Scientists.
Faraday acknowledged that he was often compelled to give up his preconceived notions, and in some cases his failures are almost as instructive as his discoveries. It was characteristic of him to hold to his theories until he proved them either true or false, and he was ever ready to reject any hypothesis as soon as he found it inconsistent with the laws of nature. Newton was willing to suspend judgment for years upon his theory of gravitation, until more accurate measurements of the earth’s size and the moon’s distance showed his theory and calculations to be right. Socrates advised his followers to quit the study of astronomy, probably because he felt that in his time the data were not sufficient to warrant definite conclusions. Hosts of instances can be cited showing that the thinking of the strongest intellects does not issue in knowing when it is based upon or biassed by a wrong working hypothesis. And yet it must be confessed that wrong hypotheses may lead to valuable negative results, as in the case of Kepler’s investigations, each exploded theory making room for the construction of a theory more in accordance with the facts. The superiority of men of genius lies in their love of truth and fidelity to fact; in the facility with which they construct theories to account for observed phenomena; in the patience with which they test theory by fact, and in the readiness with which they rejectevery hypothesis as soon as it is found to be in irreconcilable conflict with well-established facts. The average life of a theory in science is said to be only ten years. The average would be lower still if all rejected theories had been put into books. The men possessed of a truly scientific spirit differ from ordinary men not only in the painstaking accuracy of their observations and in the surprising fertility with which they frame theories, but also in the habit of verifying every hypothesis until there is sufficient ground to establish its truth and to receive it as an addition to the sum total of human knowledge.
The common people.
The common people are quite as ready to frame theories as the scientists and philosophers. It would be well if they were equally patient in testing their theories and in verifying their suppositions. The human mind cannot help generalizing. The moment a child uses a common noun it begins to classify. Its tendency to pull things to pieces and to put them together again are exhibitions of the mind’s tendency to treat everything by analysis and synthesis. Purpose and design, cause and effect early show themselves in the thinking of children. The teacher need but guide these activities and give the mind the proper material to work upon; the result cannot be doubtful if the mind which plays upon the learner’s mind has been trained to operate according to the laws of thought and the principles which must guide in the discovery of the truth.
Doubt.
Doubt is sometimes the prerequisite of knowledge. To raise a doubt in the mind of a growing youth may cause him to think. It may cause him to explore the grounds of his knowledge, to ascertain the rational basis upon which his beliefs rest, and to reject such as were of the nature of prejudice or of tradition with no sufficient warrant for acceptance. Rational belief is far superior to blind faith.
When the doubt is raised in regard to the verities of one’s religious faith there is grave danger of landing in scepticism or infidelity. What is truth? may be asked in the spirit of Pilate, who turned away from the Great Teacher with a despairing sneer and without waiting for a reply. Pilate had trifled with his own conscience until he could no longer discern truth and righteousness. Some men need better hearts in order that they may think and know the highest truth. The hope can be held out that whenever the truth is earnestly sought by the human heart the soul will ultimately be guided into a knowledge of the truth. To disturb the grounds upon which rest the principles of morality and religion is a dangerous experiment, especially in the case of immature minds. The flood of doubt may sweep away the solid foundations of a pupil’s moral nature and leave him a wreck upon the quicksands of vice or upon the rock of scepticism.
It is the nature of the child to believe, to cherish faith in what others tell him and in what the world presents to his vision. To disturb the fervor and strength of this trust before the understanding is ripe for fuller knowledge may result in life-long injury. The child’s faith in fairyland, in Santa-Claus, should, of course, be kept from becoming a source of terror. The stories of ghosts, spooks, and hobgoblins sometimes employed in the nursery to influence conduct may cause fears, terrors, and horrors from which it is well to emancipate the child as speedily as possible through the light of clearer knowledge.
The desire to know.
Better than doubt as a stimulus to thought is the desire to know. St. Augustine was onfire to know. The teacher who kindles and keeps burning this fire in the soul of the pupil has supplied the most powerful incentive to thought; for without thinking knowledge is impossible of attainment.
Full cognition.
As we may start our wood flaming by coals hot from another’s fire, so we may kindle a burning desire for knowledge by bringing the mind in contact with minds that are all aglow with the desire to know. A burning fire may soon exhaust its fuel if left to itself. The teacher supplies the fuel, fans the flame, directs its activity for well-defined purposes. Here the analogy breaks. Instead of smoke and ashes we want living products as the result of knowing. As thinking leads to knowing, so knowing should give rise to further thinking. Nowhere is the teacher’s function of guiding more indispensably necessary than in the interplay of these two activities. While the learner is engrossed in the pursuit of knowledge, the teacher is watching the process and the results. He is not satisfied unless the activity of thinking and knowing ends in full cognition. It has been well said that a dog knows his master, but does not cognize him; that to cognize means to refer a perception to an object by means of a conception. The objects of thought must be sorted and arranged in groups; the particular notion must take its place in the general concept; the materials upon which the mind acts must be assimilated and organized into a unity, showing how each has its origin and how it stands in living relation to every other part of the organic whole; otherwise thinking cannot lead to complete cognition.
The limit of instruction.
The incident at the beginning of this chapter shows that some preparation is necessary to interpret sense-impressions and organize the materials of thought for the purpose of cognition. The degree of preparation determines how far the instruction at a given time shall aim to go. To get a clearer idea of the thing to be known may exhaust the learner’s strength. If so, the presentation should stop at that point. But as soon as his power and interest are equalto the task he should be led to analyze the object of thought so as to cognize the constituent elements, the essential attributes, a process whereby he will arrive at distinct knowledge. It may be advisable before dropping the inquiry to institute comparisons between objects of the same class, for the purpose of calling attention to differences and likenesses and evolving general concepts or universal propositions. For many thinkers these are the goal of thinking. If they can resolve the universe to a few simple generalizations, their minds are satisfied. Nothing more barren can well be imagined or conceived.
Application of knowledge.
Cognition is not complete until the knowledge has been or can be applied. At times there may be a division of labor and glory in the discovery and application of truth. The discoveries of Professor Henry which made the electric telegraph possible involved thinking quite as valuable as the invention of Professor Morse. The achievement of Cyrus W. Field in laying the Atlantic cable involved thinking quite as important as the researches and experiments of Lord Kelvin which made the cable successful. Interesting examples of such division of labor in thinking cannot justify neglect of the applications after a general truth has been evolved and stated.
The instruction may sometimes begin with a statement of applications, in order to prepare the mind for the thinking that issues in knowing. The applications of color in the railway service, in navigation, and in the arts will create an interest in the study of color without which the presentation of the fundamental ideas may be in vain. Several lecturers have admitted that they failed, in the presentation of color lessons, to hold the attention of their pupil-teachers until they excited an interest in color by indicating important applications. This statement of applications by way of preparationmust, however, not be confounded with the applications which should follow the framing of general propositions and the cognition of general truths.
The hypotheses of the scientist correspond to the general truths and principles which instruction always aims to reach. In all except the most advanced investigations, the pupil should work under the guidance of principles that have risen above the hypothetical stage. He should think under the inspiration of well-established truths. He should master the known in his chosen field before he seeks to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge by invasions into the realm of the unknown. Sad is the spectacle of a talented mind wasting its strength in fruitless efforts to rediscover what is already well established.
The formulation of truths.
Similarity in diversity.
The formulation of truths in mathematical studies is sometimes carried to extremes. The pupil may at times be allowed to work under the guidance of principles which he knows by implication, and which he has never had occasion to formulate in explicit statements. The formulation of the principles of algebra can be carried into the statement of hundreds of general propositions. If the pupil is asked to fix all these in the crystallized or specific form given in the text-book, it may result in a prodigious waste of time. Furthermore, the effort to follow invariably any formal steps in the order of instruction is apt to make the instruction unduly formal and lifeless. No thinker can afford to think in the set forms of the syllogism while evolving a train of thought. Conscious conformity to these hinders progress in the spontaneous evolution of germinal ideas. In like manner, although the student of pedagogy may find a guide in the rules and principles of his science while preparing the subject-matter of a lesson, yet, in giving the instruction, the truth must be the object of chief regard, the centre of attention in consciousness.Constant thought of prescribed steps makes the teaching stiff and formal, and dissipates the joyous interest which accompanies free and spontaneous thinking. Formal rules are very often like hobbles on the feet of the horse. They impede his speed, rob him of half his power and energy, and spoil his enjoyment of the open field. Bearing this in mind, the young teacher will perhaps not be harmed by the advice that in his teaching he should ever seek to lead the learner to clear and distinct perception of likenesses and differences in the subject-matter of each and every lesson. The newer methods of teaching a beginner to read, wisely draw attention to the points of similarity and difference in the shapes and sounds of the letters of the alphabet. They even go to the extreme of comparing sounds with the noises of animals, with which the child in the larger cities is totally unfamiliar. This error is not half so bad as the opposite extreme. Very much of the bad teaching by which the schools are afflicted arises from the assumption that the learner sees the points of agreement and difference which are so very obvious to the mature mind of the teacher. The consequence is mental confusion and loss of the joy of definite thinking. The detection of likeness in objects having many points of diversity gives the mind an agreeable surprise. This emotion is an element in the pleasure afforded by the various forms of wit, metaphor, and allegory. Professor Bain has shown how greatly progress in science and art is indebted to the discovery of similarity in the midst of great diversity.[49]Much of the child’s progress in knowledge must be ascribed to the same principle. Children notice points of similarity that often escape older persons. On seeing thepicture of a tiger, they call it a cat. A mother who showed her little daughter, just beginning to talk, the caricature of a man prominent in the public eye, was surprised to hear the child exclaim, “Papa.” It was the child’s word for man, as she afterwards discovered. Where she saw contrast, the child only noticed the points of similarity between one man and another. As the power of discrimination advances, the mind pays more attention to points of difference than to points of likeness. Indistinguishableness gives way to clear and distinct knowledge. With the further growth of intelligence the mind seeks the hidden resemblances in objects far removed from one another in space and time, or by surface appearances. At first sight the bat seems like a bird, because it can fly. Scientific discrimination assigns it to the class of mammals. The identification of the lightning in the clouds with the sparks of the electric machine gave Franklin world-wide reputation as a philosopher. The identification of the force which causes bodies to fall to the earth with the force which holds the moon in its orbit, and with the kind of force by which the sun attracts the bodies of the solar system, has been justly called the greatest example of the power to detect likeness in the midst of diversity. The power of detecting similarity in diversity should be appealed to whenever it is helpful either for purposes of illustration or discovery. Algebra is shorn of half its difficulty as soon as the learner is led to see that the operations in multiplication, division, involution and evolution of monomials turn on signs, coefficients, and exponents. Let him grasp the thought that the words add, subtract, multiply, and divide respectively express the law of exponents in the four operations above named; and he will not only escape the perplexities of the average student in the more difficult operations of ordinary algebra, buthe will also see at a glance the beautiful truth which underlies the manipulation of logarithms.
The thinking that ripens into knowing.
Thinking that ripens in knowing involves comparison, discrimination, and formation of judgments. Through the detection of likeness and unlikeness in objects and their relations, judgments are formed, inferences are made, and conclusions are drawn, which mark the transition from thinking to knowing. Discrimination, identification, judgment, reasoning, definition, division, and classification mark the stages through which the mind passes in thinking things, their relations, more especially their causes, effects, laws, and ends. Analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, are the processes by which the intellect explores the content and extent of concepts, and passes to general principles and truths, and to their applications in thought and action. As processes of mental activity, these are discussed in detail by the psychologist. The laws of thought to which they must conform in order to be correct are set forth in treatises on logic. It would be a mistake to underestimate the value of a knowledge of logic and psychology; but neither of them can supply the place and function of the living teacher. He who would learn to think in some special line of research should go to a master of that specialty, learn of him what is well established in the chosen field of study, imbibe his methods of work, think his thoughts, catch his spirit, and follow his advice until the hour for independent investigation comes. Great is the tonic effect of a university atmosphere; but greater still is the bracing influence of the atmosphere created by a specialist who is both a master in his department and a master in the art of teaching. The choice of a teacher is of more account than the choice of a university, either at home or abroad.
Knowing involves more than mere thinking.
Thinking is not the whole of knowing. Feeling and willing play an important part in thinking and knowing. Words like heretic, sceptic, and sophist have a history which shows the distrust of mankind in pure intellectual effort. It would be hard to find a better commentary on the effect of a perverse heart upon the operations of the intellect than the following paragraph from Max Müller, although it was penned for a purpose entirely different from the use here made of it.
“No title could have been more honorable at first than was that of Sophistes. It was applied to the greatest thinkers, such as Socrates and Plato; nay, it was not considered irreverent to apply it to the Creator of the Universe. Afterwards it sank in value because applied to one who cared neither for truth nor for wisdom, but only for victory, till to be called a sophist became almost an insult. Again, what name could have been more creditable in its original acceptation than that of sceptic? It meant thoughtful, reflective, and was a name given to philosophers who carefully looked at all the bearings of a case before they ventured to pronounce a positive opinion. And now a sceptic is almost a term of reproach, very much like heretic,—a word which likewise began by conveying what was most honorable, a power to choose between right and wrong, till it was stamped with the meaning of choosing from sheer perversity what the majority holds to be wrong.”[50]
There are realms in which thought cannot beget knowledge of the truth until there is a radical change in the wishes and desires of the heart, in the choice and alms of the will, in the movings of the inmost depths of the soul.
There is much contention among men whether thought or feeling is the better; but feeling is the bow and thought the arrow; and every good archer must have both. Alone, one is as helpless as the other. The head gives artillery; the heart, powder. The one aims, and the other fires.Beecher.It may be noted that medical men, who are a scientific class, and, therefore, more than commonly aware of the great importance of disinterestedness in intellectual action, never trust their own judgment when they feel the approach of disease. They know that it is difficult for a man, however learned in medicine, to arrive at accurate conclusions about the state of a human body that concerns him so nearly as his own, even though the person who suffers has the advantage of actually experiencing the morbid sensations.Hamerton.When pupils are encouraged to make for themselves fresh combinations of things already known, additional progress is certain. Variety of exercise in this way is as attractive to children as many of their games. If, when such exercises are given, the rivalry involved in taking places were discontinued, and all extraneous excitement avoided, the play of intelligence would bring an ample reward. I plead for discontinuance of rivalry in such exercises, because, while it stimulates some, in other cases it hinders and even stops the action of intelligence. If any teacher doubts this, he may subject a class to experiment by watching the faces of the pupils, and next by asking from the child who has been corrected an explanation of the reason for the correction. Hurry in such things is an injury, and so is all commingling of antagonistic motives. All fear hinders intellectual action, and the fear of wounded ambition offers no exception to the rule. The fear of being punished is more seriously detrimental than any other form of fear which can be stirred. It is essentially antagonistic to the action of intelligence. Let mind have free play.Calderwood.
There is much contention among men whether thought or feeling is the better; but feeling is the bow and thought the arrow; and every good archer must have both. Alone, one is as helpless as the other. The head gives artillery; the heart, powder. The one aims, and the other fires.
Beecher.
It may be noted that medical men, who are a scientific class, and, therefore, more than commonly aware of the great importance of disinterestedness in intellectual action, never trust their own judgment when they feel the approach of disease. They know that it is difficult for a man, however learned in medicine, to arrive at accurate conclusions about the state of a human body that concerns him so nearly as his own, even though the person who suffers has the advantage of actually experiencing the morbid sensations.
Hamerton.
When pupils are encouraged to make for themselves fresh combinations of things already known, additional progress is certain. Variety of exercise in this way is as attractive to children as many of their games. If, when such exercises are given, the rivalry involved in taking places were discontinued, and all extraneous excitement avoided, the play of intelligence would bring an ample reward. I plead for discontinuance of rivalry in such exercises, because, while it stimulates some, in other cases it hinders and even stops the action of intelligence. If any teacher doubts this, he may subject a class to experiment by watching the faces of the pupils, and next by asking from the child who has been corrected an explanation of the reason for the correction. Hurry in such things is an injury, and so is all commingling of antagonistic motives. All fear hinders intellectual action, and the fear of wounded ambition offers no exception to the rule. The fear of being punished is more seriously detrimental than any other form of fear which can be stirred. It is essentially antagonistic to the action of intelligence. Let mind have free play.
Calderwood.
Bodily conditions.
In all our thinking it is very important to get a clear and full vision of the thing to be known. This is not always as easy as it seems. Like Nelson in the battle of Copenhagen, we may consciously turn the blind eye towards what we do not like and exclaim, “I do not see it.” The lenses through which we gaze may be green, or smoked, or ill-adjusted, and thus without suspecting it we may see things in false colors or distorted shapes. Our bodily condition may color everything we see and think. In health and high animal spirits every thought is rose-colored. In periods of disease and depression everything we think seems to pass, “like a great bruise, through yellow, green, blue, purple, to black. A liver complaint causes the universe to be shrouded in gray; and the gout covers it with inky pall, and makes us think our best friends little better than fiends in disguise.”
Prejudice.
One of the greatest hinderances to correct thinking is prejudice. Hence all who have presumed to give advice on the conduct of the understanding have had something to say concerning prejudice. Bacon has a chapter on the idols of the mind, and Locke contends that we should never be in love with any opinion. In a charming little volume on the “Art of Thinking,” Knowlson has a chapter in which he enumerates and discusses the prejudices arising from birth, nationality, temperament, theory, and unintelligent conservatism. The list might easily be enlarged. Close analysis must convinceany one that feeling strengthens all forms of prejudice, and there are very few, if any, fields of thought in which it is not essential for the attainment of truth to divest ourselves of preconceived notions and the resultant feelings, and to weigh the arguments on both sides of a question before reaching a conclusion.
The wishes of the heart and the conclusions of the intellect.
A student may take up geometry with a feeling of prejudice for or against the study, based upon what he has heard from others concerning its difficulties or the teacher who gives the instruction; but after he has mastered the demonstration of a theorem he does not lie awake at night wishing the opposite were true. In the realms of mathematics the wishes of the heart are not in conflict with the conclusions of the intellect. In the domain of ethical, social, historical, or religious truth the head often says one thing and the heart another. “We see plainly enough what we ought to think or do, but we feel an irresistible inclination to think or do something else.” In most of the instances in which the study of science has led to agnosticism the wish was father to the thought. When two men argue the same question, weighing the same arguments and reaching opposite conclusions, as did Stonewall Jackson and his father-in-law at the outbreak of the Civil War, the inclinations and wishes of the heart must have influenced their thinking.
Feeling an element in all mental activity.
Feeling is an element in all forms of mental activity. The intellect never acts without stirring the emotions. The teacher who reproved a pupil for showing signs of pleasure and delight over the reasoning of Euclid, saying, “Euclid knows no emotion,” must have been a novice in the art of introspection. Who cannot recall the thrill of delight with which he first finished the proof of the Pythagorean proposition? Mathematics is considered difficult; the emotionsconnected with victory and mastery sustain the student as he advances from conquest to conquest. The effort which some thinkers make to reduce the phenomena of the universe to a few universal principles is, without doubt, sustained and stimulated by a feeling that there must be unity in the midst of the most manifold diversity.
Descartes.
Scientists and philosophers are prone to imagine themselves free from the prejudices which warp the thinking of the common mind. Descartes started to divest himself of all preconceived notions; yet he could not divest himself of the notion that he was immensely superior to other men. “This French philosopher regarded himself as almost infallible, and had a scorn of all his contemporaries. He praised Harvey, but says he only learned a single point from him; Galileo was only good in music, and here he attributed to him the elder Galileo’s work; Pascal and Campanella are pooh-poohed. Here is an instance of how pride in one’s own work may beget a cheap cynicism with regard to the work of others; and how as a feeling it blinds the mind to excellences outside those we have agreed to call our own.” Of men in general Jevons, in his treatise on the “Physical Sciences,”[51]says,—
“It is difficult to find persons who can with perfect fairness register facts for and against their own peculiar views. Among uncultivated observers, the tendency to remark favorable and to forget unfavorable events is so great that no reliance can be placed upon their supposed observations. Thus arises the enduring fallacy that the changes of the weather coincide in some way with the changes of the moon, although exact and impartial registers give no countenance to the fact. The whole race ofprophets and quacks live on the overwhelming effect of one success compared with hundreds of failures which are unmentioned or forgotten. As Bacon says, ‘Men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss.’ And we should do well to bear in mind the ancient story, quoted by Bacon, of one who in Pagan times was shown a temple with a picture of all the persons who had been saved from shipwreck after paying their vows. When asked whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods, ‘Ay,’ he answered; ‘but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?’”
Sometimes the feeling that a given way of looking at things is undoubtedly correct prevents the mind from thinking at all. A lady claimed that she had been taught to accept the statements of the Bible in their literal sense, and that in this belief she was going to live and die. She was asked to read the twenty-third Psalm. At the end of the first verse she was asked whether she could be anything else than a sheep if the Lord was literally her Shepherd. When, a little farther on, she was asked in what green pastures she had been lying down, she burst into tears. Her condition, and that of hundreds of thousands of others, is correctly given in the opening pages of J. S. Mill’s “Subjection of Women.”[52]
J. S. Mill on the influence of feeling upon thinking.
“So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as the result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest the more persuaded its adherents are thattheir feeling must have some deeper ground which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to fill any breach made in the old.”
Regard for truth.
When a man’s opinions are, as he thinks, grounded in first principles, it is but natural that he should be unwilling to abandon them without a struggle to intrench himself behind impregnable arguments. If he has reached his conclusions as the result of long and careful inquiry, he has a right to hold on to them with more than ordinary tenacity. The same regard for truth which led him to form an opinion should, however, make him willing to change whenever he finds himself in the wrong. He should avoid the frame of mind of the Scotch lady who, when it was charged that she was not open to conviction, exclaimed, “Not open to conviction! I scorn the imputation. But,” added she, after a moment’s pause, “show me the man who can convince me.” The secret of this tenacity of opinion is not love of truth, but love of self,—in one word, pride.
Emotions are helpful.
Dr. Brumbaugh on the emotions.
In view of the hinderances which certain kinds or degrees of feeling throw into the way of thinking, it might be inferred that the thinker must suppress the element of feeling in his inner life. No greater mistake could be made. If the Creator endowed man with the power to think, to feel, and to will, these several activities of the mind are not designed to be in conflict, and so long as any one of them is not perverted or allowed to run to excess, it necessarily aids and strengthens the others in their normal functions. Whilst it is a duty to overcome prejudice, fear, embarrassment, anxiety, and other emotions or degrees of emotion which interfere with our ability to think correctly, especially when face to face with an audience or with our peers and superiors,it is equally a duty to cultivate the emotions which stimulate thinking and strengthen the will. Without the ability to feel strongly, it is impossible to stir the hearts of an audience. A strong character is impossible without strong emotion. Jesus could weep and denounce. He showed the strongest emotion in his public discourses and at all the great turning-points of his life. The men and women who have done most for the race showed the element of strong feeling in their thinking and in their efforts at philanthropy and reform. It is the feeling of patriotism that sustains the soldier on the field of battle and the statesman in the midst of public criticism and personal abuse. According to Plato, the feeling with which education begins is wonder. “The elementary school,” says Dr. Brumbaugh, “does its best work when it creates a desire to learn, not when it satisfies the learner.” Teachers everywhere are beginning to see that it is the mission of the elementary school to beget a desire for knowledge that will carry the pupil onward and upward, and not to make him feel satisfied with a mere knowledge of the rudiments, so that he will leave the school at the first opportunity to earn a penny.
Dr. Brumbaugh further says,—
“We must recognize the emotional life as the basis of appeal for all high acting and high thinking. We can never make men by ignoring an essential element in manliness. To live well, we must know clearly, feel keenly, and act nobly; and, indeed, we shall have noble action only as we have gladsome action,—action inspired of feeling, not of thought. The church made men of great power because it made men of great feeling.”
Playing upon the feelings.
The close connection between thinking and feeling cannot be ignored without serious detriment to the intellectual development of the pupil. Some teachersplay upon the feelings in ways that prevent accurate and effective thinking. The tones of voice in which they speak, their manner of putting questions and administering discipline, their lack of self-control, and their frantic efforts to get and keep order cause the pupils to feel ill at ease and destroy the calmness of soul, which is the first condition of logical thinking. The skilful teacher calls into play feelings like joy, hope, patriotism, that stimulate and invigorate the whole intellectual life; he is extremely careful not to stir emotions like fear, anger, and hate, which hinder clear and vigorous thinking.
Responsibility for failure at examinations.
Feeling plays an important part in the examinations by superintendents for the promotion of pupils, or by State boards whose function it is to license persons to teach or preach, to practise law, medicine, or dentistry, or to test the fitness of applicants for some branch of civil or military service. Examiners are often responsible for the failure of those whom they examine. If the first questions arouse the fear of failure, causing the mind to picture the disappointment and displeasure of parents and teachers and friends, and the other evils which result from a loss of class standing, the resulting emotions hinder effective thinking and thus prevent the pupil from doing justice to himself and his teachers. The expert seeks to lift those whom he examines above all feelings of embarrassment. With a friendly smile, a kind word, and a few easy questions he puts the mind at ease, dissipates the dread of failure, and gets results which are an agreeable surprise to all concerned. If he cannot otherwise make those before him work to the best advantage, he will even sacrifice his dignity by the use of a good-natured joke which turns the laugh upon himself or upon some other member of the board of examiners. Jokes at the expenseof any one of those examined are a species of cruelty which cannot be too severely condemned, to say nothing of the effect upon the results of the examination.
Speculative thinking.
Darwin’s experience.
Within certain limits thinking begets feeling, and feeling stimulates thinking. Beyond these limits each interferes with the other. When feeling rises to the height of passion it beclouds the judgment and prevents reflection. Certain kinds of speculative thinking leave the heart cold and ultimately destroy the better emotions and the warmer affections. “It is terrible,” said the daughter of a voluminous writer on theology, “when a man feels a perpetual impulse to write. It makes him a stranger in his own house, and deprives wife and children of their husband and father.” Abstract thinking may be indulged in to the exclusion of the tastes and emotions which help to make life worth living. The oft-quoted experience of Darwin is a case in point. In his autobiography he gives his experience, showing the effect of his exclusive devotion to scientific pursuits upon his ability to enjoy poetry, music, and pictures. “Up to the age of thirty and beyond it poetry of many kinds gave me great pleasure, and even as a school-boy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that pictures formerly gave me considerable and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry. I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure.... My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts; but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which thehigher tastes depend, I cannot conceive.... If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”[53]
The sight of an audience.
Every teacher has both felt and witnessed the effect of embarrassment upon ability to think. To face an audience of a thousand people was embarrassing to some excellent thinkers like Melanchthon and Washington. On the other hand, the sight of a multitude of listening, upturned faces stimulates natures and temperaments like that of Martin Luther and Patrick Henry, causing them to think more vigorously and to feel more deeply.
Great thoughts.
Great thoughts spring from the heart. This is certainly true of thoughts which have lifted men to higher planes of effort. And it is true of the best thoughts and volitions which a pupil puts forth. The desire for knowledge may develop into the love of truth. The student is half made as soon as he seeks knowledge for its own sake and values the possession of truth above all other worldly possessions.
Interest.
The Herbartians deserve praise for the attention they have given the doctrine of interest. The older text-books on psychology seldom refer to interest as an important element in the education of the child. The greatest boon which can come to a child is happiness, and this was impossible in the days when fear of the rod held sway in the school-room. Then childrenlooked forward to the school with feelings of dread; they went with fear and trembling. From the day that the children became interested in their lessons the rod was no longer required. Instead of crying because they must go to school, they now cry because they cannot go. Through interest the school becomes the place to which children best like to go.
Interest in a clock.
A boy who was pronounced incorrigible, and who had been transferred from school to school because he could not get along with his teachers, at last met a teacher who discovered that he could take apart and put together watches and clocks. She allowed him to fix her clock, and thus won his heart. She asked him to explain to the school the mechanism of instruments for keeping time. His interest in clocks she connected with the numbers twelve and sixty, then with the time-table, with denominate numbers, and finally with the whole subject of arithmetic. Interest in the exercises of the school converted the incorrigible boy into an obedient and studious pupil.[54]
There is no more important element of emotion for teachers to cultivate than that which enters into the feeling of interest. Interest sustains the power of thought, diminishes the need of effort in the direction of voluntary attention, and lies at the basis of all successful teaching, book-making, and public speaking. The teacher, the writer, the speaker who wearies us has lost his power over us. The lesson, the book, the sermon that interests us has found an entrance to our minds; the greater the interest the more potent and profound the influence upon the inner life.
Interest conditions ability to think.
The moment a teacher begins to lose interest in a subject, that moment he begins to lose his ability to teachthat subject. From this point of view the recent graduate has a manifest advantage over the old pedagogue whose interest in the subjects of instruction has been dulled by frequent repetition. The latter can keep himself from reaching the dead-line by keeping up his studies in the allied departments of knowledge, and by watching the growth of mind and heart in his pupils,—a growth that always reveals something new and interesting by reason of the boundless possibilities that slumber in every human being. The interest in the growing mind is spontaneously transferred to the branches of knowledge which stimulate that growth, and, in ways that no one can explain, the interest which the teacher feels is communicated to the pupils whose minds are prepared to grasp his instruction.
Fiction.
By far the larger proportion of books taken from our free libraries are books of fiction,—books which appeal to our emotional life. It shows that even those who are habitual readers can be best reached through the emotions. Of course, the act of reading proves that their feelings are reached through the intellect; yet it cannot be denied that emotion is the element of their inner life which sustains the interest in the novel. Appeals to the intellect which do not touch the heart fail to reach the deepest depths of our being, and hence fail to stimulate in others the productive powers of the soul. Only thoughts which come from the heart can reach the heart. This is true of the child and the adult, of the reader and the listener, of the scientist and the man of affairs, of the author and the editor, of the orator and the philosopher, of the teacher, and, in short, of all whose duty it is to stimulate the thinking and to influence the conduct of their fellow-men.
Strong reasons make strong actions.Shakespeare.Bad thoughts quickly ripen into bad actions.Bishop Portens.The man of thought strikes deepest, and strikes safely.Savage.Reason is the director of man’s will, discovering in action what is good; for the laws of well-doing are the dictates of right reason.Hooker.
Strong reasons make strong actions.
Shakespeare.
Bad thoughts quickly ripen into bad actions.
Bishop Portens.
The man of thought strikes deepest, and strikes safely.
Savage.
Reason is the director of man’s will, discovering in action what is good; for the laws of well-doing are the dictates of right reason.
Hooker.
Much thinking is spontaneous, in the sense that there is no conscious effort of the will to direct and control the activity of the mind. Under normal conditions the stream of thought flows onward, like the current of water in the bed of a river. When the onward movement is interrupted, an act of volition may be needed to bring the mind back to the regular channel. There are forms of intellectual activity called dreaming, reverie, and meditation, in which the ideas follow each other without any effort to regulate them. Often they are fanciful, incoherent, and illogical; they are suggested by passing objects, by musical sounds, perhaps by the stimulating influence of a drug or narcotic. Few can start a train of thought, winding up their minds as they would a clock, and then letting it run down until the discourse, lecture, or newspaper article is complete, no conscious effort of the will being required to keep the mind from wandering. This may be partly a gift of nature, but mostly it is the result of discipline.
Discipline.
Mental discipline.
What is discipline? We speak of mental discipline, of military discipline, of family discipline. What is the element which all these have in common? An army is under discipline when every soldier and every officer is subject to the will of his superior, so that the entire body of men can be moved against the foe at the will of the commanding general. A family is under discipline when the entire householdis under the control of the head of the house. The school is under discipline when all the pupils are subject to the will of the teacher, and to the rules which he has laid down for the regulation of conduct. The mind is under discipline when its powers are under the control of the will, and its activities are in accord with the laws of thought. It is important to ascertain the laws of thought which underlie correct thinking. These are developed and discussed in treatises on logic,—a science that should be mastered not only by those who must meet others in the field of argument and controversy, but by all who seek to regulate the thinking of their own minds, or to aid others in the formation of correct habits of thought.