the monument, etc.
Similarly, all the topics studied in school should be thought over and
organized with reference to meaning and with reference to future use. As
a result of such procedure, all the topics become organized and
crystallized, with all related ideas closely bound together in
association.
One of the greatest differences in people is in the organization of
their ideas. Of course, people differ in original experience, but they
differ more in the way they organize this experience and prepare it for
future needs. Just as in habit-formation we should by exercise and
practice acquire those kinds of skill that will serve us best in the
future, so in getting knowledge we should by repetition strengthen the
connections between those ideas that we shall need to have connected in
the future. All education looks forward and is preparatory. As a result
of training in the organization of ideas, a pupil can learn how to
organize his experience, in a measure, independent of the teacher. He
learns to know, himself, what ideas are significant, and what
connections of ideas will be most helpful. Such an outcome should be one
of the ends of school training.
=Training in Reasoning.= We have already mentioned ways in which a child
can be helped in gaining power and facility in reasoning. In this
paragraph we shall discuss the matter more fully. There are three
aspects of training in reasoning, one with reference to original
experience, one with reference to the organization of this experience as
just discussed, and one with reference to certain habits of procedure in
the recall and use of experience.
(1) _Original experience._ Before reasoning in any field, one must have
experience in that field. There is no substitute for experience. After
having the experience, it can be organized in various ways, but
experience there must be. Experience may be primary, with things
themselves, or it may be secondary, received second hand through books
or through spoken language. We cannot think without ideas, and ideas
come only through perceptions of one kind or another.
Originally, all experience arises out of sensations. Language makes it
possible for us to profit through the perceptual experience of others.
But even when we receive our experience second hand, our own primary
experience must enable us to understand the meaning of what we read and
hear about, else it is valueless to us. Therefore, if we wish to be able
to reason in the field of physics, of botany, of chemistry, of medicine,
of law, or of agriculture, we must get experience in those fields. The
raw material of thought comes only through experience. In such a subject
as physical geography, for example, the words of the book have little
meaning unless the child has had original experience in the matter
discussed. He must have seen hills and valleys and rivers and lakes and
rocks and weathering, and all the various processes discussed in
physical geography; otherwise, the reading of the text is almost
valueless. The same thing is true of all subjects. To reason in any
subject we must have had original experience in it.
(2) _The organization of experience._ After experience comes its
organization. This point has already been fully explained. It was
pointed out that organization consists in thinking our experience over
again in helpful relations. Here parents and teachers can be of very
great service to children.
(3) _Habits of thought._ There are certain habits of procedure in
reasoning, apart from the association of the ideas. One can form the
habit of putting certain questions to oneself when a problem is
presented, so that certain types of relations are called up. If one is a
scientist, one looks for causes. If one is a lawyer, one looks up the
court decisions. If one is a physician, one looks for symptoms, etc.
One of the most important habits in connection with reasoning is the
habit of caution. Reasoning is waiting, waiting for ideas to come that
will be adequate for the situation. One must form the habit of waiting a
reasonable length of time for associations to run their course. If one
act too soon, before his organized experience has had time to pass in
review, he may act improperly. Therefore one must be trained to a proper
degree of caution. Of course, caution may be overdone. One must act
sometime, one cannot wait always.
Another habit is that of testing out a conclusion before it is finally
put into practice. It is often possible to put a conclusion to some sort
of test before it is put to the real test, just as one makes a model and
tries out an invention on a small scale. One should not have full
confidence in a conclusion that is the result of reasoning, till the
conclusion has been put to the final test of experiment, of trial.
This last statement leads us to the real function of reasoning. Reason
points the way to action in a new situation. After the situation is
repeated for a sufficient number of times, action passes into the realm
of habit.
=Language and Thinking.= The fact that man has spoken and written language
is of the greatest significance. It has already been pointed out that
language is a means through which we can get experience secondhand. This
proves to be a great advantage to man. But language gives us still
another advantage. Without language, thinking is limited to the passing
of sensory images that arise in accordance with the laws of association.
But man can name things and the attributes of things, and these names
become associated, so that thinking comes to be, in part at least, a
matter of words. Thinking is talking to oneself. One cannot talk without
language.
The importance that attaches to language can hardly be overestimated.
When the child acquires the use of language, he has acquired the use of
a tool, the importance of which to thinking is greater than that of any
other tool. Now, one can think without language, in the sense that
memory images come and go,--we have defined thinking as the flow of
imagery, the passing or succession of ideas. But after we have named
things, thinking, particularly reasoning, becomes largely verbal, or as
we said above, _talking to oneself_.
Not only do we give names to concrete things but we give names to
specific attributes and to relations. As we organize and analyze our
experiences, there appear uniformities, principles, laws. To these we
give names, such as white, black, red, weight, length, thickness,
justice, truth, sin, crime, heat, cold, mortal, immortal, evolution,
disintegration, love, hate, envy, jealousy, possible, impossible,
probable, etc. We spoke above of meanings. To meanings we give names, so
that a single word comes to stand for meanings broad and significant,
the result of much experience. Such words as "evolution" and
"gravitation," single words though they are, represent a wide range of
experiences and bring these experiences together and crystallize them
into a single expression, which we use as a unit in our thought.
Language, therefore, makes thought easier and its accomplishment
greater. After we have studied Cæsar for some years, the name comes to
represent the epitome, the bird's-eye view of a great man. A similar
thing is true of our study of other men and movements and things. Single
words come to represent a multitude of experiences. Then these words
become associated and organized in accordance with the principles of
association discussed above, so that it comes about that the older we
are, the more we come to think in words, and the more these words
represent. The older we are, the more abstract our thinking becomes, the
more do our words come to stand for meanings and attributes and laws
that have come out of the organization of our experience.
It is evident that the accuracy of our thinking depends upon these words
standing for the _truth_, depends upon whether we have organized our
experience in accordance with facts. If our word "Cæsar" does not stand
for the real Cæsar, then all our thinking in which Cæsar enters will be
incorrect. If our word "justice" does not stand for the real justice,
then all our thinking in which justice enters will be incorrect.
This discussion points to the tremendous importance of the organization
of experience. Truth is the agreement of our thought with the thing,
with reality. We must therefore help the young to see the world clearly
and to organize what they see in accordance with the facts and with a
view to future use. Then the units of this organized experience are to
be tagged, labeled, by means of words, and these words or labels become
the vehicles of thought, and the outcome of the thinking depends on the
validity of the organization of our experience.
SUMMARY. Thinking is the passing of ideas in the mind; its basis is
in the association of memory ideas. The basis of association is in
original experience, ideas becoming bound together in memory as
originally experienced. The factors of association are primacy,
recency, frequency, intensity, and mental set or attitude. Reasoning
is thinking to a purpose. We can be trained in reasoning by being
taught to get vivid experience in the first place and in organizing
this experience in helpful ways, having in mind future use.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. A series of experiments should be performed to make clear to the
students that the basis of the association of ideas is in _experience_
and not in the nature of the ideas themselves.
(a) Let the students, starting with the same word, write down all the
ideas that come to mind in one minute. The teacher should give the
initial idea, as sky, hate, music, clock, table, or wind. The first ten
ideas coming to each student might be written on the blackboard for
study and comparison. Are any series alike? Is the tenth idea in one
series the same as that in any other?
(b) For a study of the various factors of association, perform the
following experiment: Let the teacher prepare a list of fifty
words--nouns and adjectives, such as wood, murder, goodness, bad, death,
water, love, angel. Read the words to the class and let each student
write down the first idea that comes to mind in each case. After the
list is finished, let each student try to find out what the determining
factor was in each case, whether primacy, frequency, recency, vividness,
or mental set. When the study is completed, the student's paper should
contain three columns, the first column showing the stimulus words, the
second showing the response words, the third showing the determining
factors. The first column should be dictated and copied after the
response words have been written.
(c) Study the data in (a) and (b), noting the variety of ideas
that come to different students for the same stimulus word. It will be
seen that they come from a great variety of experiences and from all
parts of one's life from childhood to the present, showing that all our
experiences are bound together and that we can go from one point to any
other, directly or indirectly.
2. Perform an experiment to determine how each member of the class
thinks, _i.e._ in what kind of imagery. Let each plan a picnic in
detail. How do they do it? Do they see it or hear it or seem to act it?
Or does it happen in words merely?
3. Think of the events of yesterday. How do they come to you? Do your
images seem to be visual, auditory, motor, or verbal? Do you seem to
have all kinds of imagery? Is one kind predominant?
4. Test the class for speed of free association as described on
page 193. Repeat the experiment at least five times and rank the members
of the class from the results.
5. Similarly, test speed for controlled association as described on
page 195 and rank the members of the class.
6. Compare the rankings in Nos. 4 and 5.
7. The teacher can extend the controlled association tests by preparing
lists that show different kinds of logical relations with one another,
from genus to species, from species to genus, from verb to object, from
subject to verb, etc. Do the students maintain the same rank in the
various types of experiments? Do the ranks in these tests correspond to
the students' ranks in thinking in the school subjects?
8. At least two series of experiments in reasoning should be performed,
one to show the nature of reasoning and the other to show the ability of
the members of the class.
(a) Put several problems to the class, similar to the following: What
happens to a wet board laid out in the sunshine? Explain. Suppose corn
is placed in three vessels, 1, 2, and 3. Number 1 is sealed up air tight
and kept warm? Number 2 is kept open and warm? Number 3 is kept open and
warm and moist. What happens in each case? Explain.
Condensed milk does not sour as long as the can remains unopened. After
the can is opened, the milk sours if allowed to become warm; it does not
sour if kept frozen. Why? Two bars of metal are riveted together. One
bar is lead, the other iron. What happens when the bars are heated to
150 C? 500 C? 1000 C? 2000 C? Answer the following questions: Is it ever
right to steal? To kill a person? To lie? Which are unwise and mistaken,
Republicans or Democrats?
In the above, do all come to the same conclusion? Why? Were any unable
to come to a conclusion at all on some questions? Why? Do the
experiments make it clear that reasoning is dependent upon experience?
(b) Let the teacher prepare five problems in reasoning well within the
experience of the class, and find the speed and accuracy of the students
in solving them. Compare the results with those in the controlled
association tests. Test the class with various kinds of mechanical
puzzles.
9. The students should study several people to ascertain how well those
people have their experience organized. Is their experience available?
Can they come to the point immediately, or, are they hazy, uncertain,
and impractical?
10. It is claimed that we have two types of people, theoretical and
practical. This is to some extent true. What is the explanation?
11. From the point of view of No. 10, compare teachers and engineers.
12. If anything will work in theory, will it work in practice?
13. From what you have learned in the chapter and from the experiments,
write a paper on training in reasoning.
14. What are the main defects of the schools with reference to training
children to think?
15. Make a complete outline of the chapter.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
COLVIN and BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapters XVI and XVIII.
DEWEY: _How We Think_, Parts I and III.
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, Chapters VIII and XII;
also pp. 192-195.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapters VI and IX.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapter XV.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapters V, VI, and X.
CHAPTER IX
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
=Physical Differences.= One never sees two people whose bodies are exactly
alike. They differ in height or weight or color of the skin. They differ
in the color of the hair or eyes, in the shape of the head, or in such
details as size and shape of the ear, size and shape of the nose, chin,
mouth, teeth, feet, hands, fingers, toes, nails, etc. The anatomist
tells us that we differ internally just as we do externally. While the
internal structure of one person has the same general plan as that of
another, there being the same number of bones, muscles, organs, etc.,
there are always differences in detail. We are built on the same plan,
_i.e._ we are made after a common type. We vary, above and below this
type or central tendency.
Weight may be taken for illustration. If we should weigh the first
thousand men we meet, we should find light men, heavy men, and men of
medium weight. There would be few light men, few heavy men, but many men
of medium weight. This fact is well shown in diagram by what is known as
a curve of distribution or frequency surface, which is constructed as
follows: Draw a base line A B, and on this line mark off equal distances
to represent the various weights. At the left end put the number
representing the lightest men and at the right the number representing
the heaviest men; the other weights come in between in order. Then
select a scale; we will say a millimeter in height above the base line
represents one person of the weight represented on the base, and in
drawing the upper part of the figure, A C B, we have but to measure up
one millimeter for each person weighed, of the weight indicated below on
the base.
[Illustration: FIGURE V--FREQUENCY SURFACE--WEIGHT
The solid line represents men, the broken line, women.]
A study of this frequency surface shows a tendency for people to be
grouped about the central tendency or average. There are many people of
average weight or nearly so, but few people who deviate widely from the
average weight. If we measure people with reference to any other
physical characteristic, or any mental characteristic, we get a similar
result, we find them grouped about an average or central tendency.
=Mental Differences.= Just as we differ physically, so also we differ
mentally, and in the various aspects of our behavior. The accompanying
diagram (Free Association) shows the distribution of a large number of
men and women with respect to the speed of their flow of ideas. When men
and women are measured with respect to any mental function, a similar
distribution is found.
[Illustration: FIGURE VI--FREQUENCY SURFACE--FREE ASSOCIATION
Solid line, men; broken line, women. The numbers below the base
represent the number of words written in the Free Association test, and
the numbers at the left represent the number of people making the
respective scores.]
An interesting question is whether our mental differences have any
relation or connection with one another. If one mental characteristic is
of high order, are all the others of high order also? Does a good memory
indicate a high order of attention, of association, of imagination, of
learning capacity? Experiments show that mental characteristics have at
least some degree of independence. But the rule is that they generally
go together, a high order of ability in one mental function indicating a
high order of ability in at least some others, and a low order of
ability in one function indicating a low order in other functions.
However, it seems that abilities that are very much specialized, such as
musical ability, artistic ability, etc., may exist in high order while
other mental functions may be only mediocre. It is a common thing for a
musical person to be of rather poor ability otherwise. To the extent
that special abilities require specialized differences in the structure
of brain, nervous system, or sense organ, they can exist in some degree
of independence of other functions. Musical ability to some extent does
require some such differences and may therefore be found either with a
high or a low degree of ability in other characteristics.
It is doubtless true that at maturity the unequal power of mental
functions in the same person may be partly due to the fact that one
function has been exercised and others neglected. A person having very
strong musical tendencies is likely to have such a great interest in
music that he will think other activities are not worth while, and will
consequently neglect these other activities. It will therefore turn out
that at maturity the great differences in mental functions in such a
person are in part due to exercise of one function and neglect of
others. But there can be no doubt that in many cases there are large
original, inherited differences, the individual being poor in one aspect
of mind and good in others. Feeble-minded people are usually poor in all
important aspects of mind. However, one sometimes finds a feeble-minded
person having musical or artistic ability, and often such a person has a
good rote memory, sometimes a good verbal memory. However, the so-called
higher mental functions--logical memory, controlled association, and
constructive imagination--are all poor in a feeble-minded person.
Each mental function may be looked upon as in some measure independent;
each is found existing in people in varying degrees from zero ability up
to what might be called genius ability. The frequency curves in Fig. VI
show this. Take rote memory for example. Idiots are found with
practically zero ability in rote memory. At the other extreme, we find
mathematical prodigies who, after watching a long freight train pass and
noting the numbers of the cars, can repeat correctly the number of each
car. Rote memory abilities can be found representing every step between
these two extremes. This principle of distribution holds true in the
case of all mental functions. We find persons practically without them,
and others possessing them in the highest order, but most people are
grouped about the average ability.
=Detecting Mental Differences.= It has already been said that mind has
many different aspects and that people differ with respect to these
aspects. Now let us ask how we can measure the degree of development of
these aspects or functions of mind. We measure them just as we measured
muscular speed as described in the first chapter. Each mental function
means ability to do something--to learn, to remember, to form images,
to reason, etc. To measure these different capacities or functions we
have but to require that the person under consideration _do_ something,
as learn, remember, etc., and measure how well and how fast he does it,
just as we would measure how far he can jump, how fast he can run, etc.
In such measurements, the question of practice is always involved. If we
measure running ability, we find that some are in practice while others
are not. Those in practice can run at very nearly their ultimate
capacity. Those who are not in practice can be trained to run much
faster than they do. To get a true measure of running capacity, we
should practice the persons to be measured till each runs up to the
limit of his capacity, and then measure each one's speed. The same thing
is true, to some extent, when we come to measure mental functions
proper. However, the life that children live gives exercise to all
fundamental functions of the mind, and unless some of the children
tested have had experience which would tend to develop some mental
functions in a special way, tests of the various aspects of learning
capacity, memory, association, imagination, etc., are a fairly good
measure of original, inherited tendencies.
Of course, it must be admitted that there are measurable differences in
the influence of environment on children, and when these differences are
extreme, no doubt the influence is shown in the development of the
child's mind. A child reared in a home where all the influences favor
its mental development, ought to show a measurable difference in such
development when compared with a child reared in a home where all the
influences are unfavorable. It is difficult to know to what extent this
is true, for the hereditary and environmental influences are usually in
harmony, the child of good hereditary stock having good environmental
influences, and vice versa. When this is not the case, _i.e._ when a
child of good stock is reared under poor environmental influences, or
when a child of poor stock is reared under good influences, the results
seem to show that the differences in environment have little effect on
mental development, as far as the fundamental functions are concerned,
except in the most extreme cases.
Each mental function is capable of some development. It can be brought
up to the limit of its possibilities. But recent experiments indicate
that such development is not very great in the case of the elementary,
fundamental functions. Training, however, has a much greater effect on
complex mental activities that involve several functions. Rote memory is
rather simple; it cannot be much affected by training. The memory for
ideas is more complex; it can be considerably affected by training. The
original and fundamental functions of the mind depend upon the nature of
the nervous system which is bequeathed to us by heredity. This cannot be
much changed. However, training has considerable effect on the
coördinations and combinations of mental functions. Therefore, the more
complex the mental activities which we are testing, the more likely they
are to have been affected by differences in experience and training.
If we should designate the logical memory capacity of one person by 10,
and that of another by 15, by practice we might bring the first up to 15
and the second to 22½, but we could not equalize them. We could never
make the memory of the one equal to that of the other. In an extreme
case, we might find one child whose experience had been such that his
logical memory was working up to the limit of its capacity, while the
other had had little practice in logical memory and was therefore far
below his real capacity. In such a case, a test would not show the
native difference, it would show only the present difference in
functioning capacity.
Fairly adequate tests for the most important mental functions have been
worked out. A series of group tests with directions and norms follow.
The members of the class can use these tests in studying the individual
differences in other people. The teacher will find other tests in the
author's _Examination of School Children_, and in Whipple's _Manual of
Mental and Physical Tests_.
=MENTAL TESTS=
GENERAL DIRECTIONS
The results of the mental tests in the school will be worse than useless
unless the tests are given with the greatest care and scientific
precision. Every test should be most carefully explained to the children
so that they will know _exactly_ what they are to do. The matter must be
so presented to them that they will put forth _all possible_ effort.
They must take the tests seriously. Great care must be taken to see that
there is no cheating. The work of each child should be his own work. In
those tests in which time is an important element, the time must be
_carefully kept_, with a stop watch if one is available. The papers
should be distributed for the tests and turned face downward on the
pupil's desk. The pupil, when all are ready to begin, should take the
paper in his hand and at the signal "begin" turn it over and begin work,
and when the signal "stop" is given, should quit work instantly and turn
the paper over. Before the work begins, the necessary information should
be placed on each paper. This information should be the pupil's name,
age, grade, sex, and school. This should be on every paper. When the
test is over the papers should be immediately collected.
LOGICAL MEMORY
=Object.= The purpose of this test is to determine the pupil's facility in
remembering and reproducing ideas. A pupil's standing in the test may
serve as an indication of his ability to remember the subject matter of
the school studies.
[Illustration: FIGURE VII--LOGICAL MEMORY "WILLIE JONES"]
=Method.= The procedure in this test is for the teacher to read slowly and
distinctly the story to be reproduced. Immediately after the reading the
pupils are to write down all of the story that they can recall. They
must not begin to write till _after_ the reading. Ten minutes should be
allowed for the reproduction. This is ample time, and each pupil should
be told to use the whole time in working on his reproduction. At the end
of ten minutes, collect the papers. Care should be taken to see that
each pupil does his own work, that there is no copying. Before reading
the story, the teacher should give the following instructions:
I shall read to you a story entitled "Willie Jones and His Dog" (or
"A Farmer's Son," or "A Costly Temper," as the case may be). After I
have read the story you are to write down all you can remember of
it. You are not to use the exact words that I read unless you wish.
You are to use your own words. Try to recall as much as possible and
write all you recall. Try to get all the details, not merely the
main facts.
=Material.= For grades three, four, and five, use "Willie Jones and His
Dog"; for grades six, seven, and eight, use "A Farmer's Son"; for the
high school, use "A Costly Temper." The norms for the latter are based
on eighth grade and high school pupils.
* * * * *
WILLIE JONES AND HIS DOG
Willie | Jones | was a little | boy | only | five years old. | He had a
dog | whose name was Buster. | Buster was a large | dog | with long, |
black, | curly | hair. | His fore | feet | and the tip | of his tail |
were white. | One day | Willie's mother | sent him | to the store |
which was only | a short | distance away. | Buster went with him, |
following behind. | As Buster was turning | at the corner, | a car |
struck him | and broke | one | hind | leg | and hurt | one | eye. |
Willie was | very | sorry | and cried | a long | time. | Willie's
father | came | and carried | the poor | dog | home. | The broken leg |
got well | in five | weeks | but the eye | that was hurt | became blind.|
A FARMER'S SON
Will | was a farmer's | son | who attended school | in town. | His
clothes | were poor and his boots | often smelled | of the farmyard |
although he took great | care of them. | Since Will had not gone to
school | as much | as his classmates, | he was often | at a
disadvantage, | although his mind | was as good | as theirs,--| in fact,
he was brighter | than most | of them. | James, | the wit | of the
class, | never lost an opportunity | to ridicule | Will's mistakes, |
his bright | red | hair, | and his patched | clothes. | Will | took the
ridicule | in good part | and never | lost his temper. | One Saturday |
as Will | was driving | his cows | to pasture, | he met James | teasing
| a young | child, | a cripple. | Will's | indignation | was aroused |
by the sight. | He asked | the bully | to stop, | but when he would not,
| Will pounced | upon him | and gave him | a good | beating, | and he
would not | let James go | until he promised | not to tease | the
crippled | child | again. |
A COSTLY TEMPER
A man | named John | Murdock | had a servant | who worried him | much by
his stupidity. | One day | when this servant was more | stupid | than
usual, | the angry | master | of the house | threw a book | at his head.
| The servant | ducked | and the book flew | out of the window. |
"Now go | and pick that book up!" | ordered the master. | The servant |
started | to obey, | but a passerby | had saved him | the trouble, | and
had walked off | with the book. | The scientist | thereupon | began to
wonder | what book | he had thrown away, | and to his horror, |
discovered | that it was a quaint | and rare | little | volume | of
poems, | which he had purchased | in London | for fifty | dollars. |
But his troubles | were not over. | The weeks went by | and the man had
almost | forgotten his loss, | when, strolling | into a secondhand |
bookshop, | he saw, | to his great delight, | a copy of the book | he
had lost. | He asked the price. |
"Well," | said the dealer, | reflectively, | "I guess we can let you
have it | for forty | dollars. | It is a very | rare book, | and I am
sure | that I could get seventy-five | dollars for it | by holding on a
while." |
The man of science | pulled out his purse | and produced the money, |
delighted at the opportunity of replacing | his lost | treasure. | When
he reached home, | a card | dropped out | of the leaves. | The card was
his own, | and further | examination | showed that he had bought back |
his own property. |
"Forty dollars' | worth of temper," | exclaimed the man. | "I think I
shall mend my ways." | His disposition | afterward | became so | good |
that | the servant became worried, | thinking the man | must be ill. |
* * * * *
[Illustration: FIGURE VIII--LOGICAL MEMORY--"A FARMER'S SON"]
=The Results.= The material for the test is divided into units as
indicated by the vertical lines. The pupil's written reproduction should
be compared unit by unit with the story as printed, and given one credit
for each unit adequately reproduced. The norms for the three tests are
shown in the accompanying Figures VII, VIII, and IX. In these and all
the graphs which follow, the actual ages are shown in the first
horizontal column. The norms for girls appear in the second horizontal
column, the norms for boys in the column at the bottom. By the _norm_
for an age is meant the average performance of all the pupils of that
age examined. Age ten applies to those pupils who have passed their
tenth birthday and have not reached their eleventh birthday, and the
other ages are to be similarly interpreted. The vertical lines in the
graphs indicate birthdays and the scores written on these lines indicate
ability at these exact ages. The column marked ten, for example,
includes all the children that are over ten and not yet eleven. The
graphs show the development from age to age. In general, it will be
noticed, there is an improvement of memory with age, but in the high
school, in the "Costly Temper" test, there is a decline. This may not
indicate a real decline in ability to remember ideas, but a change in
attitude. The high school pupil probably acquires a habit of
remembering only significant facts. His memory is selective, while in
the earlier ages, the memory may be more parrot-like, one idea being
reproduced with about as much fidelity as another. This statement is
made not as a _fact_, but as a _probable_ explanation.
ROTE MEMORY
[Illustration: FIGURE IX--LOGICAL MEMORY--"A COSTLY TEMPER"]
=Object.= The object of the rote memory tests is to determine the pupil's
memory span for unrelated impressions--words that have no logical
relations with one another. Much school work makes demands upon this
ability. Therefore, the tests are of importance.
=Method.= There are two lists of words, _concrete_ and _abstract_, with
six groups in each list. The list of concrete words should be given
first, then the abstract. The procedure is to pronounce the first group,
_cat_, _tree_, _coat_, and then pause for the pupils to write these
three words. Then pronounce the next group, _mule_, _bird_, _cart_,
_glass_, and pause for the reproduction, and so on through the list.
[Illustration: FIGURE X--CONCRETE ROTE MEMORY]
Give the following instructions:
We wish to see how well you can remember words. I shall pronounce
first a group of three words. _After_ I have pronounced them, you
are to write them down. I shall then pronounce a group of four
words, then one of five words, and so continue with a longer group
each time. You must pay very close attention for I shall pronounce
a group but once. You are not required to write the words in their
order, but just as you recall them.
=Material.= The words for the test are given in the following lists:
_Concrete_ _Abstract_
1. cat, tree, coat 1. good, black, fast
2. mule, bird, cart, glass 2. clean, tall, round, hot
3. star, horse, dress, fence, man 3. long, wet, fierce, white, cold
4. fish, sun, head, door, shoe, 4. deep, soft, quick, dark, great,
block dead
5. train, mill, box, desk, oil, 5. sad, strong, hard, bright,
pup, bill fine, glad, plain
6. floor, car, pipe, bridge, hand, 6. sharp, late, sour, wide, rough,
dirt, cow, crank thick, red, tight
[Illustration: FIGURE XI--ABSTRACT ROTE MEMORY]
=Results.= The papers are graded by determining the number of concrete
words and the number of abstract words that are reproduced. No account
is taken of whether the words are in the right position or not. A
perfect score in each test would therefore be thirty-three. The norms
are shown in Figures X and XI.
THE SUBSTITUTION TEST
=Object.= This test determines one's ability to build up new associations.
It is a test of quickness of learning.
=Method.= The substitution test-sheets are distributed to the pupils and
turned face down on the desks. The teacher gives the following
instructions:
We wish to see how fast you can learn. At the top of the sheet which
has been distributed to you there is a key. In nine circles are
written the nine digits and for each digit there is written a letter
which is to be used instead of the digit. Below the key are two
columns of numbers; each number contains five digits. In the five
squares which follow the number you are to write the letters which
correspond to the digits. Work as fast as you can and fill as many
of the squares as you can without making mistakes. When I say
"stop," quit work instantly and turn the paper over.
Before beginning the test the teacher should explain on the blackboard
the exact nature of the test. This can be done by using other letters
instead of those used in the key. Make sure that the pupils understand
what they are to do. Allow _eight_ minutes in grades three, four, and
five, and _five_ minutes above the fifth grade.
=Material.= For material, use the substitution test-sheets. This and the
other test material can be obtained from the University of Missouri,
Extension Division.
=Results.= In grading the work, count each square correctly filled in as
one point, and reduce the score to speed per minute by dividing by eight
in grades three, four, and five, and by five in the grades above.
The norms are shown in Figure XII.
[Illustration: FIGURE XII--SUBSTITUTION TEST]
FREE ASSOCIATION
=Object.= This test determines the speed of the free flow of ideas. The
result of the test is a criterion of the quickness of the flow of ideas
when no restriction or limitation is put on this flow.
=Method.= The procedure in this test is to give the pupils a word, and
tell them to write this word down and all the other words that come into
their minds. Make it clear to them that they are to write whatever word
comes to mind, whether it has any relation to the word that is given
them or not. Start them with the word "cloud." Give the following
instructions:
I wish to see how many words you can think of and write down in
three minutes. I shall name a word, you may write it down and then
all the other words that come into your minds. Do not write
sentences, merely the words that come into your minds. Work as fast
as you can.
[Illustration: FIGURE XIII--FREE ASSOCIATION TEST]
=Results.= Score the work by counting the number of words that have been
written. The norms are shown in Figure XIII.
OPPOSITES
=Object.= This is a test of controlled association. It tests one aspect of
the association of ideas. All thinking is a matter of association of
ideas. Reasoning is controlled association. The test may therefore be
taken as a measure of speed in reasoning.
[Illustration: FIGURE XIV--OPPOSITES TEST--LISTS I AND II]
=Method.= Distribute the lists of opposites to the pupils and turn them
face down on the desks. Use List One in grades three, four, and five,
and List Two in grades above. Allow two minutes in grades three, four,
and five and one minute in grades above. Give the following
instructions:
On the sheets that have been distributed to you are fifty words.
After each word you are to write a word that has the opposite
meaning. For example, if one word were "far," you could write
"near." Work as fast as you can, and when I say "stop" quit work
instantly and turn your paper over.
=Results.= The score is the number of opposites correctly written. The
norms are shown in Figure XIV.
OPPOSITES--LIST NO. 1
1. good 18. up 35. before
2. big 19. thick 36. winter
3. rich 20. quick 37. ripe
4. out 21. pretty 38. night
5. sick 22. heavy 39. open
6. hot 23. late 40. first
7. long 24. wrong 41. over
8. wet 25. smooth 42. love
9. yes 26. strong 43. come
10. high 27. dark 44. east
11. hard 28. dead 45. top
12. sweet 29. wide 46. wise
13. clean 30. empty 47. front
14. sharp 31. above 48. girl
15. fast 32. north 49. sad
16. black 33. laugh 50. fat
17. old 34. man
OPPOSITES--LIST NO. 2
1. strong 18. strange 35. fine
2. deep 19. wrong 36. plain
3. lazy 20. quickly 37. sharp
4. seldom 21. black 38. late
5. thin 22. good 39. sour
6. soft 23. fast 40. wide
7. many 24. clean 41. drunk
8. valuable 25. tall 42. tight
9. gloomy 26. hot 43. empty
10. rude 27. long 44. sick
11. dark 28. wet 45. friend
12. rough 29. fierce 46. above
13. pretty 30. great 47. loud
14. high 31. dead 48. war
15. foolish 32. cloudy 49. in
16. present 33. hard 50. yes
17. glad 34. bright
THE WORD-BUILDING TEST
=Object.= This is a test of a certain type of inventiveness, namely
linguistic invention. Specifically, it tests the pupil's ability to
construct words using certain prescribed letters.
[Illustration: FIGURE XV--WORD-BUILDING TEST]
=Method.= The pupils are given the letters, _a_, _e_, _o_, _m_, _n_, _r_,
and told to make as many words as possible using only these letters.
Give the following instructions:
I wish to see how many words you can make in five minutes, using
only the letters which I give you. The words must be real English
words. You must use only the letters which I give you and must not
use the same letter more than once in the same word. You do not, of
course, have to use all the letters in the same word. A word may
contain one or more letters up to six.
=Material.= The pupils need only sheets of blank paper.
=Results.= The score is the number of words that do not violate the rules
of the test as given in the instructions. The norms are shown in Figure XV.
THE COMPLETION TEST
=Object.= This is, to some extent, a test of reasoning capacity. Of
course, it is only one particular aspect of reasoning. The pupil is
given a story that has certain words omitted. He must read the story,
see what it is trying to say, and determine what words, put into the
blanks, will make the correct sense. The meaning of the word written in
a particular blank must not only make the sentence read sensibly but
must fit into the story _as a whole_. Filling in the blanks in this way
demands considerable thought.
=Method.= Distribute the test-sheets and turn them face down on the desks.
Allow ten minutes in all the tests. Give the following instructions:
On the sheets which have been distributed is printed a story which
has certain words omitted. You are to put in the blanks the words
that are omitted. The words which you write in must give the proper
meaning so that the story reads correctly. Each word filled in must
not only give the proper meaning to the sentence but to the story as
a whole.
=Material.= Use the completion test-sheets, "Joe and the Fourth of July,"
for grades three, four, and five; "The Trout" for grades, six, seven,
and eight; and "Dr. Goldsmith's Medicine" for the high school.
=Results.= In scoring the papers, allow one credit for each blank
correctly filled. The norms are shown in Figures XVI, XVII, and XVIII.
It will be noticed that the boys excel in the "Trout" story. This is
doubtless because the story is better suited to them on the ground of
their experience and interest.
[Illustration: FIGURE XVI--COMPLETION TEST--"JOE AND THE FOURTH OF
JULY"]
* * * * *
JOE AND THE FOURTH OF JULY
Joe {ran}[6] errands for {his} mother and {took} care of the {baby}
until by the Fourth of July his penny {grew} to be a dime. The day
before the Fourth, he {went} down town all by {himself} to get his fire
{works}. There were so {many} kinds he hardly knew which to {buy}. The
clerk knew that it takes a {long} time to decide, for he had been a
{boy} himself not very {long} ago. So he helped Joe to {select} the very
best kinds. "When are you going to {fire} them off?" asked the clerk. "I
will fire {them} very {early} to-morrow," said the boy. So that night
Joe set the {alarm} clock, and the next {morning} got up {early} to fire
his firecrackers.
[6] The italicized words and letters are left blank in the test sheets.
THE TROUT
The trout is a fine fish. Once a big trout {lived} in a pool {close} by
a spring. He used to {stay} under the bank with {only} his head showing.
His wide-open {eyes} shone like jewels. I tried to {catch} him. I would
{creep} up to the {edge} of the pool {where} I could see his {bright}
eyes looking up.
I {caught} a grasshopper and {threw} it over {to} him. Then there was a
{splash} in the water and the grasshopper {was gone}. I {did} this {two}
or three times. Each time I {saw} the rush and splash and saw the bait
had been {taken}.
So I put the sa{me} bait on my {hook} and {threw} it over into the
{water}. But {all} was silent. The fish was an {old} one and had {grown}
very wise. I did this {day} after day with the same luck. The trout
{knew} there was a {hook} hidden in the bait.
[Illustration: FIGURE XVII--COMPLETION TEST--"THE TROUT"]
DOCTOR GOLDSMITH'S MEDICINE
This {is} a story of good medicine. Most medicine is {bad} to {take},
but this was so good {that} the sick man {wished} for more.
{One} day a poor woman {went} to Doctor Goldsmith and {asked} him to
{go} to see her {sick} husband. "He {is} very sick," she said, "and I
{can} not {get} him to eat anything."
{So} Doctor Goldsmith {went} to {see} him. The doctor {saw} at once that
the {reason} why the man {could} not eat was {because} he was {so} poor
that he had {not} been {able} to buy good food.
Then he {said} to the woman, "{Come} to my house this evening and I will
{give you} some {medicine} for your {husband}."
The woman {went} in the evening and the {doctor} gave {her} a small
paper box tied {up} tight. "{It} is very heavy," {she} said. "May I
{see} what it looks {like}?" "{No}," said the doctor, "{wait} until you
get {home}." When she {got} home, and she and {her} husband {opened} the
box so that he {could} take the first {dose} of medicine,--what do you
think they {saw}? The box was {filled} with silver {money}. {This} was
the {good} doctor's medicine.
* * * * *
=Importance of Mental Differences.= (1) _In school work._ One of the
important results that come from a knowledge of the mental differences
in children is that we are able to classify them better. When a child
enters school he should be allowed to proceed through the course as fast
as his development warrants. Some children can do an eight-year course
in six years; others require ten years; still others can never do it.
The great majority, of course, can do it in eight years.
[Illustration: FIGURE XVIII--COMPLETION TEST--"DR. GOLDSMITH'S
MEDICINE"]
Norms for adults, as obtained from university students, are:
TEST MEN WOMEN
Substitution Test 29.1 32.2
Rote Memory, Concrete 28.5 28.6
Rote Memory, Abstract 28.4 27.9
Free Association 51.5 49.3
Completion, _Dr. Goldsmith's Medicine_ 48.1 49.0
Word Building 20.5 20.1
Logical Memory, _Costly Temper_ 64.0 69.6
[Illustration: FIGURE XIX--FREQUENCY SURFACES--COMPARING FOURTH GRADE
WITH HIGH SCHOOL
The numbers along the base represent mental age; those at the left, the
number of pupils of the respective ages.]
It may be thought that a child's success in school branches is a
sufficient measure of his ability and that no special mental
measurements are needed. This is a mistake. Many factors contribute to
success in school work. Ability is only one of these factors, and should
be specially and independently determined by suitable tests. Children
may fail in school branches because of being poorly started or started
at the wrong time, because of poor teaching, sickness, moving from one
school to another, etc. On the other hand, children of poor ability may
succeed at school because of much help at home. Therefore special mental
tests will help in determining to what extent original mental ability
is a factor in the success or failure of the different pupils.
As far as possible, the children of the same grade should have about the
same ability; but such is seldom the case. In a recent psychological
study of a school system, the author found wide differences in ability
in the same grade. The distribution of abilities found in the fourth
grade and in the high school are shown in Figure XIX. It will be seen
that in the fourth grade pupils are found with ability equal to that of
some in the high school. Of course to some extent such a condition is
unavoidable, for a pupil must establish certain habits and acquire
certain knowledge before passing from one grade to another. However,
much of the wide variation in ability now found in the same grade of a
school could be avoided if the teacher had accurate knowledge of the
pupils' abilities. When a teacher learns that a child who is doing
poorly in school really has ability, she is often able to get from that
pupil the work of which he is capable. It has been demonstrated by
experience that accurate measures of children's abilities are a great
help in gradation and classification.
A knowledge of mental differences is also an aid in the actual teaching
of the children. The instance mentioned at the close of the last
paragraph is an example. A knowledge of the differences among the mental
functions of the same pupil is especially helpful. It has been pointed
out that the different mental functions in the same pupil are sometimes
unequally developed. Sometimes considerable differences exist in the
same pupil with respect to learning capacity, the different aspects of
memory, association, imagination, and attention. When a teacher knows of
these differences, she can better direct the work of the pupils.
For example, if a pupil have a very poor memory, the teacher can help
him by aiding him to secure the advantage that comes from close and
concentrated attention, frequent repetitions, logical organization, etc.
On the other hand, she can help the brilliant student by preventing him
from being satisfied with hastily secured, superficial knowledge, and by
encouraging him to make proper use of his unusual powers in going deeper
and more extensively into the school subjects than is possible for the
ordinary student. In many ways a teacher can be helpful to her pupils if
she has an accurate knowledge of their mental abilities.
(2) _In life occupations._ Extreme variations in ability should
certainly be considered in choosing one's life work. Only persons of the
highest ability should go into science, law, medicine, or teaching. Many
occupations demand special kinds of ability, special types of reaction,
of attention, imagination, etc. For example, the operation of a
telephone exchange demands a person of quick and steady reaction. The
work of a motorman on a street car demands a person having the broad
type of attention, the type of attention that enables one to keep in
mind many details at the same time. Scientific work demands the type of
concentrated attention. As far as it is possible, occupations demanding
special types of ability should be filled by people possessing these
abilities. It is best for all concerned if each person is doing what he
can do best. It is true that many occupations do not call for special
types of ability. And therefore, as far as ability is concerned, a
person could do as well in one of these occupations as in another. The
time will sometime come when we shall know the special abilities
demanded by the different occupations and professions, and by suitable
tests shall be able to determine what people possess the required
qualifications.
The schools should always be on the lookout for unusual ability.
Children that are far superior to others of the same age should be
allowed to advance as fast as their superior ability makes possible, and
should be held up to a high order of work. Such superior people should
be, as far as possible, in the same classes, so that they can the more
easily be given the kind and amount of work that they need. The schools
should find the children of unusual special ability, such as ability in
drawing, painting, singing, playing musical instruments, mechanical
invention, etc. Some provision should be made for the proper development
and training of these unusual abilities. Society cannot afford to lose
any spark of genius wherever found. Moreover, the individual will be
happier if developed and trained along the line of his special ability.
=Subnormal Children.= A small percentage of children are of such low
mentality that they cannot do the ordinary school work. As soon as such
children can be picked out with certainty, they should be taken out of
the regular classes and put into special classes. It is a mistake to try
to get them to do the regular school work. They cannot do it, and they
only waste the teacher's time and usually give her much trouble.
Besides, they waste their own time; for while they cannot do the
ordinary school work, they can do other things, perhaps work of a manual
nature. The education of such people should, therefore, be in the
direction of simple manual occupations.
For detecting such children, in addition to the tests given above,
elaborate tests for individual examination have been devised. The most
widely used is a series known as the Binet-Simon tests. A special group
of tests is provided for the children of each age. If a child can pass
the tests for his age, he is considered normal. If he can pass only the
tests three years or more below his age, he is usually considered
subnormal. But a child's fate should not depend solely upon any number
or any kind of tests. We should always give the child a trial and see
what he is able to achieve. This trial should cover as many months or
years as are necessary to determine beyond doubt the child's mental
status.
SUMMARY. Just as we differ in the various aspects of body, so also
we differ in the various aspects of mind. These differences can be
measured by tests. A knowledge of these differences should aid us in
grading, classifying, and teaching children, as well as in the
selection of occupation and professions for them. Mental traits have
some degree of independence; as a result a high degree of one trait
may be found with low degree of some others.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Many of the tests and experiments already described should have shown
many of the individual differences of the members of the class. The
teacher will find in the author's _Examination of School Children_ a
series of group tests with norms which can be used for a further study
of individual differences.
2. The tapping experiment described in the first chapter can now be
repeated and the results taken as a measure of reaction time.
3. You should now have available the records of all the tests and
experiments so far given that show individual differences. Make out a
table showing the rank of each student in the various tests. Compute the
average rank of each student for all the tests. This average rank may be
taken as a measure of the intelligence of the students, as far as such
can be determined by the tests used. Correlate this ranking with
standing in the high school classes. It will give a positive
correlation, not perfect, however. Why not? If your measures of
intelligence were absolutely correct, you still would not get a perfect
correlation with high school standing. Why not?
4. If you had a correct measure of intelligence of 100 mature people in
your city, selected at random, would this measure give you an exact
measure of their success in life? Give the reason for your answer.
5. Of all the tests and experiments previously described in this book,
which gives the best indication of success in high school?
6. If the class in psychology is a large one, a graph should be prepared
showing the distribution of abilities in the class. For this purpose,
you will have to use the absolute measures instead of ranks. Find the
average for each test used. Make these averages all the same by
multiplying the low ones and dividing the high ones. Then all the grades
of each student can be added. This will give each test the same weight
in the average. The use of a slide rule will make this transference to a
new average very easy. A more accurate method for this computation is
described in the author's _Examination of School Children_, p. 65.
The students should make a study of individual differences and the
distribution of ability in some grade below the high school. The tests
described in this chapter can be used for that purpose.
7. Is it a good thing for high school students to find out how they
compare with others in their various mental functions? If you have poor
ability, is it a good thing for you to find it out? If the teacher and
students think best, the results of all the various tests need not be
made known except to the persons concerned. The data can be used in the
various computations without the students' knowing whose measures they
are.
8. To what extent is ability a factor in life? You find people of only
ordinary ability succeeding and brilliant people failing. Why is this?
9. None of the tests so far used measures ideals or perseverance and
persistence. These are important factors in life, and there is no very
adequate measure for any of them. The students might plan some
experiments to test physical and mental persistence and endurance. The
tapping experiment, for example, might be continued for an hour and the
records kept for each minute. Then from these records a graph could be
plotted showing the course of efficiency for the hour. Mental adding or
multiplying might be kept up continuously for several hours and the
results studied as above.
10. We have said that ideals and persistence are important factors in
life. Are they inherited or acquired?
11. Do you find it to be the rule or the exception for a person standing
high in one mental function to stand high in the others also?
12. Make a complete outline of the chapter.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_. Chapter XVI.
PYLE: _The Examination of School Children_.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_. Chapter XVII.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, pp. 309-311.
CHAPTER X
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
=The General Field.= Psychology has now reached that stage in its
development where it can be of use to humanity. It can be of use in
those fields which demand a knowledge of human nature. As indicated in
the first chapter, these fields are education, medicine, law, business,
and industry. We may add another which has been called "culture." We
cannot say that psychology is able yet to be of very great service
except to education, law, and medicine. It has been of less service to
the field of business and industry, but in the future, its contribution
here will be as great as in the other fields. While the service of
psychology in the various fields is not yet great, what it will
eventually be able to do is very clear. It is the purpose of this
chapter to indicate briefly, the nature and possibilities of this
psychological service.
=Education.= Throughout the preceding chapters, we have emphasized the
educational importance of the facts discussed. There is little left to
say here except to summarize the main facts. Since education is a matter
of making a child over into what he ought to be, the science of
education demands a knowledge of the original nature of children. This
means that one must know the nature of instincts, their relations to one
another, their order of development, and the possibilities of their
being changed, modified, developed, suppressed. It means that one must
know the nature of the child's mind in all its various functions, the
development and significance of these functions,--memory, association,
imagination, and attention. The science especially demands that we
understand the principles of habit-formation, the laws of economical
learning, and the laws of memory.
This psychological knowledge must form the ground-work in the education
of teachers for their profession. In addition to this general
preparation of the teacher, psychology will render the schools a great
service through the psycho-clinicist, who will be a psychological expert
working under the superintendents of our school systems. His duty will
be to supervise the work of mental testing, the work of diagnosis for
feeble-mindedness and selection of the subnormal children, the teaching
of such children. He will give advice in all cases which demand expert
psychological knowledge.
=Medicine.= In the first place, there is a department of medicine which
deals with nervous diseases, such as insanity, double personality,
severe nervous shock, hallucination, etc. This entire aspect of medicine
is wholly psychological. But psychology can be of service to the general
practitioner both in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. A thorough
psychological knowledge of human nature will assist a physician in
diagnosis. Often the best way to find out what ails a patient's body is
through the patient's mind, and the doctor must know how to get the
truth from the patient's mind even in those cases in which the patient
is actually trying to conceal the truth. A profound practical knowledge
of human nature is necessary,--a knowledge which can be obtained only
by long and careful technical study as well as practice and experience.
Psychology can be of service in the treatment of disease. The physician
must understand the peculiar mental characteristics of his patient in
order to know how to deal with him. In some cases, hypnotism is a
valuable aid in treatment, and in many cases, ordinary normal suggestion
can be of considerable service. The state of mind of a sick person has
much to do with his recovery. The physician must know this and must know
how to induce the desired state of mind. Indeed, a patient's trouble is
often imaginary, exists in the mind only; in such cases, the treatment
should be wholly mental, _i.e._ through suggestion. Of course, the best
physicians know these facts and make use of them in their practice, but
preparation for this aspect of their work should be a regular part of
their medical education. They should not be left to learn these facts
from their practice as best they may, any more than they should be
expected to learn their physiology and anatomy in this way.
=Law.= The service of psychology to law can be very great, but owing to
the necessary conservatism of the courts, it will be a long time before
they will make much use of psychological knowledge. Perhaps the greatest
service will be in determining the credibility of evidence. Psychology
can now give the general principles in this matter. Witnesses go on the
stand and swear to all sorts of things as to what they heard and saw and
did, often months and even years previously. The expert clinical
psychologist can tell the court the probability of such evidence being
true. Experiments have shown that there is a large percentage of error
in such evidence. The additional value that comes from the oath has been
measured. The oath increases the liability of truth only a small
percentage.
Experiments have also shown that one's feeling of certainty is no
guarantee of truth. Sometimes the point we feel surest about is the one
farthest from the truth. In fact, feeling sure of a thing is no
guarantee of truth.
In a particular case in court, the psychologist can determine the
reliability of the evidence of a particular witness and enable the judge
and the jury to put the proper value on such witness's testimony. For
example, a witness may swear to a certain point involving the estimation
of time and distance. The psychologist can measure the witness's
accuracy in such estimates, often showing that what the witness claims
to be able to do is an impossibility. A case may hinge on whether an
interval of time was ten minutes or twelve minutes, or whether a
distance was three hundred or four hundred feet. A witness may swear
positively to one or both of these points. The psychologist can show the
court the limitations of the witness in making such estimates.
Psychology can be of service in the examination of the criminal himself.
Through association tests and in other ways, the guilt or innocence of
the prisoner can often be determined, and his intellectual status can
also be determined. The prisoner may be insane, or feeble-minded, or
have some other peculiar mental disorder. Such matters fall within the
realm of psychology. After a prisoner has been found guilty, the court
should have the advice of the clinical psychologist in deciding what
should be done with him.
It should be added that the court and not the attorneys should make use
of the psychologist. Whenever a psychologist can be of service in a case
in court, the judge should summon such assistance, just as he should if
expert chemical, physical, physiological, or anatomical knowledge should
be desired.
A knowledge of human nature can be of much service to society in the
prevention of crime. This will come about from a better knowledge of the
psychological principles of habit-formation and moral training, through
a better knowledge of how to control human nature. A large percentage of
all crime, perhaps as much as forty per cent, is committed by
feeble-minded people. Now, if we can detect these people early, and give
them the simple manual education which they are capable of receiving, we
can keep them out of a life of crime.
Studies of criminals in reform schools show that the history of many
cases is as follows: The person, being of low mentality, could not get
on well at school and therefore came to dislike school, and consequently
became a truant. Truancy led to crime. Crime sent the person to the
court, and the court sent the person to the state reformatory.
The great duty of the state is the prevention of crime. Usually little
can be done in the way of saving a mature criminal. We must save the
children before they become criminals, save them by proper treatment.
Society owes it to every child to do the right thing for him, the right
thing, whether the child is an idiot or a genius. Merely from the
standpoint of economy, it would be an immense saving to the state if it
would prevent crime by the proper treatment of every child.
=Business.= The contribution of psychology in this field, so far, is in
the psychology of advertising and salesmanship, both having to do
chiefly with the selling of goods. Students of the psychology of
advertising have, by experiment, determined many principles that govern
people when reading newspapers and magazines, principles having to do
with size and kind of type, arrangement and form, the wording of an
advertisement, etc. The object of an advertisement is to get the reader
interested in the article advertised. The first thing is to get him to
_read_ the advertisement. Here, various principles of attention are
involved. The next thing is to have the _matter_ of the advertisement of
such a nature that it creates interest and remains in memory, so that
when the reader buys an article of that type he buys the particular kind
mentioned in the advertisement.
In salesmanship, many subtle psychological principles are involved. The
problem of the salesman is to get the attention of the customer, and
then to make him _want_ to buy his goods. To do this with the greatest
success demands a profound knowledge of human nature. Other things being
equal, that man can most influence people who has the widest knowledge
of the nature of people, and of the factors that affect this nature. The
successful salesman must understand human feelings and emotions,
especially sympathy; also the laws of attention and memory, and the
power of suggestion. A mastery of the important principles requires
years of study, and a successful application of them requires just as
many years of practice.
The last paragraph leads us to a consideration of the general problem of
influencing men. In all occupations and professions, one needs to know
how to influence other men. We have already discussed the matter of
influencing people to buy goods. People who employ labor need to know
how to get laborers to do more and better work, how to make them loyal
and happy. The minister needs to know how to induce the members of his
congregation to do right. The statesman needs to know how to win his
hearers and convince them of the justice and wisdom of his cause.
Whatever our calling, there is scarcely a day when we could not do
better if we knew more fully how to influence people.
=Industry.= The service of psychology here is four-fold: (1) Finding what
men are fitted for. (2) Finding what kinds of abilities are demanded by
the various trades and occupations. (3) Helping the worker to understand
the psychological aspects of his work. (4) Getting the best work out of
the laborer.
_Finding what men are fitted for._ In the preceding chapter, we
discussed the individual variations of men. Some people are better
fitted physically and mentally for certain types of work than they are
for other types of work. The determination of what an individual is
fitted for and what he is not fitted for is the business of psychology.
In some cases, the verdict of psychology can be very specific; in
others, it can be only general. Much misery and unhappiness come to
people from trying to do what they are not fitted by nature to do. There
are many professions and occupations which people should not enter
unless they possess high general ability. Now, psychology is able to
measure general ability. There are many other occupations and
professions which people should not enter unless they possess some
special ability. Music, art, and mechanics may be mentioned as examples
of occupations and professions demanding specific kinds of ability. In
industrial work, many aspects demand very special abilities, as quick
reaction, quick perception, fine discrimination, calmness and
self-control, ingenuity, quick adaptation to new situations. Psychology
can aid in picking out the people who possess the required abilities.
_The different abilities demanded._ It is the business of psychology to
make a careful analysis of the specific abilities required in all the
various works of life. There are hundreds of occupations and often much
differentiation of work within an occupation. It is for the psychologist
of the future to make this analysis and to classify the occupations with
reference to the kinds of abilities demanded. Of course, many of them
will be found to require the same kind of ability, but just as surely,
many will be found to require very special abilities. It is a great
social waste to have people trying to fill such positions unless they
possess the specific abilities required.
It should be the work of the high school and college to explain the
possibilities, and the demands in the way of ability, of the various
occupations of the locality. By possibilities and demands are meant the
kinds of abilities required and the rewards that can be expected, the
kind of life which the different fields offer. It is the further duty of
the high school and college to find out, as far as possible, the
specific abilities of the students. With this knowledge before them, the
students should choose their careers, and then make specific preparation
for them. The schools ought to work in close coöperation with the
industries, the student working for a part of the day in school and a
part in the industries. This would help much in leading the student to
understand the industries and in ascertaining his own abilities and
interests.
_The psychological aspects of one's work._ All occupations have a
psychological aspect. They involve some trick of attention, of
association, of memory. Certain things must be looked for, certain
habits must be formed, certain movements must be automatized. Workmen
should be helped to master these psychological problems, to find the
most convenient ways of doing their work. Workmen often do their work in
the most uneconomical ways, having learned their methods through
imitation, and never inquiring whether there is a more economical way.
_Securing efficiency._ Securing efficiency is a matter of influencing
men, a matter which we have already discussed. Securing efficiency is
quite a different matter from that treated in the preceding paragraph. A
workman may have a complete knowledge of his work and be skilled in its
performance, and still be a poor workman, because he does not have the
right attitude toward his employer or toward his work. The employer must
therefore meet the problem of making his men like their work and be
loyal to their employer. The laborer must be happy and contented if he
is to do good work. Moreover, there is _no use in working_, or in living
either, if one cannot be happy and contented.
We have briefly indicated the possibilities of psychology in the various
occupations and professions. There is a further application that has no
reference to the practical needs of life, but to enjoyment. A
psychological knowledge of human nature adds a new interest to all our
social experience. The ability to understand the actions and feelings
of men puts new meaning into the world. The ability to understand
oneself, to analyze one's actions, motives, feelings, and thoughts,
makes life more worth living. A knowledge of the sensations and sense
organs adds much pleasure to life in addition to its having great
practical value. Briefly, a psychological knowledge of human nature adds
much to the richness of life. It gives one the analytical attitude.
Experiences that to others are wholes, to the psychologist fall apart
into their elements. Such knowledge leads us to analyze and see clearly
what otherwise we do not understand and see only darkly or not at all.
Literature and art, and all other creations and products of man take on
a wholly new interest to the psychologist.
SUMMARY. Psychology is of service to education in ascertaining the
nature of the child and the laws of learning; to law, in determining
the reliability of evidence and in the prevention of crime; to
medicine, in the work of diagnosis and treatment; to business, in
advertising and salesmanship; to the industries, in finding the man
for the place and the place for the man; to everybody, in giving a
keener insight into, and understanding of, human nature.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Visit a court room when a trial is in progress. Note wherein
psychology could be of service to the jury, to the judge, and to the
attorneys.
2. To test the reliability of evidence, proceed as follows: Take a large
picture, preferably one in color and having many details; hold it before
the class in a good light where all can see it. Let them look at it for
ten or fifteen seconds, the time depending on the complexity of the
picture. The students should then write down what they saw in the
picture, underscoring all the points to which they would be willing to
make oath. Then the students should answer a list of questions prepared
by the teacher, on various points in the picture. Some of these
questions should be suggestive, such as, "What color is the dog?"
supposing no dog to be in the picture. The papers giving the first
written description should be graded on the number of items reported and
on their accuracy. The answers to the questions should be graded on
their accuracy. How do girls compare with boys in the various aspects of
the report? What is the accuracy of the underlined points?
3. Let the teacher, with the help of two or three students, perform
before the class some act or series of acts, with some conversation, and
then have the students who have witnessed the performance write an
account of it, as in No. 2.
4. Divide the class into two groups. Select one person from each to look
at a picture as in No. 1. These two people are then to write a complete
account of the picture. This account is then read to another person in
the same group, who then writes from memory his account and reads to
another. This is to be continued till all have heard an account and
written their own. You will then have two series of accounts of the same
picture proceeding from two sources. It will be well for the two who
look at the picture to be of very different types, let us say, one
imaginative, the other matter-of-fact.
Do all the papers of one series have some characteristics that enable
you to determine from which group they come? What conclusions and
inferences do you draw from the experiment?
5. Does the feeling of certainty make a thing true? See how many cases
you can find in a week, of persons feeling sure a statement is true,
when it is really false.
6. In the following way, try to find out something which a person is
trying to conceal. Prepare a list of words, inserting now and then words
which have some reference to the vital point. Read the words one by one
to the person and have him speak the first word suggested by those read.
Note the time taken for the responses. A longer reaction time usually
follows the incriminating words, and the subject is thrown into a
visible confusion.
7. Talk to successful physicians and find out what use they make of
suggestion and other psychological principles.
8. Spend several hours visiting different grades below the high school.
In how many ways could the teachers improve their work by following
psychological principles?
9. Could the qualities of a good teacher--native and acquired--be
measured by tests and experiments?
10. Visit factories where men do skillful work and try to learn by
observation what types of mind and body are required by the different
kinds of work.
11. Does the occupation which you have chosen for life demand any
specific abilities? If so, do you possess them in a high degree?
12. Could parents better train their children if they made use of
psychological principles?
13. In how many ways will the facts learned in this course be of
economic use to you in your life? In what ways will they make life more
pleasurable?
14. Make a complete outline of this chapter.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, Chapter XXVII-XXXIII.
MÜNSTERBERG: _The Psychology of Industrial Efficiency_.
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
COLVIN, S. S., and BAGLEY, W. C.: _Human Behavior_. The Macmillan
Company, 1913.
DAVENPORT, C. B.: _Heredity in Relation to Eugenics_. Henry Holt &
Company, 1911.
DEWEY, J.: _How We Think_. D. C. Heath & Company, 1910.
KELLICOTT, W. E.: _The Social Direction of Human Evolution_. D. Appleton
& Company, 1911.
KIRKPATRICK, E. A.: _The Fundamentals of Child Study_. The Macmillan
Company, 1912.
MÜNSTERBERG, H.: _Psychology, General and Applied_. D. Appleton &
Company, 1914.
MÜNSTERBERG, H.: _The Psychology of Industrial Efficiency_. Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1913.
PILLSBURY, W. B.: _Essentials of Psychology_. The Macmillan Company,
1916.
PYLE, W. H.: _Outlines of Educational Psychology_. Warwick and York,
1912.
PYLE, W. H.: _The Examination of School Children_. The Macmillan
Company, 1913.
ROWE, S. H.: _Habit-Formation and the Science of Teaching_. Longmans,
Green, & Company, 1911.
TITCHENER, E. B.: _A Beginner's Psychology_. The Macmillan Company,
1916.
GLOSSARY
Most of the terms given below are explained in the text, but it is hoped
that this alphabetical list with brief definitions will prove helpful.
It is a difficult task to make the definitions scientific and at the
same time brief, simple, and clear.
_Abnormal._ Having mental or physical characteristics widely different
from those commonly found in ordinary people.
_Acquired nature._ Those aspects of habit, skill, knowledge, ideas, and
ideals that come from experience and are due to experience.
_Action._ Muscular contractions usually producing motion of the body or
of some part of the body.
_Adaptation._ Adjustment to one's surroundings.
_Adaptive._ Readily changing one's responses and acquiring such new
responses as enable one to meet successfully new situations; also having
tendencies or characteristics which enable one to be readily adjustable.
_After-images._ Images that follow immediately after stimulation of a
sense organ, and resulting from this stimulation.
_Association._ Binding together ideas through experiencing them
together.
_Attention._ Relative clearness of perceptions and ideas.
_Attitude._ The tendency toward a particular type of response in action
or a particular idea or association in thought.
_Bond._ The connection established in the nervous system which makes a
certain response follow a certain stimulus or a certain idea follow
another idea or perception.
_Capacity._ The possibility of learning, achieving, etc.
_Color blindness._ Inability to experience certain colors, usually red
and green.
_Complementary color._ Complementary colors are those which, mixed in
the right proportion, produce gray.
_Congenital._ Inborn.
_Connection._ The nerve-path through which a stimulus produces a
response or through which one idea produces or evokes another.
_Conscious._ Having consciousness, or accompanying consciousness or
producing consciousness.
_Consciousness._ The mental states--perceptions, ideas, feelings--which
one has at any moment.
_Low level of consciousness._ Conscious processes not so clear as
others existing at the same time.
_High level of consciousness._ Conscious processes that are clear as
compared to others existing at the same time.
_Contrast._ The enhancing or strengthening of a sensation by another of
opposite quality.
_Correlation._ The relation that exists between two functions,
characteristics, or attributes that enables us, finding one, to predict
the presence of the other.
_Development._ The appearance, or growth, or strengthening of a
characteristic.
_Emotion._ The pleasure-pain aspect of experience plus sensations from
characteristic bodily reactions.
_Environment._ The objects and forces about us which affect us through
our senses.
_Environmental instincts._ Instincts which have originated, at least in
part, from the periodic changes in man's environment.
_Eugenics._ The science of race improvement through selective breeding
or proper marriages or in some cases through the prevention of marriage.
_Experience._ What we learn of the world through sensation and
perception.
_Fatigue._ Inability to work produced by work and which only rest will
cure.
_Feeble-minded._ Having important mental traits only poorly developed or
not at all.
_Feeling._ The pleasure-pain aspect of experience or of ideational
states.
_Function._ The use of a thing or process, also any mental process or
combination of processes considered as a unit.
_Genetic._ Having reference to origin and development.
_Habits._ Definite responses to definite stimuli depending upon bonds
established by use after birth.
_Heredity._ Transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring.
_Human nature._ The characteristics and tendencies which we have as
human beings, with particular reference to mind and action.
_Ideals._ Definite tendencies to act in definite ways. Ideas of definite
types of action with tendency toward the actions; ideas of definite
conditions, forms, and states together with a desire to experience or
possess them.
_Ideas._ Revived perceptions.
_Images._ Revived sensations, simpler than ideas.
_Imitation._ Acting as we see others act.
_Impulse._ Tendency to action.
_Individualistic instincts._ Those instincts which more immediately
serve individual survival.
_Individual differences._ The mental and physical differences between
people.
_Inherited nature._ Those aspects of one's nature due directly to
heredity.
_Instincts._ Definite responses produced by definite stimuli through
hereditary connections in the nervous system.
_Intellectual habits._ Definite fixed connections between ideas;
definite ways of meeting typical thought situations.
_Intensity._ The amount or strength of a sensation or image, how far it
is from nothing.
_Interest._ The aspect given to experience or thinking by attention and
pleasure.
_Learning._ Establishing new bonds or connections in the nervous system;
acquiring habits; gaining knowledge.
_Memory._ The retention of experience; retained and reproduced
experience.
_Mental set._ Mental attitude or disposition.
_Mind._ The sum total of one's conscious states from birth to death.
_Nerve-path._ The route traversed by a nerve-stimulus or excitation.
_Original nature._ All those aspects of mind and body directly
inherited.
_Perceive._ To be aware of a thing through sensation.
_Perception._ Awareness of a thing through sensation or a fusion of
sensations.
_Plasticity._ Modifiability, making easy the formation of new bonds or
nerve-connections.
_Presupposition._ A theory or hypothesis on which an argument or a
system of arguments or principles is based.
_Primary._ First, original, elementary, perceptive experience as
distinguished from ideational experience.
_Reaction._ The action immediately following a stimulus and produced by
it.
_Reasoning._ Thinking to a purpose; trying to meet a new situation.
_Reflex._ A very simple act brought about by a stimulus through an
hereditary nerve-path.
_Response._ The act following a stimulus and produced by it.
_Retention._ Memory; modification of the nervous system making possible
the revival of experience.
_Science._ Knowledge classified and systematized.
_Sensation._ Primary experience; consciousness directly due to the
stimulation of a sense organ.
_Sense._ To sense is to have sensation, to perceive. A sense is a sense
organ or the ability to have sensation through a sense organ.
_Sense organ._ A modified nerve-end with accompanying apparatus or
mechanism making possible a certain form of stimulation.
_Sensitive._ Capable of giving rise to sensation, or transmitting a
nerve-current.
_Sensitivity._ Property of, or capacity for being sensitive.
_Sensory._ Relating to a sense organ or to sensation.
_Situation._ The total environmental influences of any one moment.
_Socialistic instincts._ The instincts related more directly to the
survival of a social group.
_Stimulation._ The setting up of a nerve process in a sense organ or in
a nerve tract.
_Stimulus._ That which produces stimulation.
_Subnormal._ Having characteristics considerably below the normal.
_Tendency._ Probability of a nerve-current taking a certain direction
due to nerve-organization.
_Thinking._ The passing of images and ideas.
_Thought._ Thinking; an idea or group of ideas.
_Training._ Establishing nerve connection or bonds.
_Vividness._ Clearness of sensations, perceptions, images, and ideas.
INDEX
Abilities, specialized, 179
Ability, unusual, 206
Adaptation of vision, 41
After-images, visual, 40
Ancestors, 22 f.
Anger, 58
Appearance of instincts, 54
Applied psychology, 8-9, 210 ff.
Association of ideas, 152
Astigmatism, 44
Attention, 80 ff.;
and will, 82.
Attitude, 157
Behavior, 7
Bodily conditions, 76
Brain, 7
Brightness, sensation of, 38
Business, 215
Causality, 18, 21
Centrally initiated action, 51
Child, nature of, 11
Cold, sense of, 42
Collecting instinct, 62
College, function of, 217
Color blindness, 45
Color mixture, 39
Color, sensation of, 38
Completion test, 198
Concentrated practice, 102
Consciousness, 7
Conservatism, 109
Costly Temper test, 186
Cramming, 141
Criminal, the, 213 f.
Curriculum, 145
Darwin, 89
Defects of sense organs, 43
Development, individual, 24 ff.;
racial, 18-21;
significance of and causality, 21-24
Direct method, 112
Dizziness, organs that give us sense of, 42
Dramatization, 67
Drill in school subjects, 110-112
Dynamic, world as, 20
Economical practice, 101 ff.
Education, 210;
aim of, 10;
preparatory, 167;
science of, 9 ff.
Educational inferences, 143
Educational psychology, 9 ff.
Efficiency, 98, 108
Emotions, 74 ff.
Environment, 31
Environmental instincts, 61
Envy, 58
Evolution, 19 ff.
Exceptions, 101, 114
Excursions, 61
Experience, 8;
organization of, 169
Experiment, 13 ff.
Eye, the, 37
Eye defects, 43 ff.
Eyestrain, 20
Farsightedness, 44
Fatigue, 101
Fear, 56
Feeble-mindedness, 29
Feeling, 73 ff.
Fighting instincts, 58
Formal drill, III, 112
Free association frequency surface, 178
Free association test, 193
Frequency of experience, 156
Gang instinct, 60
Genetic view of childhood, 24
Genius, 31
Habit, 87 ff.;
and nerve path, 91;
how formed, 98 ff.;
importance in life, 107;
intellectual, 89;
moral, 90;
of thought, 169;
results of, 94;
specific, 116
Hearing, 41;
defects of, 45
Heredity, 24 ff.
Heredity _vs._ Environment, 31
Heritage, social, 23
High school and fourth grade abilities compared, 203
High school, function of, 217
Home and moral training, 118
Idea, 52
Ideas, 124
Imitation, 64 ff.
Imitation in ideals, 67
Incidental drill, 111
Individual development, 24 ff.
Individual differences, 176 ff.
Individualistic instincts, 56
Industry, 216
Influencing men, 215
Inheritance, 22
Inherited tendencies, 50 ff.
Initiative, 113
Instincts, 52 ff.;
classification of, 55;
significance of, 55
Interest, 84
Intervals between practice, 102
Jealousy, 58
Joints, sense organs in, 42
Jost's law, 142
Language and thinking, 170 ff.
Language study, 144
Latin, 116
Law, service of psychology to, 212
Learning and remembering, 138
Learning by wholes, 141
Life occupations, 205
Logical memory, 184 ff.
Meaning, 163 ff.
Medicine, 211
Memories, kinds of, 132
Memory, 124 ff.;
and age and sex, 127;
and habit, 146;
and school standing, 135;
and thinking, 134;
factors of, 128 ff.;
good, dangers resulting from, 137;
kinds of, 132
Mendelian principle, 26
Mental development, 19
Mental differences, 178;
detection of, 180;
importance of, 201 ff.
Mental functions developed, 182
Mental set, 157
Mental tests, 183 ff.
Mind and body, 34 ff.
Mood, 78
Moral training, 117 ff.
Motive, 77
Muscular speed, 14
Museum, school, 62 ff.
Musical ability, 179
Nearsightedness, 44
Needs of child, 77
Nerve tendency, 92
Norms in mental tests, 184 ff.
Occupations, 205
Opposites test, 195 ff.
Organization of experience, 163 ff.
Pain sense, 42
Parents, and habit-formation of children, 104 ff., 119
Perception, 124
Physiological basis of memory, 126
Piano playing, 51, 97
Pitch, 41
Plasticity, 93
Play, 68
Pleasure and habit, 101
Pleasure, higher forms of, 80
Practice, 99, 113
Primary experience, 154
Psychology and culture, 218
Psychology defined, 5;
method of, 13;
problems of, 8
Race, development of, 18 ff.;
improvement of, 30
Ranking students, 15
Reasoning, 159; training in, 168
Recalling forgotten names, 146
Recency of experience, 155
Regeneration, 23
Repetition, 99
Respect for authority, 77
Resemblance, 25
Retina, the, 37 f.
Revived experience, 125
Rigidity, 108
Rote memory, 189
Rules for habit-formation, 113
Salesmanship, 215
School, and habit, 108;
and moral training, 119 f.
Schoolhouse, community center, 60 f.
Science, 1
Scientific law, 3
Scientist, 1 ff.
Securing efficiency, 218
Selecting habits, 109
Sense organs, affects of stimulating, 6, 7;
knowledge through, 35
Sleight's experiment, 140
Smell, 42
Social life of children, 60
Social tendencies, 59
Stimulation, 6
Stimulus and response, 50
Study, learning how to, 132
Subnormal children, 206
Substitution test, 192
Taste, 42
Teacher, function of in memory work, 142;
function of in habit-formation, 103
Teaching too abstract, 129
Temperament, 78
Tendons, sense organs in, 42
Thinking, 152 ff., 159
Touch, 42
Transfer of training, 114 ff., 140
Truancies, 61
Typewriting, 51, 94 ff.
Vision, 37; importance of, 45
Visual contrast, 39
Vividness and intensity of experience, 156
Wandering, 61
Warmth, sense of, 42
Weight, diagram showing frequency surface of, 177
Word-building test, 197
Work and psychology, 218
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