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EDUCATION 
 THROUGH THE IMAGINATION 
 
"Where there is no vision the people perish." 
 
Education 
 Xhrough the Imagination 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET McMILLAN 
 
 LONDON 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LiM. 
 N Paternoster Square 
 1904 
 
l-BlO&Z. 
 
To THE Memory 
 
 OF 
 
 My Mother 
 JEAN CAMERON McMILLAN 
 
 IN ABIDING LOVE AND GRATITUDE 
 
 141925 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The importance of the role played by Imagination in 
 the higher branches of mental activity has been long 
 admitted by the learned. Sir Benjamin Brodie, speaking 
 at the British Association in 1859, alluded to the Im- 
 agination as " that wonderful faculty — the source of 
 poetic genius — the instrument of discovery in Science 
 without which Newton would never have invented 
 fluxions, nor Davy decomposed the earths and alkalies, 
 nor woiild Columbus have found another continent." 
 
 Popular opinion does not incline to regard imagina- 
 tion as a very important faculty for all. The imaginative 
 person is usually regarded as a visionary. Poets, painters, 
 romancers, children — these are supposed to represent 
 the imaginatives. People enjoy their works more or 
 less and indulge them in their fancies as children. But 
 they^ are apt to regard imagination as a kind of weak- 
 ness in practical men. 
 
 And yet nothing justifies us in prescribing imagination 
 to a few occupations and persons. It is the creative 
 power of the mind which gives life to all work. The 
 discoveries of science, and the creations of art, represent 
 certain forms of its activity — forms which attract and 
 compel attention. But it is as reasonable to say that 
 there is light only on the summits of hills as to say that 
 there is creative power only in the minds of artists and 
 scientists. There is light in dungeons and caves, in 
 
X. Preface 
 
 workshops and fields. The brain of every man and 
 child is a kind of world in which various degrees of 
 creative energy are represented. Day-dreaming, reverie, 
 hallucinations, etc., are abortive forms of imagina- 
 tion. All our vague hopes, our shadowy schemes 
 represent as it were the twilight of creative energy. 
 In no mind, save that of the lowest type of idiot is such 
 obscure activity long absent. But with every conscious 
 •effort and desire, the mind rises into a fuller light. In 
 the days of craftsmanship and hand labour people rose at 
 once into the upper sunshine, in working. To-day the 
 "hands" of the factory, engaged in mechanical labour 
 live in a state of suppression — the " lamp of the soul " 
 literally put out. And yet never before in the history 
 of the race did the creative faculty — always supremely 
 active in the field of industrial and practical life — find 
 fuller embodiment than it does to-day in the work-a-day 
 world. The world of primal needs and desires and 
 labour was always the great world of Imagination. 
 Such it remains and will ever remain. We may feel 
 certain that if we could measure the amount of imagina- 
 tion which is now consecrated yearly to the improve- 
 ment of mechanical and industrial appliances, we should 
 find it to be much greater than is the amount that is 
 consecrated during the same period to all the fine arts. 
 
 Moreover the demand for artizans possessing this 
 qualification of imagination is increasing, and becoming 
 .acute. So acute that not only public representatives 
 acknowledge it, but the learned men of the nation feel 
 it their duty to speak of it. At the last meeting of 
 the British Association, reference was again made 
 to the Imagination — not as the gift of the scientist 
 alone — but as the faculty whose power and exer- 
 cise vivifies and pervades all the fields of human 
 labour, and particularly the industrial world. Pro- 
 fessor Dewar, in an interesting speech declared that 
 the failure of elementary education up to the present, 
 was a failure to develop and train the imagination of the 
 
Preface xi. 
 
 •children of the masses. The learning of facts and of 
 formal arts, the training of the verbal memory, the 
 discipline of the class-room and school may be good 
 things in their way. But when the youth of the country 
 have left the school-room, when they are out in the open 
 of industrial life, competing with educated workmen of 
 other lands, mechanical training and formal attainments 
 will not carry them far; and to business men this is already 
 apparent. It is they who complain most bitterly of the 
 results of mechanical systems. On every hand there is 
 a note of unrest and disquiet. Authorities are ex- 
 ercised on the question of technical education, and the 
 advisibility of opening schools of research. A new 
 order of workmen — not the mere " skilled " workmana#- 
 but one who may possess skill but should also possess 
 enterprise, insight, initiative^ in a word imagination^ is 
 in demand. Routine methods, unreasoning fidelity to 
 mere use and wont, are no longer regarded as marks of 
 superiority even in the prosaic walks of life. 
 
 But if Imagination plays such an important part in 
 every sphere of life, it can hardly be wise to ignore it in 
 the elementary school. Though very few studies have yet 
 been made on Imagination in children, still it is very 
 generally admitted that this faculty is conspicuously 
 present in the young. It is conspicuous — probably only 
 because it is precocious. It takes the lead of Reason, 
 and so suggests in its first development that divorce 
 from reality, which many persist in regarding as the 
 essential nature of Imagination. The child's Imagina- 
 tion is allied to that of the primitive man, and eveni n 
 a less degree to that of the madman. He becomes 
 readily the dupe of his own suggestions. And yet it is 
 through the Imagination that the Reason begins to 
 declare itself, and finally to appear as a kind of rival 
 faculty, disputing the sovereignty of the first comer. 
 The child begins by seeing fantastic resemblance, which 
 is the first step towards the perception of real resem- 
 blances — that is to say to reasoning by analogy. More- 
 
xii. Preface 
 
 over, a tale is very often for the young child a kind of 
 answer to a pressing question. The legends and myths 
 of primitive races are not a mere aesthetic creation of 
 the Imagination — they are also an effort to explain the 
 origin of things. Their makers were not capable of seeing 
 objective analogies — but they saw silbjective analogies. 
 They had a logic of images, if not of ideas. Mankind 
 cannot wait through long kges for full and clear answers 
 to urgent questions. And where he cannot find he 
 creates. In such creation the germ of reason appears. 
 " Between creative imagination and rational research 
 there is a community of nature — each pre-supposes the 
 faculty for seizing resemblances." Thus Imagination is- 
 at once the substitute and the " fore-runner" of Reason. 
 The child-mind develops then mainly through the 
 free activity of Imagination. To suppress or ignore this 
 faculty at that period means the suppression of all 
 the faculties — latent as well as developed. Freedom 
 of invention and creation in its freest form — in play, 
 tales, etc., must be secured at the sacrifice if necessary 
 of all formal arts and training. And yet it is not to be 
 forgotten that the child's mind as compared with that of 
 the adult, is the slave of its own affirmations, and that 
 this slavery is a kind of madness. The imagination of the 
 savage is a temporary madness. That of the child — 
 though more subject to correction — is in essential respects 
 allied to it. If left to ramble uncontrolled it leads into 
 the land of mists and shadows. It is the aim of education 
 not to destroy but to direct. And to this end all the 
 arts — but especially the plastic arts — appear to be the 
 ideal means. Herbart has placed Drawing between the 
 sciences and humanities as the connecting subject. And 
 everything points to it as the great subject through 
 the study of which the perception is trained, and the 
 mind images rendered clear and workable. In short, 
 Drawing, taught with the view of preparing the mind 
 for the reception of ideas is not simply a subject of 
 general education. It is a means of general education. 
 
Preface xili. 
 
 Not with a view to multiplying the number of painters 
 and sketchers — but with an entirely new aim and pur- 
 pose must we now consider it. 
 
 The same may be said of music and other arts. For 
 the great mass of children they are not goals in them- 
 selves, they are means to an end. And they are 
 indispensable means during the time when human 
 beings are confined to the world of sensation and 
 imagery. Instinct draws the child towards art. 
 Various as human beings are, nearly all play in child- 
 hood, nearly all express themselves too in rude drawings, 
 or models, nearly all love rhythm — that is to say all 
 choose the free forms of arts as means of growth and 
 •expression. And this period of life and its activities is 
 not to be considered unimportant, because very soon 
 playthings are cast aside, and Drawing and Drama lose 
 their charm. The education received in the early period, 
 if sound and liberal must be fruitful in the next. True, 
 the Imagination may and probably zf/// deviate. It will 
 begin after a time to find its materials no longer 
 perhaps in forms, colours, words, movements, but in 
 the world of natural forces, of mechanics, of commerce, of 
 science, and human relationship. Only a small propor- 
 tion will continue to occupy themselves during the whole 
 •of life with the forms of creative activity favoured during 
 childhood and youth. But this does not minimize the 
 importance of the early training. 
 
 It is not strange that the importance of the role 
 played by Imagination in childhood should have been 
 long ignored by most of the administrators of public 
 •elementary education. There is no other faculty which 
 requires so much room. Its free exercise by each and 
 every child must give a great deal of trouble. The 
 young child is troublesome — unless he be an idiot. At 
 no period is the ardour for physical investigation and 
 activity so keen as between the age of two and four. This 
 is very well from an educational point of view. Physical 
 investigation, according to Sir Benjamin Brodie, more 
 
xiv. Preface 
 
 than anything else teaches the value and use of the Im- 
 agination. Nevertheless the investigator of three or even 
 of seven years old is troublesome in a class. When he 
 begins to draw on every surface he is still more difficult 
 to deal with. Indeed, as classes were formed, teachers and 
 administrators found him impossible. The problem of 
 teaching large classes of children of any age from three 
 to fifteen is quickly solved only if one canj leave the in- 
 dividual Imagination out of account altogether. The 
 temptation to accept a false ideal has been great. If 
 many have yielded to it almost unconsciously few can 
 wonder — and perhaps fewer still can blame. . . . 
 
 Nevertheless the time is ripe now for a study of 
 education through the Imagination, and of the role 
 played by the creative faculty in mental life during the 
 first fourteen or fifteen years. The present book repre- 
 sents a very tentative effort to apply some of the teach- 
 ings of modern psychology, in a restricted field, to the 
 curriculum of the ordinary elementary schools as at 
 present constituted. 
 
 Reference is often made in the course of the following 
 pages to children of the poorest class. Needless to say 
 it is not this class alone that is under consideration. 
 Just as the defective and feeble-minded have furnished 
 telling illustrations of the more obscure teachings of the 
 neurologist, so the children of poverty illustrate through 
 their misfortunes and weakness the evil or good in 
 various methods. 
 
 May it become the aim of the nation to make such 
 sorrowful illustration impossible. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 1. THE UNCHANGING PROBLEM — DEVELOPMENT AND 
 DISCIPLINE OF CREATIVE ENERGY 
 II. ORIGIN OF IMAGINATION . , , . 
 
 III. IMAGINATION AND MOVEMENT — THE EYE — THE EAR 
 
 IV. MEMORY AND EMOTION 
 
 V. THE HIGHER HUNGERS — COLOUR — SOUND 
 
 VI. THE CHILD AS ARTIST 
 
 VII. THE CHILD AS ARTIZAN ..... 
 VIII. IMAGINATION IN THE COMMERCIAL SCHOOL 
 IX. IMAGINATION IN THE SCIENCE ROOM 
 
 X. IMAGINATION AND MORAL TRAINING 
 XI. CONCLUSION 
 
 I 
 19 
 
 66 
 
 112 
 14& 
 161 
 167 
 177 
 189 
 
Of THE 
 
 VNIVER8ITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE UNCHANGING PROBLEM 
 
 In one of his books on Education, Count Tolstoi dwells at 
 some length on the fact that all governments, and nearly all 
 great institutions, churches, societies, etc., concern themselves 
 with questions affecting the training and instruction of the 
 young. Governments — ecclesiastical and secular — are eager 
 and anxious to influence the children. They, as it were, fling 
 themselves upon the little ones, crying, ^'Thus and thus shalt 
 thou do and learn — before it is too late." The child is no 
 sooner out of his mother's arms than the solicitude of the 
 Powers that Be attains its maximum. '* Give me the child till 
 he is seven," cried the priests of former centuries, " and you 
 can do as you please with him (comparatively) afterwards." 
 And in England to-day. School Attendance officers are in- 
 structed to advise parents to send their children of three and 
 four to school, while the five year old is expected to attend 
 regularly, as a matter of course. When we look abroad 
 at neighbour nations we find that though the French and 
 Germans do not possess such a system of infant schools as 
 our own, yet these and other continental nations vie with us 
 and each other in drilling, instructing, training, and influencing 
 the young, that they multiply schools, and spend an ever in- 
 creasing amount of thought and treasure in building up 
 
2 The Unchanging Problem 
 
 national systems of education. Thus at home and abroad 
 Government, Churches, Sects, and Powers that Be, are deter- 
 mined to lay hands on the young and change them for better 
 or worse ! 
 
 But what is the nature of the change which all statesmen, 
 politicians and sectarians desire to effect ? Is it a very 
 deep or very vital one ? At the first blush it may appear 
 so — especially to one who frequents public meetings 
 or reads speeches by prominent ^'educationalists" in the 
 newspapers. Much is made of the " religious question," and 
 something of foreign competition, and the national place of 
 the workers in the world market ; but gradually as we listen 
 and read popular speeches and articles the truth is borne home 
 to us that the word " education " has a widely different meaning 
 for different writers and speakers. It has become *' popular" 
 without on this account, becoming more than an empty symbol 
 to many, and the very facility with which we use it does not 
 tend to make us examine very closely or exhaustively its true 
 meaning. Now there are certain words that may very well 
 have a work-a-day meaning and be used quite safely as work- 
 ' a-day symbols. We all use the word ** water," signifying in so 
 doing a transparent, colourless, odourless liquid, good to drink, 
 and which at a certain low temperature becomes ice, at a 
 certain high temperature vapour. That is enough for ordinary 
 purposes in the way of content. The chemist and physicist 
 mean a great deal more than this when they think of " water" 
 — but their knowledge is supplementary, a mere enlargement 
 and development of the popular interpretation. But the popular 
 content of the word ^' education " is not fixed. Far from being 
 the nucleus of a complete content it signifies to thousands 
 instruction in the three R's, or it may be a name signifying 
 some vague scheme of drilling and discipline, whereby the 
 children of the rising generation are to be benefited some- 
 how. Olsen, of Denmark, found that of the public school 
 
The Unchanging Problem 3 
 
 children 100 per cent, of the boys and 100 per cent, of the 
 girls had a good working content for the word " ball," only 
 thirty per cent, of the boys had a good working content for 
 the word " dew." There are probably few grown-up persons 
 who have not a good working content for the words " money," 
 "' trade," " bread," " water," " interest," while the working 
 content of even the average politician for the word '^ educa- 
 tion " is not that held by Froebel, Herbart, Spencer, or even 
 that of the ordinary person who has thought seriously on the 
 subject. 
 
 Before going on to inquire what the content of the word 
 " education " means to the psychologist and great teacher, 
 let us look for a moment at the army of children who have to 
 be " educated." Uniformity, the Ideal of the Indolent, has 
 prevailed in the past, and yet in spite of the evil in- 
 fluences of a system that favoured an indolent sameness of 
 treatment, nothing is more remarkable than the variety of 
 type, environment, and experience which British children 
 represent. 
 
 Here is the little London urchin who has graduated on the 
 streets, whose wits are sharpened by manifold social ex- 
 periences. Here the child of the rural midlands, familiar only 
 with the fields and a few social usages and kinds of labour. Here 
 is the son of the mill-hand of the northern counties, whose parents 
 and elder brothers all work at the factory, and whose own life 
 and future is bounded by a vista of tall chimneys and driving 
 wheels. Here is the slum child with his hoard of sorrowful 
 and evil impressions. And here the son of the fisher of the 
 Western Isles, with his wealth of golden lore, locked in a 
 strange tongue, his eyes keen to discern the changes of the sea, 
 his ears full of its voices. What wealth and what poverty 
 these represent. It is now well established that the mind of a 
 school child is not, a tabula rasa — that he brings some menta 
 possessions to school with him, and that this (so far as school 
 
4 The Unchanging Problem 
 
 is concerned) original endowment, is the starting point of all 
 subsequent progress and achievement. How diverse is 
 the original capital of these embryo citizens ! Among the 
 city children, many have never seen a grain-field, an oak, a 
 lark. They know nothing of such common and necessary 
 labours, as reaping, sowing, or sheep shearing. Of the country 
 children, some have never seen a railway train. And of the 
 young islanders, many have never seen a time-piece, or a tree. 
 Yet original capital they all possess. And this original ac- 
 cumulation (whatever its nature) is the beginning of all — the 
 capital in iron. 
 
 The more central and despotic the government the less does 
 it take account, generally speaking, of these differences of 
 original capital in individuals and groups or communities 
 within the same nation. Not only have governments 
 usually declined to consider the value of mental capital which 
 is alien or unfamiliar, they have ignored peculiarly pain- 
 ful aspects of mental poverty when these presented themselves 
 as stumbling-blocks in their way. " Give up all those foolish 
 stories and customs," cried the alien who had no Gaelic, to 
 the Highlanders ; " they are remnants of superstition and 
 barbarism or worse ! " and the folk-lore and customs that were 
 the mental food and expression of a vigorous race began to be 
 told and practised, almost shamefacedly and in secret. Thus 
 was original wealth ignored. " The catechism and the three 
 R's must be learned," said the statesman and cleric, and so we 
 gathered together half-fed neglected children into great classes, 
 and made them form pot-hooks, and pray in a foul atmosphere 
 and on empty stomachs. Thus was original poverty forgotten. 
 Such forgetfulness is a denial of all the teachings of 
 the great psychologists and teachers who have spent their 
 energies and lives in discovering and making clear to us the 
 great facts on which the whole fabric of pedagogical science 
 now securely rests. 
 
The Unchanging Problem 5 
 
 Briefly those essential facts are as follows : — The new-born 
 child is (to quote Virchow) "a spinal creature" pure and 
 simple. His activities consist in reflex movements, simple 
 transformations of excitation. This spinal being cries, moves 
 his limbs, his fingers, all his muscles. The ceaseless and 
 innumerable movements which he makes during his waking 
 hours are doubtless a series of aimless experiments. At about 
 the age of three months or thereabout it is easy to distinguish 
 from among them certain movements that are acquired and 
 that have an aim. 
 
 There is a long apprenticeship for sounds as well as for 
 movement. For months a child experiments with his vocal 
 muscles, trying new sounds and repeating them for hours with 
 extraordinary energy and perseverance. As he grows older he 
 varies his self-educative efforts and extends his interests. From 
 the fifth to the sixth month children begin, as Taine observes, 
 to be ardent physicists and continue to carry on their in- 
 vestigations in this field with unabated zeal for about two 
 years. Every cat, dog, and other animal becomes the object 
 of their attention and experiments, and nurses during this 
 epoch have a trying time. For the little one wants to touch 
 and handle everything he sees. Physical investigation more 
 than anything else, we are told, helps to teach us the actual 
 value and right of the Imagination, so this period is one of 
 rapid preparation. The child pursues his investigation all 
 day long without interruption. In this way, out of the dim 
 world of obscure general impressions, groups of perceptions 
 emerge which will become by-and-bye the starting point of 
 new efforts and achievements. 
 
 ^'The contents of the soul," says Lange, " assert themselves 
 in the act of perception." The acquired perceptions 
 represent the power of referring new things to the old. 
 All that is within is taxed to find a point of contact, of union. 
 Thus a little girl in a Board school looking for the first time at a 
 
6 The Unchaii(!'ino' Problem 
 
 fern called it a "pot of green feathers," and a younger child on 
 seeing a Christmas tree for the first time, looked in amazement 
 at the presents and ornaments in the branches and called them 
 " birds ! " In one of his books Daudet tells us of a little wood- 
 savage reared in a charcoal burner's cabin who made collections 
 of miscellaneous booty, — birds, moles, beetroot, potatoes. 
 All these things were represented in his mind by the vague 
 term " denraie." His little head " full of the rustling swarming 
 nature around him like the whorl of the shell filled by the 
 roar of the sea," his heart full of the emotion which every new 
 form of booty could engender, he did not linger to make fine 
 distinctions. Yet in such wide generalization there is the germ 
 of abstraction. In the creation of names — and some children 
 will go far towards creating a language which they use for a 
 time, and then outgrow and cast aside — there is evidence of a 
 tendency present already to which we own all the higher 
 powers of the mind. 
 
 Later we shall have occasion to see that this urgent desire, 
 or impulse to find expression is absent, or at least very languid, 
 in some children. There is something worse than want of 
 grammar, and that is the lack of energy, the overflowing 
 energy which, during a short period, makes it necessary for 
 'some children to supplement the language which is too 
 restricted for them. Meantime let us look for a moment at 
 the same process of naming as it is carried on by older people. 
 
 " If we examine what is going on in us when we abstract one 
 general idea from a sum of sensations and perceptions we find 
 only a tendency, which provokes expression. The expressions 
 may vary with the temperament and development. The artist 
 acts what he feels — The dumb give us strange illustrations of 
 primitive expression. But usually the tendency to expression 
 is met by symbols or words. Every name is a dessicated and 
 abbreviated relic of a primitive drama." Properly speaking 
 we have no general ideas. We have tendencies to name — and 
 
The Uiichangiiig Pi^od/cni 7 
 
 names. "A name which we understand is a name linked to 
 all the individual things which we can imagine or perceive, of 
 a certain class, and linked only to things of that class. It cor- 
 responds then to the common and distinctive quality which 
 constitutes the class and separates it from all others, and it 
 corresponds only to this quality. In this way the word is its 
 mental representative. It is the substitute of an experience 
 whicli we cannot have. It takes the place of this experience. 
 It is its equivalent. 
 
 We cannot perceive and maintain isolated in our minds 
 general qualities. Nevertheless, in order to get beyond mere 
 experience and seize the order and internal structure of the 
 world, we must conceive general qualities. We go back, or 
 rather take a roundabout path. We associate with every ab- 
 stract and general quality one particular and complex little 
 event, a sound, a figure easily imagined and reproduced. We 
 make the association so exact and complete that henceforward 
 the quality cannot be present or absent in things, without the 
 name being present or absent also, and vice versa. In this 
 way the general character of things comes within range of our 
 experience; for the names which express them are themselves 
 little experiences of sight, eyes and hearing, or vocal muscles 
 or of internal images — that is to say, they are resurrections 
 more or less clear of these experiences. A great difficulty is 
 thus done away with. In a being whose life is only a diversified 
 and continuous experience one can only find impressions — 
 simple and complex, nothing more. With simple and com- 
 plex impressions nature has simulated impressions which are 
 neither the one nor the other, and which, being neither the one 
 nor the other, appeared of necessity to be beyond the range of 
 our mind as it is constituted." 
 
 Here we have the history of language. It takes its rise in 
 the organism. After having experience through the senses of 
 various things, a tendency is finally experienced which cor- 
 
8 The Unchanging Problejn 
 
 responds to what these things hold in common, to some 
 general or abstract quality, and this tendency leads to the 
 creation of a sign or substitute. Henceforward the intelligence 
 is free from the slavery of dependence on mere sensation. 
 *^ If we cannot transcend experience," said Tyndall, " we 
 can at least carry it a long way from its origin." We get a 
 considerable way from its origin even in the elementary schools, 
 for there we find charts, maps, as well as pictures. Arithmetic is 
 taught only for a little while by means of objects. Figures take 
 the place of objects; and by-and-bye letters take the place of 
 figures, in short, substitutes for experiences are found which 
 enable us to deal with them in quite a new way. ^'VVhen you 
 wish to learn Geography," said a Russian lady to her little son 
 " the servant will take you w^here you wish to go." Progress 
 consists in this — that in time the pupil is able to do without 
 the servant — to do without the journey even. 
 
 To be sure the journey back to experience is taken often and 
 openly. More especially by the young. The child reveals 
 naively the origin of all his thoughts, as for example did 
 Ceeile the child heroine of Daudet's book *Jack,' who 
 driving home one evening through the woodlands, looked 
 down on her native village and exclaimed softly, " That is 
 Nazareth." Any lonely scene bathed in sunset light recalled 
 to her the * pious stories ' she had heard. But the pious stories 
 themselves were made intelligible only by experience. Nazareth 
 was her own village touched with mystery. 
 
 Progress then is a journeying beyond " brute sensation," as 
 the French call it. If good instruction has followed deep and 
 rich experience the new does not awaken too much astonish- 
 ment or too little interest — it is neither wondered at blankly, 
 nor left unconsidered. But perhaps the greatest change 
 effected by development and education is that witnessed in the 
 realm of feeling. At first even the outermost limit of the 
 child's moral consciousness is bounded by sensuous feeling. 
 
The Ujtchanging Problem 9 
 
 He sees not only in things but also in persons only their uses 
 or attractiveness — mainly their uses to himself. " The water," 
 said one young child, *' is a thing for me to swim in." *' A 
 day," cried another, *' is a thing for me to play in." And if 
 questioned very closely about their feelings, to the persons 
 dearest and nearest to him, a child could make no other answer 
 than this. '^ I love them because they are good to me." But 
 later, standing no longer in complete dependence on others he 
 finds other motives than that of self-interest for attaching 
 himself even to strangers. He judges the actions and character 
 of men he has never seen and that do not touch, even indirectly, 
 his personal life. Self is withdrawn somewhat from the arena, 
 or at least it figures no longer so constantly in the foreground. 
 Once he beheld order slowly rising out of the chaos of impres- 
 sions that besieged him from without, and now out of the 
 chaos of the inner world a new order is disclosed. 
 
 Briefly this is the natural course of human education con- 
 ditioned by the nature and law of the human mind. 
 
 Now as experience is the basis of all it is plain that we 
 cannot ignore the child's own wealth or poverty of impressions 
 when he arrives in school. If he possesses something of 
 value, that something must not be ignored or cast aside. If 
 his experience is all sordid the source of this impurity must 
 be cleansed. To proceed in haste, to teach without considering 
 the being who is to receive the teaching, is to lose time and 
 pains. 
 
 Nor must we say, " Because this child is poor he must 
 learn certain things that will help him in earning a living at a 
 very early age. This is the practical course to take with 
 him." Just as if a poor child's mind developed in a different 
 order from that of other children ! At a very early stage 
 embryo of the most various orders are indistinguishable. 
 
lo The Unchanoinor Problem 
 
 They vary greatly at a later stage. So in childhood the human 
 mind progresses along the same path. 
 
 At first the child accepts all that is offered, food, stimuli, 
 certain orders of experience. 
 
 Progress represents a growing independence (which never 
 becomes complete) of " brute sensation." Mobile images take 
 the place of experience. These become clearer with educa- 
 tion. With education, too, they become more manageable 
 and subject to the will. They may be shifted, selected, 
 suppressed. Then higher orders of substitution come into 
 existence, and may be possessed so completely that the image 
 itself is in the way. 
 
 Education th^n, and even human progress itself, is largely 
 if not mainly_ a development and discipline of the Imagination. 
 This faculty, whose exercise is so often regarded as a kind of 
 weakness, a yielding to temptation, is the most reliable of all as 
 an indicator of the whole sum and progress of mental activities. 
 Its nature, its discipline, its power, represents the growth, the 
 discipline, the power of the whole mind. Thus we can learn 
 little of anyone by asking " How much does he remember?" 
 But if w^e knew what he has initiated, and in what degree and 
 manner he can create and discover, and adapt, then all 
 is told. 
 
 It is this last test which the children and youth of to-day 
 are failing to pass satisfactorily. They learn to read, to 
 write, to cipher, to sew, but not to initiate, to adapt, to use 
 their resources freely. What can be the cause of this falling 
 off?— for a falling off it is. No one can glance at the 
 history and literature of England and doubt that at certain 
 stages, if not at every stage, the creative imagination of 
 the people was very far beyond the average of the most 
 favoured nations. Her greatest men were unique in their 
 
The Unckanoiiior Problem \ i 
 
 <b 
 
 sovereign possession of this foculty. Of Shakespeare it is said, 
 " He had a complete imagination. His whole genius is in that 
 word." — Bunyan's hell was more realistic than Dante's. And 
 the industrial history of Britain certainly reveals no lack of 
 creative minds, of inventive faculty ! 
 
 It might seem that the very character of the race had 
 changed ! And yet there has been no fundamental change 
 and in all human probability no serious loss. True, the more 
 ordinary and mediocre types to-day may seem to gain a sudden 
 prominence, while others, of more originality and initiative 
 have gone under a cloud. The most vigorous natures have 
 to consider the demand of the hour, the tide of public opinion. 
 For years it has seemed as if England said to her artizans, 
 " Now wx have machinery, be as like machines yourselves a3 
 possible." But that hour has passed. Those words will be 
 heard no more. We realize that the artizans of England must still 
 be more than machinery. Only the old spirit lingers in the 
 school — which is always well behind the social and industrial 
 movement. Many a child still passes through his school 
 life, using only a minimum of his powers, and expressing only 
 a fraction of his personality. Nor is the case of the teacher 
 always very different. He or she also has to conform too much. 
 Until very recent days teachers had (not to create !) but to 
 accept systems, and methods, as well as text-books, and 
 reports almost without criticism ! It is therefore very 
 probable that if many to-day appear to have little imagina- 
 tion or adaptivity as compared with their fathers, this is not 
 because of any depreciation and sudden bankruptcy in the 
 race, but because of a temporary suspension of their most 
 characteristic powers induced by routine methods of education 
 and thought. 
 
 We are warned however that it is time to avoid mechanical 
 methods in schools. Otherwise the great results of educa- 
 tion will be sacrificed. Already the fuiger of the wise is 
 
 or THE 
 
12 The Unchanging Problem 
 
 pointed to the place where modern popular elementary educa- 
 tion seems to break down. 
 
 It breaks down in the cultivation of the faculty which child- 
 hood is often said to possess in excess — Imagination. 
 
 Mind images, or memories are the re-presentation in us of 
 absent things, or bye-gone experiences — the echoes of sensa- 
 tions of colour, odour, form, muscular impression, etc., in the 
 organism. These may vary greatly in energy and precision in 
 different persons. Such as they are they form the raw 
 material of the creative faculty — the original material (if we 
 may be permitted to speak of origins in connection with such 
 a high development of physical energy as is implied in mind 
 images) of all ideas and conceptions. 
 
 They are the material. But how are they used ? By what 
 are they used ? Primarily by feeling, emotion, desire. It is 
 emotion which puts into movement the resources of the 
 human mind. Under the word Imagination we include then 
 many factors. We pre-suppose the existence of sensations, of 
 emotion, of images and their associations, the possibility of 
 certain mental operations. In short. Imagination is not an 
 elementary formation. It is not even a secondary one. It is 
 called by Ribot a " tertiary formation/' Yet this tells us little. 
 What is Imagination? How is it distinguished from other 
 faculties ? Its salient characteristic is that it is motor in its origin 
 and function. " Imagination," says Ribot, " is in the Intellectual 
 order, what Will is in order of Movement. There is identity 
 of development in the two cases. The establishment of will- 
 power is slow, progressive, traversed by many slips and falls. 
 The individual first becomes master of his muscles, and extends 
 through them his empire over other things. The reflexes, 
 the instinctive movements, are the material of higher move- 
 ment. The Will has no patrimony of special movements 
 
The Unchanginf^ Problem 13 
 
 proper to itself. It must associate and co-ordinate, since it 
 dissociates in order to form new associations. It reigns by 
 right of conquest, not by right of birth. In the same way, 
 creative imagination does not spring into existence full-armed. 
 Its materials are the i?nages which are here the equivalents of 
 muscular movements : it goes through a period of trials and 
 essays : it is always, in the beginning, an imitation : it attains 
 only gradually its complex forms. But there are still deeper 
 analogies. The Imagination is subjective, personal, an- 
 thropocentric : its movement is from within outward towards 
 an objectivation. Knowledge (that is to say intelligence 
 in the restricted sense) has an inverse character, it is objective, 
 impersonal, receives from without. For the creative imagina- 
 tion the inner world is the regulator. For the intelligence 
 the outer world is the regulator. The world of my imagina- 
 tion is tny world as opposed to the world of intelligence which 
 is that of my fellows. . . . And what has been said of 
 the Imagination may be repeated word for word in regard 
 to the Will. 
 
 Futhermore Imagination and Will have a teleological char- 
 acter, are active in view of an end to be attained. One wills 
 something with an end in view — it may be a frivolous or a great 
 end. One invents always with an object in view, whether it 
 be Napoleon who imagines a plan of campaign or a kitchen- 
 maid who thinks of a new dish. Finally, there is an analogy 
 between abortive imagination and abortive will. Under 
 normal condition the will is expressed in an act. But in the 
 case of the undecided, the vacillating, the act is not accom- 
 plished. The resolution cannot affirm itself in practice. The 
 creative imagination also, in its complete form, tends towards 
 exteriorisation — it affirms itself in a work which exists not only 
 for the creator, but for everybody. But in the case of the 
 mere dreamer, the imagination remains an internal thing only 
 ^t is not embodied in external action. Reveries correspond 
 
14 The Uiicha^iging P7'oblem 
 
 more or Isss to irresolution '^Dreamers are the impotent 
 members of the creative world." 
 
 The Imagination is trained and developed through exercise — 
 as is the Will through the muscles. It is not most powerful 
 where it seems to run riot. Its intensity and strength are 
 greatest perhaps where it subjects itself to rules, even dis- 
 appears, like a river flowing underground for awhile but 
 emerging again into the light. The wild dreams and fantasies 
 of early childhood do not proclaim the existence of great 
 imaginative powers any more than do the restlessness of a 
 little child proclaim him the possessor of immense muscular 
 strength. Nevertheless in the earlier stages there must be 
 freedom, simply because there is little power of subservience, 
 direction and obedience. The early hymns of the Saxon 
 barbarians were a concrete of exclamations. They thought 
 of God, as of Odin, in a string of short passionate images. 
 *' They do not speak," writes Taine of them, "they sing, or 
 rather cry out, each little verse of their poets breaks forth like 
 a growl." There is no art, no natural talent for describing in 
 order the different parts of an event or an object. ' The bar- 
 barians are in short like very }oung children. By uncouth 
 movements and cries they advanced. They strove to express 
 all in a cry — and the force of the internal impression, did not 
 quickly unfold itself. Yet it began to unfold itself at last 
 and was expressed in rude poems. Progress depends on this 
 yielding to the initial and individual impulse whether the 
 learner be a child at play, a barbarian making rude experi- 
 ments, or a scientist engagedin original research. 
 
 The importance of free play as a factor in education lies 
 also in this — that it is experimental. Pleasure in motion is 
 not enough, the quickening sense of power must be there also. 
 When this is felt children often become ambitious, bold, stern 
 with themselves. Long ago the game of Kettles was popular 
 among the girls and boys of the Highlands of Scotland. It 
 
The Unchanging Problem 15 
 
 was usually played with great rigour. " Everything is a fault," 
 said the children beginning the game, " to push the stone 
 twice, to touch the line, to hold the arms spread, to hop twice 
 — everything is a fault." This rigour is not confined to move- 
 ment plays. " The playful exercise of the recollective faculty " 
 is, as Groos observes, *' common in children." They perform 
 mental feats unachievable by adults, such as learning by heart 
 books of nursery rhymes, long poems, interminable stories. 
 They will often burden their minds with lists of unconnected 
 and meaningless words. Otto Pochler, at four, knew the birth 
 and death of every German Kaiser from Charles the Great 
 as well as of many poets and philosophers. There was no 
 trace of vanity, no desire to show off in all this. We must 
 explain these accomplishments and the rigour of kettle-players 
 as the result of the desire to experiment playfully with one's 
 own powers. 
 
 It is in this way (through exercise) that the mental as well 
 as the physical powers develop. Children, and indeed all 
 healthy adults, enjoy exercise, whether it be romping or the 
 m.aking of the multiplication table, golfing or the solving of a 
 problem in mathematics. '^ Within the limits of the gym- 
 nasium," writes Mrs. Boole, " every position is permitted and 
 encouraged which would be considered indecorous and dis- 
 orderly in class." So it should he ineiitally. " Every mental 
 faculty which a human being is to exercise at all, should be 
 used, alternately, in ^work' : — that is to say, in subservience 
 to necessities or rules imposed from without, and in ^ re-crea- 
 tion ' — that is by evolving its own laws from within. If this is 
 not done the mental faculty flags: and ^work,' which should 
 be truly mental, is done (ill or well) as a mere trick of brain 
 and nerves, without any full or true mental action. . . . If you 
 wanted a boy to become a merely stupid, mechanical bank- 
 clerk, sure of never making a mistake, and also sure not to 
 understand enough of what he is about to find out when his 
 
1 6 The Unchanging Problem 
 
 superiors are cheating the public and the shareholders, you 
 should make him do his sums always one way and forbid him 
 to experiment on any day of the year. If, on the contrary, you 
 wished him to become a mere busy-body, clever at detecting 
 errors in other people's sums, but incapable of keeping accounts 
 properly, let him always do his sums by roundabout and 
 " natural " methods. But if you want a capable arithmetican, 
 able both to do the business he is paid for, and also to under- 
 stand what is going on around him, and find out for himself 
 how to do things which he was never shown, insist on rigid 
 method during hours of work and encourage very free and 
 lawless experime7itation occasionally P 
 
 Free experiment by children is troublesome to parents — 
 more troublesome to teachers, but abhorrent to official ad- 
 ministrators.^ The child who plays in fantastic ways with his 
 own power, chooses his own subjects in drawing ; improvises 
 in defiance of all rules of time, melody, counter-point and 
 fingering runs certainly the risk of becoming very troublesome. 
 And yet without free experiment there is little to be done. 
 The great genius — such as Mozart — persisted in taking his 
 lessons merely as a guide and sometimes as a kind of in- 
 terruption. Precocious artizans — such as Poncelet — experi- 
 mented freely in their play hours, as indeed England's future 
 artizans must be doing to-day if the Manual training centres 
 and Technical colleges are ever to be of great value. What 
 is learned at school comes in as material. Doubtless it was 
 a deep consciousness of the possibilities of play that led Froe- 
 bel to emphasize it, to engage the sympathies of teachers in it, 
 to take part in games himself, and wistfully try to direct the 
 young mind in its most important moments. And yet it is 
 doubtful whether any extraneous help can help one in crucial 
 moments — whether we had not better recognise at once that 
 not assistance but freedom is wanted in play-time. A young 
 child knows verv well what movements rest him when he has 
 
The Unchanging Problem 17 
 
 been trying to sit still at table for a time, or hold, his chalk 
 firmly. Just in the same way he will learn what movements 
 and occupations rest him in the intervals of manual training, 
 or geometry. 
 
 The only way to assist him appears to be to make the 
 geometry or manual lesson as thorough, as little of a mere 
 game or play as possible. This does not mean however, that 
 the Imagination is to have no place in class. It means just the 
 opposite. There is no real test or trial involved in any train- 
 ing where the creative faculty is allowed to remain dormant. 
 In drawing, in arithmetic, in languages, the moment of integrat- 
 ing effort which means growth, is the moment when the child 
 is obliged to fall back on his own resources, to discover his own 
 method, to write his own original composition, to draw from 
 his own memory. 
 
 Unfortunately we show tendencies now to interfere much in 
 the *' play," without making sufficient demands in the "work." 
 The consequence is that the Imagination is crippled at both 
 ends of the system. There is much surveillance in the playing 
 ground — there is a great deal of surveillance too in the class- 
 room. In neither place is any very serious effort made to 
 develop very completely the highest power of the human 
 mind. Some of the causes of this neglect are deep-rooted and 
 cannot be discussed here. Others are obvious enough. In 
 our large class-rooms and small playing grounds thousands of 
 children are massed. In order to keep order there must be 
 rules and surveillance. The situation is in some respects a 
 ^new one, it is certainly fraught with new risks. Uniformity 
 has become an ideal. In accepting it we are simply following 
 the line of the least resistance. 
 
 Yet such languid acquiescence (for it is nothing more) is 
 bound in the long run to have serious results. The motive 
 power of the moral life is Will. The motive power of the 
 intellectual world is luiagination. In virtue of his power to 
 
1 8 The Unchanging Problem 
 
 imagine or re-create through mental images, man sees the past, 
 forecasts the future, and has made whatever advance has been 
 ever made into the fields of the Unknown. We cannot give 
 Imagination to another, but we may arrest its development ; 
 and where it is ignored or suppressed, all intellectual life must 
 quickly decline and perish. Now, as of old, wherever for one 
 reason or another there is no vision the people perish. 
 
 This book represents an effort, however inadequate, first — 
 to define the nature of creative energy, secondly — to indicate 
 the various forms in which it finds its manifestations at the earlier 
 periods of life (subject, of course, to the differences of vocation 
 and nature, and the precocity and persistence of genius in 
 dealing with specific orders of images), and thirdly — to deter- 
 mine its place and function in primary education. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ORIGIN OF IMAGINATION 
 
 Every mental image or representation contains certain motor 
 elements. The thought of a peach, or of any other pleasant 
 fruit makes the mouth water. The remembrance of a catching 
 air impels us to sing. The recollection of a beautiful scene, 
 makes us gaze fixedly into the distance. Such movements are 
 mere repetitions. They are organic. Yet in them we have 
 an incipient form of imagination. What hinders the images 
 from becoming creative in the fullest sense that is to say — 
 not merely re-productive but productive ? Nothing hinders this 
 except lack of persistence and energy on the part of the image. 
 When we are ill and enfeebled, and our power of resistance 
 ' lowered, an image may easily become creative in a high degree. 
 By thinking of a pain we may begin to feel it ! Listening for 
 robbers we may hear them — that is, we may have illusions, 
 become the victims of our own active mind images. But the 
 creative power of mind images does not reach its highest de- 
 velopment in mere illusion. The school of Charcot has estab- 
 lished the fact that profound changes may take place in the 
 organism, as the result of a mind picture or image. The once 
 " miraculous " stories of Stigmata — the mark of nails in the 
 flesh, and the presence of bleeding wounds in the bodies of 
 saints are now well authenticated. Indeed the creative power 
 
20 Origin of Imagination 
 
 of the Saints is allied in one respect to that of every great 
 genius — moral and otherwise — inasmuch as they furnish an 
 illustration of the power of mental images, the motor elements 
 of which have become creative. 
 
 To leave the world of the miraculous and return to the 
 peach, the recollection of which makes the mouth water ! Here 
 we have reproduction pure and simple — that is, memory plus 
 a reflex movement. This is an inferior form of imagination 
 and is found, as Romanes has pointed out, very low in the 
 scale of animal life. He calls it provoked or directly suggested 
 reproduction. 
 
 Higher in the scale of mind-activity is spo?itaneous repro- 
 duction, which is still suggested of course, but involves a freer 
 movement. The eating of a peach may awaken, for example, 
 some thought of the orchard where it grew, of the man who 
 planted it. Nevertheless this as well as the former case of 
 memory and movement represents only reproductive not pro- 
 ductive imagination. / 
 
 Higher than either is the faculty of associating mental 
 pictures, without direct suggestion from without, but by an 
 inward activity. This takes place in sleep when we dream, 
 for then the inner world is not corrected or modified by the 
 outer world as in waking hours. But reverie too and solitary 
 musing falls under this category — flitting mind pictures — un- 
 stable associations of images grouped languidly, and without 
 intervention or design — castles in the air, impossible romances 
 even (though these show more energy on the part of the 
 dreamer) may fall into the same group. A great part of the 
 life of many persons, old and young, is spent in day-dreaming. 
 
 The tendency to discourage reverie in young persons has, in 
 
 the opinion of some educationalists, gone too far. Just as we 
 
 may meddle too much with a child's play, we may meddle far 
 
 too much with a girl's or a boy's day-dreaming. Stanley Hall 
 
 V actually affirms that at a certain age " idleness should be 
 
Origin of Imagination 2 1 
 
 cultivated and reverie should be provided for in every way." 
 Without going quite so far as this we may admit the need for 
 respecting every natural and healthy mental state. The state 
 of reverie seems to lie like a river between the bright world of 
 strenuous mental life and the dark world of the unconscious, 
 and subconscious. On that stream many seeds are borne from 
 the dark shore to the bright one. We must not try to dry it 
 up, to cause the waves to cease flowing. 
 
 Finally, the fourth and highest form of imagination is that 
 in which the thinker marshals his mind images with intention 
 or design in order to form new combinations. This is con- 
 structive imagination proper. Its triumphs are seen in every 
 invention of industry, every creation in art, every discovery 
 in science. 
 
 Childhood is often said to be the age of imagmation. This is 
 true only in a very limited sense. The distinguishing mark of 
 a high order of constructive imagination is power of control 
 and selection accompanied by power of creation. But this 
 implies a development of reason and of will to which the 
 most intelligent child can not attain. The importance of the 
 intellectual and moral factors in the higher orders of creative 
 work will appear later. The function of the higher faculties 
 is largely inhibitory. 
 
 Memory is necessary for creation. Yet memory may become 
 tyrannical. It is necessary to know how to forget, otherwise 
 the door is closed to all initiative and freedom. If to recall any 
 incident, we have to recall every event that intervened between 
 the time of its taking place and now remembrance would be im- 
 possible. A cetrain Member of Parliament had such a very reten- 
 tive memory that he could repeat correcllya long actor document 
 after having once read it. This how^ever was not a great advantage. 
 It was a great inconvenience. For whenever he wanted to remem- 
 berany particular point he had to begin at the beginning, and read 
 on till he came to the point he wished to recall. Children are 
 
2 2 Origin of Imaoination 
 
 more subject to the tyranny of memory than older persons. 
 A child of nine, of good intelligence learned to repeat the 
 questions and answers of the Shorter Cetechism quite correctly, 
 yet stopped always at the wrong places having little or no idea 
 of the sense. The whole performance was barren in so far as 
 the reason or imagination were concerned. School-girls learn to 
 play pieces of music from beginning to end by heart, but fear 
 interruption as they cannot begin safely anywhere save at the 
 beginning. Reason breaks up memories. Its office is in- 
 hibitory too as regards the Imagination. In childhood this 
 inhibitory power is but little exercised. As the mind develops 
 it comes more and more into prominence. And yet memory 
 and imagination are not weakened but strengthened in the 
 process which brings Reason more and more into evidence. 
 What is marvellous in scientific genius is as Hoffding has 
 
 .pointed out, precisely this mental freedom which is able to 
 detach, and abstract from experience. Reason does indeed then 
 resemble those climatiq influences that break down the solm 
 rock and hard soil and prepare it for the activity of the 
 creative principle. 
 
 But if the creative power is, in its higher forms at least, 
 dependent on the intellectual, still more obviously is it 
 dependent on the emotional life. The emotions are the great 
 winds of the mental and moral world. They penetrate every- 
 where and they are always potentially at least creative. Love 
 is of course the most prolific. It has a vast progeny — In 
 literature it is the mother of lyrics, poems, romances, etc., etc. 
 
 , That joy is productive even the most practical employers of 
 labour attest. They find it pays very often to give their men 
 more holidays, better security and better wages. Fear, the most 
 
 \ depressive emotion is the mother of phantoms, demons, 
 hobgoblins, and of primitive religion. Anger is destructive 
 apparently, but fertile. Byron wrote his " English Bards, and 
 Scotch reviewers,'' in a passion, or rather after a fit of rage. 
 
Origin of Imagination 23 
 
 Through strong emotion he was enabled to pass quickly from 
 the tentativeness of childhood to the vigour of manhood. 
 Victor Hugo offers a striking example of the fruitfulness of 
 grief — and also of indignation. *' Instead of allowing himself 
 to be tortured by the forces (for nervous energy is force par 
 excellence) that invaded him, instead of keeping them, or 
 enjoying them (there is a luxury, and even a temptation to 
 play with grief) he realized them all in work. Twice did 
 fate cruelly strike him. He lost a dearly loved son. Later 
 he became an exile. These two events did not draw many 
 tears from him. But they were responsible for the creation of 
 two prodigious works, viz. the Co?ttempkitio?is, over which many 
 generations of tender souls will weep, and the fierce Chati- 
 ments the reading of which made so many hearts burn to 
 avenge him." Writers, in particular, seem to illustrate re- 
 markably the productiveness even of the most depressing 
 emotions. 
 
 / Children are very susceptible to emotion. And this taken in 
 conjunction with the fact that memory is retentive in the 
 early years seems to supply the conditions of a certain order 
 of creative activity. In some respects indeed children appear 
 to be not inferior, but superior in creative energy to grown-up 
 persons. Just as a little child will perform a hundred move- 
 ments in a short time, and will run about all day long in a way 
 impossible to an adult, so he will create illusions for himself, 
 and invent fantastic tales to explain everything with surprising 
 persistence and energy. .But all this does not prove that the 
 child has greater muscular power or creative energy than the 
 adult. It only proves that he uses his muscular power and 
 imagination in ways that do not tax or try him — that is to 
 say involuntarily, and without draining any deep source 
 of energy. He moves as a child, imagines like a child. 
 This excessive activity is necessary. Just as movements 
 represent at a certain epoch the will, so the imagination 
 
24 Origin of Imagination 
 
 represents at a certain epoch the reason. Imagination is, 
 as Goethe said, the fore-runner of reason. In the beginning 
 imagination and memory are one (the former being locked up 
 as it were in the latter) : at a later stage reason and imagination 
 are still one. Only by free experimentation of the already 
 self-declared faculty can all that is still latent be finally 
 liberated. / 
 
 Thus in the end the tyranny of memory is broken, the 
 undisciplined imagination curbed, not by the interference of an 
 arbitrary will from without, but mainly through the emancipation 
 of a faculty which was latent in both from the beginning. 
 
 Imagination in Animals and Infancy 
 
 The two subjects are not so closely allied as may at first 
 appear. Wonderful is the animal world that is close to us 
 — the cattle that roam about our fields, the domestic animals 
 that share our life. Between these and ourselves the missing 
 links may be conceived, and the evolution imagined. It is 
 when we are face to face with the insect world that the tracks 
 seem to be lost. For it seems as if those small creatures — 
 bees, ants, wasps, spiders, etc., had never pursued the track 
 of which human evolution was the goal and that what we 
 call emotion, reason, memory, imagination, have found in 
 them, not parallels but substitutes. Substitutes that baffle us 
 — not like the words of a strange language, but like the language 
 of another sphere. For example, we are familiar with a faculty 
 called Memory, and recognize it in the horse, the dog, the cat, 
 etc., as essentially the same as in ourselves. But what is the 
 memory of an ant ? Lord Avebury once divided a nest full 
 of larvae. Many months later he took the ants that had been 
 reared in one nest and put them into the other. The old 
 ants had certainly never seen those strangers before yet they 
 recognized them, and without any communication. What is 
 such 'memory' as this? We do not know. It is as Lord 
 
Origm of Imagination 25 
 
 Avebury states ^'a wholly unintelligible faculty to which we 
 can give what name we please." Or take the faculty of 
 Reason. Huber tells us that he once saw the shaft of an 
 ant dwelling fall. Instantly all the ants began, not merely to 
 restore the shaft, but to strengthen the whole frame-work of 
 the dwelling. Huber and Forel have described the armies of 
 ants, have shown that they are agriculturists, that^* they keep 
 cattle and slaves, that they nurse and educate the young, and yet 
 it has been proved also through careful experiments that intro- 
 duced to certain new circumstances they make not the smallest 
 deduction from obvious facts. They will walk sixty times 
 round an object which they could cross in a moment by 
 the exercise of the very smallest ingenuity. If they have 
 reason then it is a faculty which seems to be neither an ex- 
 tension nor an embryo of ours ! But it is when we come to 
 examine their social instincts that all our canons are useless. 
 Maeterlinck was quite right when he said that man can never 
 understand the social and moral attitude of an insect. A bee 
 will never turn her head while her sister is being cruelly 
 mutilated at her side — yet she and her myriad companions will 
 sacrifice their lives for the race. We begin by loving our 
 parents, our brethren and neighbours — and later, in the case 
 of some, though not of all, evolve wider social sympathies. 
 The bee and the ant begin with the race — and never arrive at 
 the individual. Where the paths of progress diverge so 
 utterly we find ourselves at a loss. The life of insects is a 
 mystery to us. Swammerdam, the inventor of the microscope, 
 catching a first glimpse of it, was overwhelmed. Those mailed, 
 unresting, merciless, self-immolating communities of the dust 
 could not be related to anything he had learned or experienced. 
 We have become familiar with it but it remains inexplicable, 
 and so the most numerous communities of life have to be left 
 out of account when we begin to trace the progress of human 
 evolution, 
 
26 Origin of hnagination 
 
 Passing over various orders of mammalia that appear to 
 stand close to ourselves on the ladder of life, passing over such 
 architects as the beaver and others from whom we have taken 
 some lessons, there is an order of creature that suggests 
 itself as being highly endowed with some of the requisites 
 of creative power. I refer to birds. Many birds have a keen 
 sense of vision, of hearing, and of general touch. In some 
 memory is highly developed. A swallow will return year after 
 year to the same house having made a prodigious journey. 
 And the emotional life of many birds is so keen, that they may 
 die of fear — or grief for the loss of a mate, while a very little 
 bird will hurl itself literally into the mouth of the big devourer 
 of her offspring. Here, then, we appear to have all the re- 
 quisites for creative power. — (Keen senses, memory and capa- 
 city for emotion), unless we happen to take into account the 
 power of abstraction or disassociation. 
 
 It is precisely this power of abstraction however which de- 
 termines the measure of freedom in dealing with images and 
 ideas. Without language — it can hardly be greatly developed. 
 
 Birds and other animals are not quite destitute of something 
 which we may call language. Yet the language of even birds 
 does not fulfil the requirements, or make possible the develop- 
 ment of the power of abstraction. Placed face to face with 
 the alternative of either modifying the form of their nests, or 
 doing without a nest altogether, some birds will modify the 
 original plan — introduce small innovations. Such capacity as 
 this does not of course take them beyond the threshold of 
 abstract reasoning."^ 
 
 Nevertheless the comparative absence of a faculty necessary 
 for the highest order of creative Imagination need not blind us 
 
 " * The condition of birds and other animals guided by instinct," said 
 Cuvier, *' resembles in many respects that of the somnambulists. They 
 imagine — see in advance the plan of the work. But the series of images 
 which guides them is constant. Circumstances bring changes, but their 
 rr.ind does not follow these changes, or break with the circle of ideas 
 that absorbs them." 
 
Origin of Imagination 27 
 
 to the beauty and variety of the manifestations which answer 
 to the ebb and flow of animal emotion and life. These 
 consist of course mainly of movements. Lambs skip 
 about in the fields, foals throw up their heels and gallop. 
 Kittens climb on the mother, chase one another, or spin round 
 after their tails. The dolphins scour through the sea following 
 the steamers, turn somersaults, and perform capers in the 
 w^ater. So do even whales at certain periods. As for birds 
 there is practically no end to the variety of their move- 
 ments. Some float, skim, describe curves and indulge in 
 every kind of fancy flight. Their songs at pairing-time have a 
 new range and variety. Other animals, at pairing time become 
 noisy (like the frog) indulging not only in solos but in deafen- 
 ing concerts. But song and movement do not exhaust the 
 resources of the animal w^orld at its flood-tide. The Syrian 
 nuthatch adorns its nest with the bright wings of insects. The 
 Baya bird of Africa models its nest fantastically, ornamenting 
 it with lumps of clay on each of which the cock-bird arranges 
 the wings of the fire-fly ! The hammer head of Africa adorns 
 the ground about his nest w^ith pieces of glass, bits of broken 
 earthenware, bright stones, feathers, etc. And the bower bird 
 builds a large play-house in the shape of a tunnel — three feet 
 long in some cases — lined with grasses whose heads almost 
 touch above, and adorned with shells of five, or perhaps more 
 species, and with berries, blue, red, and black, as well as leaves 
 and young shoots. Thus it appears that at certain moments 
 in their lives these little creatures are floated upward almost 
 to the threshold of objective art. 
 
 Infancy. — The brain of a very young child is rich in water. 
 The associative fibres are not yet developed, and the system 
 of reflex movements is not yet completed. 
 
 Nevertheless, these are precocious. They precede the 
 development of any mental life. Even the disorders of infancy 
 point to the pre-dominance of the motor system. An insane 
 
28 Origin of hnagination 
 
 haby does not behave like an insane man. He has no 
 hallucinations. The mad baby strikes, bites, kicks, and 
 expresses himself in movement. Convulsions are called *' a 
 madness," and chorea a " deUrium " of the muscles. 
 
 In early childhood, too, the Imagination expresses itself largely 
 in movement, in climbing, running, hopping, springing, skip- 
 ping, etc. Not content with these larger exercises little children 
 invent or imitate smaller movements — making a church, a 
 bridge, etc., etc., of their fingers, practising the difficult third 
 finger movements, etc. Taking all this into account, there is 
 certainly good ground for assuming that Imagination is of 
 motor origin^ and that its most elementary expression is in 
 mere movement of the organs and limbs. 
 
 And if this be so the question of movement assumes a great 
 importance in primary education. Hitherto we have thought 
 of physical training as something which concerns the child as a 
 future citizen-soldier. Some have thought of it in connection 
 with health. It is now believed by many thinkers that the 
 whole question of mind development is concerned in the various 
 kinds of movements natural to, or imposed upon, children. 
 The great fact that the various centres of the brain develop in 
 a certain sequence — that the development of motor control is 
 subject to certain laws, and depends not on ^' the taste and 
 fancy of the teacher" — and that it stands in close relationship 
 to the mental evolution that follows, is now beginning to be ac- 
 knowledged. Thus we no longer compel little children all over 
 the land to execute intricate small movements for which they are 
 manifestly unprepared. We acknowledge that infants should 
 draw and write not in small ruled copy-books but on large 
 surfaces. And only now is it possible to watch the gradual 
 process of acquired motor control. At first the child draws 
 his line almost with the whole body (just as he began to walk 
 with four limbs instead of two). He bends forward, the face is 
 agitated, the tongue is often protruded. Then as time goes 
 
Origin of Imagination 29 
 
 on the immense area of movement once brought into requisi- 
 tion in the drawing of a line or circle is restricted more and 
 more. The child writes a large hand, without much movement 
 of the body draws a large figure. Later he will reduce these 
 without effort. Some day he may even choose his own move- 
 ments in writing to the joy of the graphiologists, who must be 
 puzzled to-day lo find any original character left in the trained 
 school-board clerks and scholars, y^ 
 
 The drill-hall or assembling-room is not the only place where 
 the motor training should be prosecuted. At every hour, and 
 in every lesson, movement is a great factor in determining the 
 growth or arrest of mental activity. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IMAGINATION AND MOVEMENT 
 
 Every visible movement corresponds to an unseen one. It is 
 the result of action in a nerve centre of the brain. 
 
 To arrest a visible movement — (as when an infant's limbs are 
 swathed tightly, or when an older child is compelled to hold 
 his hands clasped behind him) is in reahty to arrest the course 
 of a movement. 
 
 The healthy infant when awake moves all his limbs and 
 especially the extremities, and this general aimless, feeble order 
 of movement is necessary to brain development. Later it be- 
 comes less general. The force is concentrated as it were into 
 one limb and its movements as when the baby kicks or lifts 
 one limb to its mouth. Later still we see associated moveme/its 
 as when he takes something from one hand with the other, and 
 also arrest of spontaneous movement, as when he stares at a 
 bright object or fixes his eyes for a moment on a stranger. All 
 this happens usually before the end of the fifth month or even 
 earlier. 
 
 The child is of school age in England at four or it may be five 
 years old. At that age the control of movements through the 
 senses is usually well established. The child not only tries to 
 possess himself of the things that attract him, he becomes 
 
Imagination and Movement 31 
 
 absorbed by these, and so well do mothers know this by ex- 
 perience that they often become alarmed and suspicious if a 
 child remains '*good" and quiet for hours in a neighbouring 
 room. The four years older not only runs, chatters, plays, but 
 is capable of comparatively long spells of attention in presence 
 of forbidden and attractive objects. 
 
 Yet, what we may call the period of " spontaneous move- 
 ment" is not over at four or ^\^, i\t that age a healthy 
 child not only feels, but shows that he feels his life in every 
 limb. Spontaneous movement, sHghtly under control, is the 
 characteristic of healthy brain action at this age. The control 
 is smallest over the smaller and finer nerves and muscles. The 
 aim of much, if not all the training in the infant school to-day 
 is to increase control. There is another side of the question 
 that is not emphasized, and that is : — the neccessity for the 
 freedom which is the first condition of experiments. 
 
 The young child, like the animal, experiments mainly 
 through the muscular system. 
 
 He is liable to interruption and interference at home — much 
 more is he curbed and cabined at school. To climb on chairs 
 and tables gives a little child the joy that a bigger boy has in 
 climbing trees. There are no chairs in the class-room, no 
 trees in the play ground. The big class-room does not lend 
 itself to experiment. When out of doors the desire to throw 
 takes possession of all, or nearly all. And Groos, and others, 
 would like to give a free field to the small experimentors. 
 " We should rejoice," he says, " with the children, when a 
 stone goes a long way or bounds into the water with the 
 splash." But stone-throwing is not allowed to our school- 
 children, even to the little ones, on account of the danger 
 to the windows. 
 
 On the whole, we must admit that the school system is 
 largely, suppressive. This fact meets us again and again, but 
 it is most obvious, perhaps, when we are thinking of younger 
 
32 Imagination and Movement 
 
 children — that is, of little people who are bound to express 
 themselves, mainly, in movement. 
 
 As children grow older the imagination embodies itself in 
 new forms, but the origifial form (for we may call it thus) 
 still holds its ground. A study of the plays and games of 
 man makes this very obvious. " We can distinguish," says 
 Groos, "six different groups of movement-plays resulting simply 
 from the impulse to gain control of objects. These six are as 
 follows: — I. Mere hustling things about. 2. Destructive or 
 analytic play. 3. Constructive or synthetic play. 4. Plays of 
 endurance. 5. Throwing plays. 6. Catching plays." There- 
 after follow numerous examples of these various movement- 
 plays, examples taken from different countries and ages. Some 
 of them, such as football, increase the leg radius ; others, such 
 as golf, cricket, tennis, croquet, etc., develop the arm radius. 
 But among them may be included innumerable caprices, from 
 the pitching of crockery out of window (an amusement in 
 which Goethe indulged) to the difficult and delicate catching 
 games of the Gilbert islanders. 
 
 The restlessness of the normal child offers an illustration 
 of the creative instinct active in the simplest, the most elemen- 
 tary form. The idiot, or imbecile child, is often sluggish, 
 immobile. Seguin began the education of such children by 
 movement. He exercised, mechanically, the limbs, moved the 
 arm upward and downward — spent hours in giving physical 
 training, which was, in reality, a kind of imitation of the 
 ^ normal child's spontaneous activities. And not without result, 
 r Though scientists are agreed that the children who profit least 
 ^ by education are the child of genius, at one end of the scale, 
 and the imbecile child at the other, yet an exception must be 
 made as regards mere physical training in the case of the 
 imbecile. By diligent training Seguin contrived, at last, to 
 waken the slumbering intelligence of many unfortunates. As 
 the result of mere movement — regular, long continued— blank 
 
Imagination and Movement 
 
 ^^ 
 
 eyes were lighted up with a ray of inteUigence and the creative 
 power was stimulated, so that, at last, a pupil would spontane- 
 ously exchange one movement for another. Happily, the 
 average child does not require such strenuous drilling. He 
 is very creative and inventive in movement — turns somer- 
 saults, performs feats, in the way of jumping through bars 
 and over fences, dares the ascent of all forbidden but invit- 
 ing walls, and taxes the inventive powers of his elders, who 
 strew broken glass, and fix barbed wire in vain. Even girls 
 are inventive in movement — and would be more inventive but 
 for restraint and discouragement. In a slum school I have 
 seen a girl climb on another's back and try to balance herself 
 on her shoulders. " I am surprised," said an indignant teacher; 
 " I shouldn't have believed that even a boy would do such a 
 thing ! " But girls, as well as boys, are inventive at a certain 
 age in all that concerns movement."^ 
 
 MoxQOY^r, freedom of movement appears to be during child- 
 hood a necessary condition of mental development. The 
 limits of the drill hall are beginning to be defined. Bene- 
 ficial and even necessary the formal exercises may be, and 
 yet, for the average child, and indeed for all children above 
 the stage of imbecility, the formal exercise is to free play what 
 recitation is to creation. The former can never take the place 
 of the latter. A few years ago the School Board of a northern 
 city requested its Medical Superintendent to draw up a report 
 on the children attending a certain school situated in an over- 
 crowded slum area. The Report was drawn up accordingly. 
 It furnished details on the condition of the children so far as 
 it could be determined by the observation of the movements, 
 appearance, throat, eyes, teeth, etc. Many valuable facts were 
 given, but the attention of the Committee was more especially 
 
 '' They probably suffer as much mentally as physically through not being 
 allowed to romp. Spencer's horror of the quiet ladies' school was well- 
 founded. 
 
 3 
 
34' Imagmatioii and Movement 
 
 arrested by an observation to the effect that all the children 
 were in need of free physical exercise ! It was known that 
 many of the children were newspaper vendors, and spent 
 many hours of the day in running about the streets. It was 
 also known that drill was a feature of the school, and that the 
 pupils had a good deal of marching and exercise. But all 
 this was beside the mark. The drill, was, for certain purposes, 
 worse than useless. " Free, massive movement is wanted — 
 such as running round the playing-ground " were the words 
 of the Report. 
 
 No one can teach a child all the movements which are 
 necessary for health. The most important are those which he 
 finds for himself. These spontaneous movements are not 
 merely a form of exercise — they are a condition of rest. All 
 formal work or specialized movement implies a certain degree 
 of local rest. There is a storage of energy going on in quies- 
 cent parts of the body when the energy is concentrated at a 
 certain point — in special areas of the brain. But the effect of 
 this storage is not declared till the tension is removed entirely, 
 till the child is free. Only then are the currents of energy 
 diffused. Only then can they course like loosened streams 
 through the whole system. 
 
 Thus free exercise is a taking possession of the energy laid 
 up in work as well as in rest. 
 
 This is natural recreation. 
 
 And it is sad to refxect that the children whose store is small 
 are not allowed to enter into their little possessions. 
 
 Innumerable are the movements which children make when 
 left in peace and freedom. Innumerable too are the kinds of 
 movement which even adults invent for their own pleasure. 
 The boy loves to rush down hill in his sledge. His elders love 
 to drive, ride, skate, cycle, and motor, at a furious rate. 
 They are even now spt-aking longingly of flying machines. The 
 delight in such exercise depends largely on sensory experiences 
 
Iinagiiiation and Movement 35 
 
 of a novel kind. ^'Gliding through the air in a slanting direc- 
 tion," says a German writer, " affords a new and delightful sen- 
 sation." There can be little doubt that opportunity for nezv 
 seniory experiences as well as freedom in movement is necessary 
 for the free development of the creative faculty in childhood. 
 
 The bath affords varied experiences. — Among others it 
 offers delightful sensations of touch which have drawn en- 
 raptured praises from the poets."^ 
 
 Groos quotes Moricke's beautiful verses : — 
 
 *' O Fluss ! Mein FIuss im Morgeenstrahl 
 Empfange nun, empfange 
 Den sehnsuchtvollen Leib einmal 
 Und Kiisse Brust und Wange ! 
 Er fiihlt mir schon her auf die Brust, 
 Er kl'ihlt mit Liebesschauerlust 
 Und jauchzendem Gesange. 
 
 Es schllipft der goldne Sonnenschein 
 In Tropfen an mir wider 
 Die Woge wieget aus und ein 
 Die hingegebnen Glieder, 
 Die Arme hah 'ich ausgespannt 
 Sie kommt auf mich herzugerannt 
 Sie fasst und lasst mich wilder." 
 
 The rain of new and delightful touch sensations, the strange, 
 filtered light below the surface, the undulating movement of 
 the water, its softness and yet strength as a resting-place, f 
 all make the sea and the swi«-iming l)ath a new theatre 
 of experience, a new field for the harvesting of memories. 
 
 * The tactical sensibility of the criminal has been found by Du Bois, 
 Raymond, and others to be much less than that of the normal person. 
 With this incapacity for pleasure there is, of course, a corresponding im- 
 munity from pain. Some children of criminal type show extraordinary 
 in5:ensibility in the skin. 
 
 + "There is no herl," said Captain Webb, "so soft as the ocean." 
 
36 Imagination and Movement 
 
 But the bath is also a theatre of new action. New movements 
 are necessary in ihe water. They are quickly learned by the 
 young bather and swimmer. Movements which are taught form- 
 ally in the drill-hall are learned and executed in the water intui- 
 tively or with little effort. Once the first terror is conquered the 
 teacher's task is easy. Indeed, he has no task. The children 
 go into the water and practise the new movements with even 
 greater zest than they show in scaling walls or trees. They 
 learn to inhale and (what is more difficult for town-bred chil- 
 dren) to exhale perfectly, to completely fill and also to empty 
 the lungs. They are eager to practice the side strokes, to dive, 
 to turn somersaults, to swim under water ; and over and above 
 all these movements how many gambols and feats they learn 
 almost without effort. '' If they showed the same eagerness 
 about other lessons that they show about the swimming," said 
 one head-master, wistfully, ^' teaching would be an easy matter 
 for us." 
 
 Doubtless he was right. It is not in the power, however, of 
 even the most conscientious child to determ.iLe the direction 
 in which all his creative energy shall find expression. 
 
 The great scientist who sat for da) s motionless in his chair, 
 while he elaborated his system of thought had Imagination and 
 was using it in his own way. Rousseau and many others could 
 think only when they were stretched prone on their beds — and 
 even hidden under the coverlets. 
 
 But we must be content to see the creative energy of children 
 express itself in simpler forms — largely indeed, in the simplest 
 form of all — to wit, movement. 
 
 If the young human creature is nstless, however, as restless as 
 the young animal, he does not expend all his surplus energies in 
 muscular movement. One of his most prominent character- 
 istics as distinguished from the animal is his ca;;acity for auto- 
 suggestion. Auto-suggestion is, it is true, not quite unknown in 
 
Imagination and Movement 37 
 
 the brute creation. We have all seen a dog play with a piece 
 of paper, as though it were a living thing, and a kitten make 
 believe a ball or rag was alive. But we find no parallel in the 
 animal world to the child's impulse to animate all, to find 
 something alive — something akin to himself in everything. 
 
 The primitive man, however, sees life in everything and 
 creates myths and legends to explain the phenomena of life. 
 This period of animism appears to be a necessary phase which 
 the mind of the individual as well as the race must traverse. 
 
 The period of animism endures long for the race. It is cut 
 short for the child, always under the influence as he is of 
 persons who do not share, and are in haste to correct his 
 illusions. Perhaps the grown-up people are in too much haste. 
 Children learn to reason not by suppression but by rectification. 
 The two great steps of every mental process are affirmation and 
 rectification. The child emphasizes the first, is weak in the 
 second. He seeks for analogies and resemblances, and is often 
 the victim of his own suggestions. But a child who never 
 looked for analogies or accepted them readily would not 
 learn very quickly to reason by analogy. Nor would the moral 
 nature be developed by the repression of the instinct that leads 
 him to see in everything a life analogous to his own. Sully tells 
 how as a child he used to feel very sorry for the stones lying 
 at the foot of the hill, because they never had any change of 
 air or scene. He carried some of them to the top of the hill 
 at last, in order that they might have a little pleasure. A little 
 girl pitied a rose-tree growing alone, and tried to remove it to 
 the rose garden, where all its relations lived. Even letters and 
 symbols recall living forins to children. 
 
 Now creatures who can easily believe that everything is 
 alive are, as compared with others who are content to believe 
 that most things are dead, in a very responsive condition. 
 The whole world is plastic —the whole world is indeed human, 
 up to a certain point for the little child. It does not follow 
 
^S imagination and Movement 
 
 of course that the child will view this living world sympa- 
 thetically. But as the first condition of sympathy is the con- 
 sciousness that other beings, or supposed beings, are alive and 
 can feel the illusions of the child must be held to play a part 
 in the evolution of the moral life."^ 
 
 The child is not the only person who sees life, and even 
 human life in everything. " Our Soul," said Joly, '' desires to 
 find itself anew in everything. All pleasure in art pre- 
 supposes a clear consciousness of self, and of the essential 
 laws of our own activities, and then a constant inclination to 
 imagine in all other creatures a life analogous to our own.'' 
 This desire to find the living inspires all arts. But the fine 
 arts exist only in order that the seeker may find the ear, the 
 soul of another. The scale, in music, adds nothing to the 
 human voice. It only reveals its possibilities. The " Psych- 
 ology of Instruments" is the title of a book written by one 
 musician. But the psychology of instruments is only a page 
 borrowed from the psychology of Man. Lines,! as well as 
 letters are a language, but a more intimate language than 
 letters— a language more intimately expressive of human 
 feeling.' All art, as Joly declares, pre-supposes a clear 
 consciousness of self and the assumption in all other creatures 
 of a life analogous to our own — a kinship. 
 
 It is then through art that the dumb, blind animism of 
 early childhood is transformed into the conscious love of 
 beauty and of humanity, 
 
 * That illusions play a part in the development of mental power is un- 
 deniable even in the case of the most advanced thinker. "The illusions 
 of the experimentor," said Pascal, " are a part of his force.'"' In the case of 
 the child the illusion is the postulate — the affirmation, that is to say, the 
 first step without which the second step, rectification, is impossible. 
 
 t Thus the perpendicular line, wherever we see it, signifies austerity, 
 strength. In tall trees, towering walls, etc., always the same. The 
 horizontal, in broad boughs, in level seas, low horizons, signifies always 
 calm. The waving line is the line of weakness, of youth, of the un- 
 finished, etc., etc. 
 
Imagination and Movement 39 
 
 To art childhood holds out its hands eagerly. It is true 
 that the love of beauty, the conception of beauty in the higher 
 sense does not belong to childhood. It is true that the child 
 does not yet regard art as a means of expression for the 
 highest feelings. Nevertheless the child hunger for art is 
 real and obvious. He draws, or rather writes pictures — he 
 loves tales of wonder, and adventure. He reaches forth 
 eagerly after something which, alas ! is often denied, examples 
 of movement, and models which he can imitate. He constructs 
 houses, boats, arranges toy-soldiers in ranks, plays the part ot 
 soldier, shopman, pirate, king, coachman, and preacher. This 
 period of eagerness has its parallel in the history of the Saxon 
 race. In the twelfth century, says Taine, the mental energy 
 of the people was admirable. No suffering repulsed them. 
 There is a story of a young boy who, though beaten by his 
 master was wholly bent on remaining with him that he might 
 learn. Yet all this youthful zeal and energy was quenched by 
 the dry abstractions of the schools. Even Chaucer was 
 weighed down by fetters of dead learning, by memories, not 
 of living experience, but of treatises on definitions and syl- 
 logisms, translations, copies, crudities, and absurdities of the 
 schools. Where he has experience he invents. For an 
 instant, with a sudden leap, he enters upon the observation, 
 and the genuine study of man. But no one follows him. 
 There is no fruit in the literature of that age — only useless 
 branches. And why ? Because a heavy instrument to wit 
 Scholastic Philosophy — cut the roots of the life-tree under 
 ground. 
 
 More than once in its history has the Saxon genius 
 recoiled from the methods of her primary and primitive 
 instructors. During the past thirty or forty years, many an 
 eager child and student has doubtless felt the weight of a 
 heavy instrument, that crushed the impulse to invention and 
 discounted experience. Scholasticism, routine, and mere lip- 
 
40 Imagination and Movement 
 
 learning has done for the individual what Scholastic Philosophy 
 did for the race. How should the young imagination free 
 itself? Who were its deliverers in by gone days, when the 
 people were still savages or half savages, warriors ot the 
 Heptarchy or knights of the middle ages ? When they had 
 strange emotions, tender at times, which they expressed each 
 according to his gift, some by short cries, others by con- 
 tinuous babble— exactly like children. Theirs was a state 
 resembling madness, a state in which affirmation becomes 
 hallucination. Affirmation the first step in mental activity — 
 is everything for the primitive person as for the child. The 
 second (rectification) is nothing. But the tyranny of the mind- 
 images which crowd upon one another and almost overwhelm 
 must be broken. That is the first step in elementary education. 
 The artist takes it. He can pause in the moment almost of 
 conception, and bring order out of the chaos. Chaucer's 
 poem was a painting — his tales were portraits. In drawing 
 and presenting them he went far beyond all his contemporaries. 
 He is not overwhelmed by the affirmations or suggestions of 
 his own fancy. He rectified. In him for the first time appears 
 a superiority of intellect, which at the instant of conception 
 suddenly halts, rises above itself, passes judgment, and says 
 to itself, "This phrase tells the same thing as the last — 
 remove it — these two ideas are disjointed, reconsider it. . . 
 He can extract from every object, landscape, situation, 
 character, the special and significant marks, so as to group 
 and arrange them, to compose on artificial work which sur- 
 passes the natural work in its purity and completeness." 
 What a relief for the headlong reader or learner is implied 
 in this clearing of a path, this winning of successive victories 
 over the tyranny of mind images ! 
 
 This is art, but this is also primitive education — a training 
 for thinking — the beginning already of clear consecutive 
 thought. 
 
Imagination and Movement 41 
 
 Here too is the antidote for the over activity of the inner 
 world which brings forth dreadful shapes, monstrous forms, 
 as of uneasy sleepers. The objective arts, are the arts in 
 which the imagination projects itself. In them we deal not 
 with the residues of sentiment but of sensation. Images 
 occupy a position between the concrete and the abstract. 
 The plastic image descends to the point of origin. It deals 
 with the concrete, the external. The general character of the 
 plastic imagination is easily determinable. Its material 
 consists of visual, motor, and tactual images. These are the 
 raw material of painting, drawing, modelling, architecture, and 
 of all the minor decorative arts. Another form of the same 
 Order of imagination employs words to evoke impressions of 
 vision, contact and movement — as in the word portraits of 
 Chaucer, the tales of the romancer and above all, of the realist. 
 But the most complete form of the plastic imagination is to 
 be found in mechanical invention where the worker is dealing 
 continually with representations of the qualities and relations 
 of external things, and dependent for success on the fidelity 
 of the image to reality. In this form it is drawing near to 
 the imagination of the scientist who discounts personal im- 
 pression, and finds the ' personal equation ' merely an incon- 
 venience and a trouble. In plastic art "temperament" is 
 still much. Nevertheless even the material of the child who 
 deals with clay, colour, etc., consists of images which are a 
 revival of perception. The objective arts, however we view 
 them, lead ouhvard towards the attainment of images ' im- 
 pregnated with reality.' 
 
 The subjective imagination finds its material in images that 
 owe comparatively little to objective reality. Moreover it uses 
 its materials freely — its working is illustrated in reverie, in . 
 myths, hallucinations, in symbolism for a subjective use of 
 words, etc) and in a certain way of dealing with number (the 
 series of number is indefinite in either direction, and therefore 
 
4^ Imagination and Movement 
 
 opens the way to certain forms of untrammelled speculation.) 
 In all these forms of subjective imagination the creative power 
 appears to be untrammelled in its movement. But the great 
 subjective art is music. The musician lives in an inner world 
 but not in a world of mere chaos or unregulated movement. 
 He evolves a system of coherent tone-images where 
 every element has its place and value. He attains to a know- 
 ledge of the relationship, of intervals, accords, rhythms, etc., 
 and these constitute for him an expressive and accurate 
 language, in comparison with which speech itself is obscure 
 and unintelligible. Subjective art then is the regulator, as 
 objective art is the corrective of the inner world. The Greeks 
 appreciated the value and function of either order of art. 
 They recognised in music one of the most important instru- 
 ments of social and ethical culture. The extraordinary 
 development of this art in modern days seems to have 
 carried it beyond the pale of the elementary teacher, and 
 yet its office and function is unchanged."^ It is still the great 
 art of the interior or subjective imagination, and as such 
 must be regarded as of potentially great use in education. 
 
 Children betray their subjection to the inner imagination in 
 their capacity for illusion, in animism. But the development 
 of music (the art of the inner world) is the most precocious of 
 all. The average child, has undoubtedly a great suscepti- 
 bility to voices, and inflections, and a great power of inter- 
 preting these, even while he is still in his cradle. On the 
 other hand, children strive to express themselves objectively^ 
 
 * As the Art of Music developes its moral function is ohscured. *' Greek 
 Music," says Mahaffy, " had a much greater national importance than ours, 
 because it was far ruder and less developed . . . The moral effects of 
 music are everywhere felt until it becomes developed and complicated. 
 Then the pursuit of perfection and the overcoming of technical difficulties 
 become ends in themselves." The singing of children is unimpassioned, 
 but strangely touching. Even in singing complicated or unsuitable things 
 choirs of child-voices have an emotional quahty that is very infectious and 
 peculiar to them. 
 
imagination and Movement 43 
 
 inventing plays, or acting characters, covering their books and 
 even the walls with drawings, etc. 
 
 In short the creative energy of childhood seeks to express 
 itself in forays which represent the inner and the outer world, 
 and in this double effort the animism of early childhood is 
 transformed. Sanity and health depend on the regular alterna- 
 tion of these two movements — the regulating inner movement 
 and the corrective outer movement. Artists appear to lose 
 this alternation at times — as for example, Charlotte Bronte, 
 who wrote certain chapters of "Jane Eyre," with complete 
 abandonment to the impulses of the inner woild— and then 
 retired to a bed of sickness for some days. In cases of in- 
 sanity there is no return—that is to say, no alternation. 
 The madman lives permanently in the inner world of illusion 
 which he has created, and which for him is invested with 
 objective reality. Even in the average man, and in the race 
 alternation is not always regular — indeed it may be doubted 
 whether it is ever even and balanced. We cannot look back on 
 the history of our own race without perceiving that men were 
 once under the influence of their subjective life to a greater 
 degree than now. Witches were burned, having confessed their 
 guilt before martyrdom. Epidemics of superstition were 
 common and every pleasant phantasy was open to be em- 
 braced as truth. This inner tumult was followed by a sudden 
 development of Art. To-day the whole movement of the 
 imagination is outward — even the impulse given by educa- 
 tion to young children is (if not always very conscious, 
 or sure in method) towards the objectification, the 
 materialization even of the creative power. A voice is raised 
 now and again in protest. Stanley Hall, as we have already 
 remarked, declares that at a certain age "reverie should be 
 provided for.'' This is but a voice in the wilderness however. 
 The minds of even little ones are kept busy with objective 
 elements— elements concerned, that is to say, not with scnti- 
 
44 Imagination and Alovenient 
 
 ment, but with sensation. The object-lesson has become 
 important. The eye, the outward looking organ is taxed. 
 Finally, in laboratories and work-shops the whole mind is 
 occupied with objective realities. If alternation was broken in 
 favour of the inner world in bye-gone days, it is obvious that the 
 process is now reversed. Formerly men were continually ap- 
 proaching a condition which resembled madness. Now — they 
 are in danger of drying up the very well-springs of the intel- 
 lectual life, of projecting all, and recognizing no point or place 
 for return. 
 
 Nevertheless the normal child still strives to express through 
 arts that are largely complimentary the double movement of 
 the mind. The inner world has still power over him. The 
 outer world' calls him continually. He has sense-perception^ 
 he accumulates memories — he experiences emotion — and with 
 these requisites of creative energy he begins to work, that 
 is to say, with these he is capable of education. 
 
 But before going any farther it is necessary to say a 
 few words about what we may call the raw material of creative 
 energy. Without more or less keen sense-perception, memory, 
 and emotion, there can be no imagination. As a preliminary 
 we must devote a little attention to eyes, ears, memory, and 
 emotion. 
 
 Eyes 
 
 The eye does not see. < It is only the organ of vision. In 
 its retina are contained the rods and cones which are the 
 essential sight elements. The light entering the eyeball 
 through the pupils impinges on the cones, and is transmitted 
 to the optic nerve and thence on to the large area of the 
 brain which is known as the visual centre. It is there that 
 vision takes place. 
 
 The eye then is an instrument, an instrument which is 
 
Imagination and Movement 45 
 
 perfected gradually — it has been said that it is far from 
 perfect at the best— and which its possessor learns to use but 
 slowly. It is, indeed, par excellence the instrument of adapta- 
 tion, and its proper use is a matter of training. The training 
 does not necessarily take place in schools. Schools are not 
 ideal places for eye-training. The more important kinds of 
 eye-training are carried on in the fields. The eye requires 
 not only light but vista. 
 
 How important this natural eye-training is, we may gather 
 from the condition of those who, from eye disease, are obliged 
 to remain a long time in the dark. To take a single in- 
 stance. Professor Harvey injured his eyes through work with 
 the microscope. He had to spend nine months in a dark 
 room, and then seventeen months in a partially darkened 
 place, which was made a little brighter every day towards 
 the end so as to avoid too rapid transition into ordinary 
 daylight. But when at last the eyes were cured, and Professor 
 Harvey came back to live in the light he found that he had 
 'forgotten hozv to see. He could no longer measure distances. 
 Objects that were far off appeared to him close, and vice versa. 
 And he could not distinguish colours. In short, he had to 
 learn to see all over again. 
 
 Natural eye-training begins almost from the first day. For 
 from the first a child makes instinctive eye-movements — 
 opens the eyes and closes them — and these automatic move- 
 ments are indispensable for the development of the visual 
 sense. Blind at first, he begins to distinguish light from 
 darkness, to follow bright moving objects, to judge distances. 
 Many infants at school turn the head in order to follow move- 
 ments without moving the eyes at all. The child's sight at 
 this period of life — that is to say during early childhood — is 
 hypermetropic, or adapted for seeing distant objects. It is what 
 we call long sight. In this the young child's eye resembles 
 that of the savage. 
 
46 Imaginalioii and Movement 
 
 In hypermetropia (long sight) rays are brought to a focus 
 not on the return, but behind it. This condition is natural in 
 childhood, since the eye, which was quite flat in ihe embryo, 
 is still short from before backwards — is still, in fact, a little 
 flattened. But this narrow eye, suitable for seeing distant 
 objects, is not adapted to modern requirements. In bye- 
 gone days books were rare, and people learned and com- 
 municated largely by word of mouth or through public speech 
 and announcement. To-day all that is changed. We live under 
 a rain of periodicals, and learn mainly through the exercise 
 of the visual sense. Children share these altered conditions 
 with us. They, too, have periodicals, and a literature conse- 
 crated to them, and in schools much eye work is required of 
 them. And as a consequence of all this. Nature appears, to 
 quote an eminent oculist, to be evolving a new type of human 
 eye to suit altered conditions. 
 
 To be sure there are places in Britain where the new type 
 of eye is little known, or where it is unnecessary to engage 
 specialists for the safety of the visual organ of the average 
 child. In the western islands, for example, you may walk 
 with striplings whose keen far-glancing eyes look into the blue 
 vista of sea and sky detecting the far-off" sail, and watching 
 the movements of groups of persons to you invisible ! "^ Reared 
 in the out-posts of civilization, on bare islands which from 
 every hill and ridge command the blue shining horizons of 
 the sea these young islanders have still the primitive eye of 
 less studious generations with whom the question of over- 
 crowding was never very much to the front. These, however, 
 form but a small minority of our school-going children. 
 
 That which we may be allowed to call the " modern " eye, 
 
 is an eye adapted for close range rather than for distance. It 
 
 *" Probably this keen perception is not eniircly due to the superiority of the 
 eye. The young islanders interpret signs nnd movements that the stranger 
 does not look for, and thus sees what appears to he invisible to the stranger, 
 but is in reality unnoticed. 
 
Imagination and Movement 47 
 
 has been evolved — as every other organ has been evolved — by 
 exercise, by the particular stimulus supplied by environment. 
 If we look at a distant object, and then at a book at about 
 ten inches distance, we instinctively accommodate our vision 
 to see the type, which means that we exercise the ciliary 
 muscle. This exercise of the ciliary muscle for the vision of a 
 close object stretches the eye, which becomes longer from before 
 backwards. If it is carried on long, we get the modern eye — 
 the long myopic eye, adapted for the vision of things at close 
 range. 
 
 In between these two extremes — the hypermetropic (long- 
 sighted) eye and the myopic (short-sighted) — we get what we 
 may call the normal or ideal eye. Nearly all children are 
 approaching this during the whole of their school life. But 
 they do not all reach it. Many miss it, and progress 
 through the '' turnstile of defect," as one doctor puts it, from 
 hypermetropia into high myopia ! Unfortunately, nearly all 
 eyes in highly civilised communities, irrespective of their 
 length, are in some degree defective. The focus, whether it 
 be in front of the retina, as in the " modern " eye, or behind 
 the retina, as in the flattened short eye, is unequal for the 
 various parts, so that there is no harmony in vision — the sight 
 is irregular. Thus by defect and misfortune a child may 
 develop myopia without reaching normal vision in the pro- 
 cess. There are short cuts enough to every calamity. 
 
 Here is a table, drawn up by Erisman, of St. Petersburg, 
 who was the first to point out that a large proportion of 
 hypermetropic (long sighted) school children become myopic 
 (short-sighted) : — ■ 
 
 Classes. 
 
 Per cent. I. 
 
 Hypermetropic 68 
 
 Normal 19 
 
 Myopic , 14 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 56 . 
 
 • 50 • 
 
 . 41 . 
 
 • 35 . 
 
 . 34 . 
 
 • 32 
 
 28 . 
 
 . 26 . 
 
 . 27 . 
 
 . 26 . 
 
 . 24 . 
 
 • 25 
 
 16 . 
 
 . 22 . 
 
 . 21 . 
 
 . 38 . 
 
 . 41 . 
 
 . 42 
 
48 Imagination and Movement 
 
 You see, in looking at this table, that the sight of the 
 children improves as you rise from class to class. It looks, 
 at first, as if school-life improved the vision. As a matter of 
 fact the eye develops because the child is at the period of 
 growth and development. Most children are born hyperme- 
 tropic, but as they grow older they approach nearer and 
 nearer to normal vision. As already stated a considerable 
 number, however, pass the line and become slightly myopic, 
 and from these the myopic class of the future is recruited. 
 
 The investigations of more recent experts give practically 
 the same results as those found in Erisman's table. Once 
 every year in Bradford schools, when the light is fairly 
 constant during the day, the vision of the children is tested by 
 the copying of letters of a standard type. These block types 
 are arranged to be suitable for any distance from ten to twenty 
 feet. The test card is hung in a fair light, and the nearest 
 horizontal distance in feet from the card to each row of desks 
 is measured by the teachers. Paper sheets are distributed to 
 the children, who are then told to fill in on the sheet all the 
 letters on the card, and where they cannot distinguish a letter 
 to make a cross. Before beginning, however, each child 
 writes at the top of his paper his name in full, and also his 
 age, standard, school, and the distance (as told him by his 
 teacher) of his desk from the test-card. Thus, when the 
 papers are collected, the medical superintendent obtains a 
 record of name, age, sex, standard, school, etc., as well as 
 evidence of the acuity (sharpness) of vision. 
 
 Age Last Birthday. 
 
 Percentage with^j Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. 
 
 visual acuity I47 '8.. 35 7.. .28 -3... 24 -6... 24-5... 19*9 19-3 i8-8. ... 
 
 defective. ) 
 
 This table shows, like Erisman's, the improvement which is 
 in reality only natural development. At the age of ten or 
 
Imagination and Movement 49 
 
 eleven the majority of children attain to normal vision. But 
 a large number develop slight myopia, which in the case of 
 students, at least, tends to develop rapidly. Mr. Priestley 
 Smith's examination shows that 20 per cent, of the Birming- 
 ham teachers are myopic, and this result agrees very well with 
 that obtained by Dr. Kerr, formerly of Bradford, who found 
 that myopia increased steadily between the ages of fifteen and 
 nineteen, so that the percentage of myopia among pupil 
 teachers at nineteen in Bradford was 21 per cent. 
 
 We are not here concerned with the vision of young people 
 of ninteen except in so far as it is the result of habits induced 
 in childhood. We are here dealing wdth children. And well 
 may we ask ourselves. What is the cause — not of their de- 
 fective vision, for their defects are natural — but of their de- 
 teriorating vision? Does it lie in the schools? Not entirely. 
 The effects of school life on vision are probably exaggerated 
 — serious as those effects are. For we have evidence to show 
 that, though country children attend schools, which are inferior 
 to town schools in the matters of lighting, seating accom- 
 modation, etc., yet country children suffer less from eye defects 
 than town children of the same age."^ This points to the true, 
 or rather the great cause of deteriorating vision. It is first of all 
 banishment from the wide horizon of the open country or sea, 
 the lack of eye-space. It is alarming to find how quickly and 
 fatally the narrow horizon tells on the vision. Cohn, who 
 has made such extensive investigations, assures us that the 
 narrower the street the larger the number of myopes you will 
 find therein. Dr. Seggell found among soldiers recruited 
 from the country only 2 per cent, myopic (short-sighted). 
 
 *Percentagk with Defective Vision in Town and Suburban 
 Schools, Bradford. 
 
 
 ir. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Percenlage wilh^l Town . . 
 
 36 . 
 
 • Z'^ • 
 
 . 24 . 
 
 . 21 . 
 
 . 16 
 
 Defective Vision j Counlry. 
 
 26 . 
 
 • 23 . 
 
 . 16 . 
 
 . 15- 
 
 • IS 
 
 4 
 
50 Imagination and Movement 
 
 Among soldiers recruited from the towns he found from 4 per 
 cent, myopic up to 9 per cent, in the more croivded areas of 
 big cities."^ 
 
 All this is very serious, particularly when we remember 
 that myopia is transmitted by heredity, and also that the 
 myopic eye is exposed to many dangers and evils from which 
 the normal eye is exempt. 
 
 Educational authorities cannot remove all the causes, cannot 
 remove even the main causes of eye deterioration. For the 
 main causes are narrow streets, bad air, the want of good 
 food (no organ is more dependent on the general health than 
 the eye), overcrowded and unwholesome sleeping-rooms. 
 Nevertheless, there are many things which educational 
 authorities can do, and a few of these we may now enumerate. 
 To begin with, town schools should be built, if possible, in the 
 midst of a large open space, or, if that is impossible, in a wide 
 street, where some vista of sky at least is visible. The windows 
 should be large. In the ideal school the window area should 
 equal one fourth of the floor space. That is much, but it is 
 not too much, and no inch of this window space should be 
 wasted. Much window space is wasted or ineffective to-day, 
 because, in making additions to buildings, walls are placed 
 over against windows. There are other ways, too, of wasting 
 window space. In Germany, Cohn found that from 30 to 50 
 per cent, of the window area in schools was lost through 
 architectural embellishments. The manager built beautiful 
 Gothic windows. English clerks-of-works are too practical to 
 fall into this error. 
 
 * It is worthy of mention too, that girls (though more exempt from 
 diseases of the eye than boys) suffer more from defective vision. This may 
 be partly because of the lack of outdoor games and the long vision exercise 
 implied in this. But there is no doubt that sewing in infant schools and 
 early standards is still responsible for mischief. True, the code now insists 
 on large stitches, large stitches however must still be made at a close range. 
 It is not the size of the stitches, but the closeness of the range which is now 
 the evil factor. 
 
Lnaginatioii and Movement 51 
 
 Skylights furnish admirable diffused light, but up to the 
 present the Board of Education has prohibited them. The 
 objection to them is, of course, that in summer they make a 
 room uncomfortably hot, but this can be met partly, by simple 
 arrangements of blinds, etc. An occasional inconvenience of 
 this kind is not to be weighed against the evil of keeping 
 children in semi-dark rooms, where the vitaHty is lowered 
 through lack of the powerful stimulus of sunlight. In former 
 days — when sun-baths and light-cures were not known — and 
 when health was believed to reside in medicine chests, dim 
 and even dingy schoolrooms were permissible. We have 
 these dingy rooms still — a heritage of the past. But all the 
 schools of the past were in so far as we are concerned, experi- 
 mental. There is no need to copy their defects. 
 
 Light from the front should be avoided, as there is no more 
 exhausting eye-ordeal than the facing of this continual dazzle. 
 Light from the back or from the right produces annoying 
 shadows. The desks and seats should be so arranged that 
 the light comes from the left of the pupils at work. The wall 
 surfaces, furniture, and curtains should be all of light colour, 
 without glaze, so as to diffuse light about the room. The 
 terra-cotta, which is preferred by many as a *' warm " colour, 
 absorbs too much light, and should be deposed in favour of 
 soft, light grays, etc. ; and the place of the dark fittings might 
 be taken by light-coloured woods even in towns, where smuts 
 abound. For after all everything betrays, even if it does not 
 show, the dirt that rests on it. Dirty light wood is preferable 
 in a school to dirty dark wood. Indeed, there is nothing more 
 depressing than the dirt upon dinginess of some rooms where 
 children have to pass their days. 
 
 Passing now to the question of seating accommodation, we 
 have to remark that the ideal system of seats is single chairs. 
 Every child in a class should be treated as an individual and 
 have his own seat, a seat moreover which fits him, and is not 
 
Iinao-ination and Movement 
 
 "%?> 
 
 intended for a person of twice his years. Sometimes you may 
 see a class of children with their feet dangling many inches 
 from the floor. When they lean forward to the desks in 
 order to write, they have to raise the elbow, get the balance 
 of the body out of gear, and bring the work closer to one eye 
 as compared with the other. The evil effects of this practice 
 were evident to teachers even in the dark days of *• payment 
 by results." And more than one head master brought out a 
 scheme of vertical, or almost vertical, handwriting. These 
 efforts were praiseworthy, and the need for reform of one 
 kind or another urgent enough. Eulenburg says that 90 per 
 cent, of the cases of spine curvatures, not induced by local 
 disease, are developed during school life. More important, 
 however, than any system of vertical handwriting is the 
 introduction of seats and desks w^hich make right posture 
 inevitable. 
 
 The desk and seat should lit the child w^ho uses it. It is 
 because his desk does not fit him that he raises his elbows, 
 pushes up one shoulder, looks sideways at his work and gets 
 into extraordinary attitudes. The teachers observing the 
 attitude, laid the blame on the sloping handwriting. But the 
 sloping handwriting itself was an effect rather than a cause. 
 Vertical handwriting at a badly constructed desk is just as 
 injurious an exercise as sloping writing at the same desk. 
 What is wanted i§ a desk where the pupil may write without 
 raising the elbow. The desk should be broad enough to hold 
 the book or slate, not broad enough to allow of the child's 
 tilting it on one side. The slope should be about 14". The 
 edge of the seat and desk should overlap about an inch. The 
 height of the seat should, of course, be such that the child's 
 feet should rest on the floor. On such a seat, and at such a 
 desk, vertical writing and upright posture would follow as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 In Bradford, the children are divided into three height 
 
Imagination and Movement 53 
 
 groups, and certain actual dimensions in seats and desks are 
 recommended for these, and answer very well. They might 
 not answer so well in other districts, for children of like age 
 vary a great deal in various parts of the country. 
 
 Infants. Standards. 
 
 Standard Standard Standard 
 Babies. Infants. I. & II. III. & IV. V. & VI. 
 Inches. Inches. Inches. Inches. Inches. 
 
 Height of children . . 38 .. 42 .... 45 . . 50 • • 55 
 Height of desk edge 
 
 above seats .... 6 . . 7^ . . • . 8 . . 8^ . . 9^ 
 Height of seat from 
 
 floor 9 .. II .... 12.J ..14 ..16 
 
 Size of seats iix8 . ...11x9.. 11x9. .iixio 
 
 Size of back rests . . 8x5 .... 8x5!.. 8x5^ 
 
 And now to recapitulate. 
 
 All fine work such as is involved in embossing, needle 
 threading, pricking, etc., should be banished from the infant 
 school. Ruled paper and slates, copy and drawing-books 
 ruled in fine squares should be abolished. If needles (however 
 large) can go along with them so much the better. As for 
 reading, the teaching of this subject may be made a means of 
 training the vision. But this cannot be done if books are in 
 use, for children cannot hold a book at the right distance ; 
 involuntarily they will bring it near the eyes, and even rest it 
 on the chest when they are weary. Reading should be learned, 
 therefore, with the aid of frames and boards set at a distance^ 
 and the only writing permitted should be done at arm's length 
 — sometimes out before the class. Early childhood is a time 
 of opportunities, of opportunities that do not recur — a vital 
 and momentous period in human education. But it is not 
 the period of fine movements, of accuracy, letters, and books. 
 
 The question of the lighting of schools, and the form and 
 size of desks should have an important place in school hygiene. 
 
54 hnagination and Movement 
 
 and the question of vista., or room for eye exercise also. And 
 yet the percentage of defect of vision appears to vary more with 
 the social conditions of the children than with any school 
 conditions. School life, where it makes demands on the 
 eye through fine work, throws a strain on the nervous system. 
 But home conditions are after all mainly responsible for eye 
 disease, and largely for eye defects. This last fact is made 
 very clear in a table contained in Dr. Kerr's last Report of 
 the London Schools. The general figures from a number 
 of schools in different neighbourhoods, representing various 
 home conditions, are given. The Higher Grade schools, repre- 
 senting the best home conditions in their localities, have the 
 smallest percentage of defective vision. The crowded neigh- 
 bourhoods, with no wide thoroughfares, and peopled by a poor 
 class of people have the highest. The individual, in every one 
 of his members (and particularly in the higher organs), feels the 
 stress and strain of existence. On the integrity of these 
 higher organs his future largely depends. On the eye we 
 depend largely for the correction of the inner life. But this 
 natural discipline is prevented in the case of at least ten per 
 cent, of the child population to a more or less serious extent, 
 largely, through poverty, and the influences of an unfavourable 
 environment. Disease is always ready to attack the body, as 
 madness is always at the door of the mind. And the higher 
 the organ the more numerous the favourable conditions that 
 must be united to ensure its victory — that is to say, its health. 
 The strength and sanity of human beings has been compared 
 to the prize of freedom gained by the slave who had to 
 traverse the arena carrying aloft an egg, and marching between 
 glutted lions. The prize was granted if he arrived safely. But 
 how many chances were against him ! We must admit that 
 man arrives, however, at reason, and intelligence, and health 
 in an amazing number of cases. Victory, or comparative 
 victory, is achieved by so many that we are apt to over-look the 
 
Imagination and Movement 55 
 
 enemies and destroyers altogether. When we glance at the poor 
 of our big cities we are reminded of them. It appears that 
 the beguining of the journey is the most critical part of it. Go 
 among the children of poverty, and you will see many that 
 promised well — who had a fair heritage to begin with. And 
 yet it is lost. Bad feeding, wrong feeding during the first nine 
 months ruins thousands. Many infants are done to death by 
 wrong foods ; others survive, but become a burden to them- 
 selves and to others. Later, the question of food settles many 
 other questions — decides not only whether there will be sound 
 teeth and bones, but whether memory, imagination, and will, 
 can ever be cultivated. Poverty, ignorance, anxiety, fatigue — 
 all these, like lions, threaten the advancing steps of thousands 
 of little ones. Many fall. For many more the whole march is 
 a struggle and the victor arrives at manhood, mauled and 
 weakened, rescuing but half of the prize. 
 
 The Ear 
 
 We have now to consider another sense-organ — one which 
 has been, perhaps, more neglected than the eye, and in which 
 disease and weakness often progress rapidly without attracting 
 much attention. Even the most careless parents take some 
 account of the eye — go out of their way to declare, for example, 
 that "they don't believe in spectacles," or perhaps announce 
 (if the case is a bad one) that they are " clean agin' operations." 
 But the deaf child's infirmity is too often regarded as a 
 purely mental and moral one, and the parent will often seek 
 to counteract it by remonstrance and shouting. The visual 
 sufferer is the more bereft : the aural the more unhappy. 
 
 In many animals the outer ear is large, and acts as an ear- 
 trumpet, gathering the sound waves. It is mobile, too, as 
 you may see from observing the ears of horses and dogs. But 
 the human external ear is small. The muscles once concerned 
 
56 Imagination and Movement 
 
 ill its movements have fallen into disuse. And the outer ear 
 itself is quite unimportant, from the utilitarian point of view, 
 for its total loss would not affect the hearing. It has its uses 
 still to be sure. There is perhaps no other organ, not except- 
 ing the eye, which gives clearer indications of the character of 
 hidden structures. Nevertheless, even the small regularly- 
 . formed human ear of the highest type of human creature is 
 simply an ornament. Like a shell, which the tides of life have 
 modelled and left, it is a thing of wonder and joy for the artist 
 and lover of beauty and it is nothing more. 
 
 Some creatures have wonderful ears without the ornament. 
 "If you blow gently," said a correspondent to Ruskin, *'on 
 the feathers of the side of a bird's head a little below and 
 behind the eye, the parted feathers will show the listening 
 place, a little hole with convolutions of delicate skin turning 
 inwards. No one who looks at the little hole could fail to see 
 that it is an ear highly organised — an ear for music." Well, 
 behind the small human ''ornament" there is an even more 
 highly organised ear — a marvellous series of fine structures 
 and air galleries, of vestibules and labyrinths, so involved, so 
 exposed, and so interdependent that we may safely say there 
 is no other organ which runs so many risks as the ear. 
 
 In the last chapter we saw that the eye is an organ of light 
 and space, that where vista of sky and wide horizon is denied, 
 it becomes a semi-atrophied thing. But if the eye is the organ 
 of space, the ear is, par excellence, the organ of air. Where- 
 ever living creatures are penned in a close atmosphere there 
 the ear suffers, and the hearing fails. Wherever they are free 
 in a pure atmosphere and furnished with good breathing 
 apparatus, there we find sound and song and all the joys of 
 hearing. The bird, disposing of air as he wills, breathing it 
 through air passages below the skin (which are as supplementary 
 lungs to him), emptying himself of it as he dives into the 
 water, swelling to the breeze as he mounts, the air currents 
 
Imagination and Movement 57 
 
 flowing within as well as around him, has been such a perfect 
 symbol of joy and freedom to us that we have given the angels 
 wings, and assumed their chief occupation to be singing ! 
 Persons who have enjoyed the education that can be had only 
 from Nature — are bound to connect sweet sounds with a pure 
 atmosphere : whisper of w^ind in the ferns, flowing of water and 
 warbling of birds — all Nature's symphonies are played out- 
 under the free, blue sky. 
 
 But not only are the joys of hearing associated with purity of 
 atmosphere. 
 
 The quality and range of hearing depends largely on the 
 quality and amount of air any given creature can breathe, and 
 also on his power over the air — his power to control, and to 
 expel it. But this very power to control and expel depends 
 very largely on the integrity of the organ of hearing — the 
 freedom of all vents and openings. 
 
 To take an example. Just at the point where throat and 
 nose meet is the trumpet-mouth of the eustachian tube, the 
 drainage canal and ventilator of the middle ear. Now any 
 swelling or enlargement in that region will mean pressure 
 against and closure of the trumpet-mouth. And then the 
 sufferer will be deaf, not through the ear, but through the 
 throat. 
 
 Or now let us suppose that the nasal passages are stopped 
 up or inflamed. Then you will again have interruption and 
 failure, such as you might expect if some of the vents of any 
 wind instruments were blocked up. 
 
 The ear, we see is not an isolated organ. It is a very 
 dependent organ— dependent on all the others — but more 
 especially dependent on those that have anything immediately 
 to do with the air. Any swelling, inflammation, or disease in 
 the breathing organs will stop up the ear-openings, silence all 
 the music. And what is even more serious, the ear does not 
 recover so quickly and entirely as do many other organs. In 
 
58 Imagination and Movement 
 
 its delicate labyrinths and vestibules the traces of disease linger 
 like a trail in the wood. Typhoid, scarlatina, diphtheria, mumps, 
 tuberculosis, measles — these, as many mothers know to their 
 cost, will not allow the ears to escape. Even the simple *'cold 
 in the head" departs not without leaving its trace. Many 
 people are deaf for months as the result of a cold. And we 
 all seem to realise this in a sub-conscious kind of way. *' I 
 was glad to escape with my ears," said a girl in the tram 
 yesterday. If she was alluding to an illness, she had indeed 
 good cause to congratulate herself on escaping '* with her ears," 
 for very few ever do that. One third of all adults are deaf to a 
 considerable degree in one or both ears. There is a disability of 
 one ear in 10 per cent, of young children. And a large pro- 
 portion of town children are collar-bone breathers — many, as 
 we shall see presently, being mouth breathers. 
 
 Glance round any large class and you will probably see one 
 or two children with the mouth open. Why do they keep the 
 mouth open? In order to breathe. But the mouth is not 
 the natural organ for breathing, nor is it furnished with the 
 necessary appliances. For example, the nose is lined with 
 fine hairs which prevent the passage of many deadly germs 
 into the throat. But the mouth has no cilia. It lets the 
 germs pass through unimpeded. Yes, but the mouth-breather's 
 nose is stopped up. What is the child to do if one necessary 
 vent is closed ? He must, of course, open another. It is of 
 no use to say to such a child *'keep your mouth closed." He 
 must breathe as he can. To be sure he is liable to catch 
 many diseases — much more liable to catch any infectious 
 illness than his brother, who breathes in the normal way. 
 Then the breathing itself is badly done. He cannot breathe 
 in freely, he is still more powerless to breathe out again. And 
 as for his ears^-well, we know that one vent will not take 
 the place of another where they are concerned. Sound 
 is a matter of vents in the right place; that is to say, of 
 
Imagination and Movement 59 
 
 form. The mouth-breather is deaf, still he must breathe as 
 he can. 
 
 He is deaf, also troublesome (as a rule) and stupid. The 
 dullness is induced, not natural. But it is real. The deafest 
 children in a school are the stupidest. With their pinched 
 noses, open mouths, dull eyes, and distressed foreheads, the 
 mouth-breathers look stupid, and the teacher has trouble with 
 them. Nor need we wonder. The fewer our impressions, 
 the narrower the range of our life, and the smaller means 
 have we for interpreting aright the impressions we do receive. 
 However, apart Irom all this, the mouth-breather is in no 
 condition for mental work. The power of thought, as well as 
 the power of flight, depends on air and breathing. For by 
 deep breathing the brain in supplied with oxygenated blood. 
 But this child's brain is impoverished. He sinks, when left 
 to himself, into stupor. You may see him asleep, sometimes, 
 with his head on his arm, and his arm on the desk — a sorrow- 
 ful enough example of modern *' child-culture." 
 
 It would be pleasant to think that in our island home, with 
 its wind-swept moors, its coasts ^'gay with dancing flocks 
 of sea-birds on the foam," this distressed little mouth-breather 
 was a rarity. But his name is Legion. Sometimes he manages 
 to keep his mouth fairly well shut, and you don't discover 
 him, even though you are looking for him. Here are two 
 tables showing the percentage of mouth-breathers in two 
 Bradford schools. The examination was made on fine sunny 
 days in June, when the number of temporary colds was at its 
 lowest : — 
 
6o 
 
 Imagination and Movement 
 
 Total 
 
 Numbers 
 
 Seen. 
 
 Age 
 
 last 
 
 Birthday. 
 
 Obvious Mouth- Breathers. 
 
 Number 
 selected as 
 
 Obvious 
 Mouth- 
 Breathers. 
 
 Both 
 Nostrils 
 Blocked. 
 
 One 
 Nostril 
 Blocked. 
 
 Enlarged 
 Glands. 
 
 189 
 
 137 
 126 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 31 
 9 
 9 
 
 9 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 17 
 
 I 
 6 
 
 452 
 
 
 49 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 24 
 
 So much for the victims discovered at the first glance, as it 
 were. There were others who appeared normal, btit more 
 careful examination showed that they were suffering from 
 obstructions. 
 
 Total 
 
 Children 
 
 Seen. 
 
 Age 
 
 last 
 
 Birthday. 
 
 Apparently Normal Children. 
 
 Number 
 Selected. 
 
 Both 
 Nostrils 
 Blocked. 
 
 One 
 Nostril 
 Blocked. 
 
 Habitual 
 Mouth- 
 Breathers. 
 
 189 
 137 
 126 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 158 
 128 
 117 
 
 5 
 2 
 
 7 
 I 
 
 19 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 452 
 
 
 403 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 24 
 
 From these tables we see that mouth-breathing is not a 
 rare thing, but very common. It is so common that we have 
 reason to fear that few escape entirely. Few "with their 
 ears," with quick, keen sense of hearing. As for the mouth- 
 breather, the first thing to be done for him is to remove the 
 growths that impede the air passage. A simple treatment 
 will do this. And it is very interesting to see how, with their 
 
Iinaoination and Movement 6i 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 disappearance the child gets a new lease of life and develops 
 rrpidly. Like a bird with a broken wing he was perhaps for 
 years. And now, like the same bird with the pinion healed, 
 he begins a new life in the open, is no longer behind the 
 others. The teacher often says, " Formerly he was stupid, now 
 he is opening out wonJerfuUy." Without the treatment he will 
 pass through his school days as a weakling, and probably 
 become very deaf in later Hfe. 
 
 The larger question is, of course, how to prevent such 
 painful and humiliating ailments. And the answer is "Live 
 in good air." Breathe it well, and exhale it well also, for in 
 this, as in other things, much depends upon exercise. And as 
 people breathe deeply when they are moving freely — when 
 they are jumping, running, fencing, swimming, climbing, play- 
 ing — we should see that children romp in the open air, if 
 possible, play polo in the water, etc. If necessary, breathing 
 drill should be given in the schools. Only the air must be pure. 
 Otherwise the better the children breathe it the worse for them. 
 
 For, of courst?, it is folly to open a door wide only in order 
 to admit an enemy. The collar-bone breathing, or breathing 
 with the top of the chest, so common with town children, was 
 in the first instance preventive. Nature closed the door on 
 the enemy- -bad air. But the doors of the ears cannot be 
 closed with impunity. For they are the doors of life, and the 
 entrance of power is through them. What weakness — and 
 also what violence and discord— attends their partial closing ! 
 Our schools, full of young girls and children, should be real 
 nests of music. They are not nests of music. Side by side 
 with deafness there are shouting and discordant voices. But 
 the habit of real restraint is not formed. Susceptibility is there 
 — for children will appreciate keenly any new voice, and turn 
 quickly to listen to its inflections even when they have quite 
 ceased to be fastidious about the voices of the people around 
 them. They listen with pleasure to sweet singing — perhaps to 
 
62 Imagination and Movement 
 
 their own sweet singing. But they do not connect their own 
 vocal powers and aural susceptibilities wdth the discordant 
 speech of the home or the playing-ground to the disparage- 
 ment of the latter. They slip, apparently, into the belief 
 that fine speech, like fine clothes, is for a few people, and 
 that the sweetness of their own voices in singing is just a part 
 of the mystery that enwraps all the processes of school w^ork. 
 
 It is difficult to provide a good aural environment in school. 
 The first condition of all is a back-ground of silence — and in 
 the schools of northern cities the rumble of traffic, the ring of 
 hoofs and wheels on stone cobbles, made any attempt at ear 
 training, on a large scale, almost impossible. On the other 
 hand the finer stimuli are lacking. The teacher is tempted to 
 shout — that is to say, the children are not tempted to liste7i. 
 And the sweetest natural sounds, such as the rushing of w^ater, 
 the whisper of leaves, the keen, sweet warbling of birds can 
 hardly be brought into the schoolroom. We may bring pictures 
 of meadow, hills and sea and hang them on the walls, but the 
 voices of Nature cannot be re-produced so easily. The whole 
 question bristles with difficulties, and authorities show some 
 tendency to run away from it. 
 
 Yet we are recalled by the knowledge that the human voice 
 stands as the expression of the inner life, and appeals directly 
 to the emotions. All that concerns it then has a special 
 bearing on questions of morality and conduct. The Greeks 
 were perfectly aware of this fact and recognized it. We are 
 aware of it, but puzzled how to act on our knowledge. We 
 feel that the beautiful singing voice of the northerner is the 
 natural voice. That the harsh, rude speaking voice is the 
 artificial, and the false voice. • That the former, not the latter, 
 contains the prophecy of the race, that it contains a suggestion 
 of varied and lovely human powders and feelings which are 
 to-day divorced from the every day life. 
 
 We can change the aural environment without changing 
 
Iniagination and Movement 63 
 
 the locality — since the richest element in it after all is the 
 human element. This human element carries the direct 
 moral influence, and through speech more than song. The 
 aural environment of even the most unhappy child is always 
 changing within certain limits, for it is influenced by every 
 wave of feeling that stirs the people around him. The beauti- 
 ful flexible voice offers the stimulus of continual fine change, 
 the charm of fine variety. The inferior voice is inferior 
 mainly because it is dull. And it is dull mainly because it ex- 
 presses only a few states or feelings. Obviously the training 
 of the ear is a subject which carries us far. It is impossible 
 to separate it from the general education — to consider it as a 
 thing apart — as impossible as it would be to take a separate 
 part of the ear, which is a series of orifices, labyrinths and 
 complex structures, and attempt to deal with it as an inde- 
 pendent organ. Ear training is dependent on voice training, 
 and both are dependent on the emotional life, on nutrition 
 (a specialist informed the writer, that quite apart from the 
 question of energy or want of energy, he could judge of the 
 quality of the food on which children lived, by listening to 
 their singing) on social conditions, in short, on the whole life 
 and training of the school and the home. 
 
 But now for a few words on the range of hearing in children. 
 
 The testing of hearing in schools presents great difficulties. 
 The time and trouble required prevent a general examination, 
 as in the case of vision. Nevertheless, it is probable that 
 deafness interferes to some extent with the educational progress 
 of 15 per cent, of the children in schools. 
 
 Children, however, have certain privileges in the matter of 
 hearing. They have the power of hearing high notes to which 
 adults have become deaf. Tested by a whistle, which the 
 school doctor keeps in his room, they show a susceptibiHty to 
 sounds too shrill to be audible to older people. Dalton 
 
64 
 
 Imagination and Movement 
 
 mentions a Dorsetshire proverb which says, that no labourer 
 over forty can hear a bat squeak. 
 
 Beyond the hmit at which shrill sounds are audible to 
 children, the effect of vibrations may be observed on sensitive 
 flames. And such observations are proving useful in the 
 education of the deaf. Pupils incapable of hearing ordinary 
 sounds, watch the effect of their own speech on the flame-scale 
 before which they practise, and in this way learn to regulate 
 the amount and force of the breath, that is to say, they 
 learn to modulate the voice— a difficult task for them as 
 everyone knows, who has had to do with the instruction 
 of the deaf. 
 
 But to return to the child of the elementary school. Though 
 possessing a certain advantage with regard to shrill sounds, 
 it is clear that the sharpest child is deaf as compared with the 
 average adult. The power of hearing shrill sounds has nothing 
 to do — as Dalton points out — with sharpness of hearing, any 
 more than a wide range of the key-board of a piano has to do 
 with the timbre of the individual strings. 
 
 Testing with a watch, Dr. Kerr got the following results : — 
 
 
 
 
 Number of children to whom 
 
 watch becomes 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 audible at a distance of 
 
 
 
 Number 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Age. 
 
 Children 
 Exam- 
 ined. 
 
 
 For the 
 
 right car 
 
 
 For the left ear 
 
 
 
 less 
 
 
 
 
 less 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 than 
 
 5 to 10 
 
 10 to 
 
 over 
 
 than 
 
 5 to 10 
 
 ID to 
 
 over 
 
 
 
 5 in. 
 
 in. 
 
 20 in. 
 
 20 in. 
 
 5 in. 
 
 in. 
 
 20 in. 
 
 20 in. 
 
 5 years 
 
 94 
 
 12 
 
 <3 
 
 38 
 
 31 
 
 12 
 
 22 
 
 33 
 
 27 
 
 6 ,, 
 
 88 
 
 9 
 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 12 
 
 18 
 
 31 
 
 27 
 
 7 .. 
 
 41 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 20 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 II 
 
 15 
 
 B ,, 
 
 58 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 21 
 
 23 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 22 
 
 16 
 
 9 ,, 
 
 37 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 loor more 
 
 12 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 Totals. . 
 
 330 
 
 37 
 
 46 
 
 121 
 
 126 
 
 47 
 
 72 
 
 no 
 
 lOI 
 
 TVT?^'.— Adults hear watch at 36 inches. 
 
 This table sets before us the unfortunate fate of the left 
 
Imagination and Movement 65 
 
 side. It brings home to us also the fact that the learning to 
 hear, as well as the learning to see, is quite a long process. 
 
 Ears and eyes are organs — no more. They may be perfect 
 and yet hearing and vision may be small. Among idiots de- 
 fects of the ear are rare, and yet idiots are often deaf. They are 
 deaf not through the ear but through the brain. Young children 
 are deaf as compared with older persons, because they have 
 not learned as yet to distinguish and interpret sensations so 
 well as adults. For the same reason doubtless the sensitivity 
 of women appears to be inferior to that of men. One of 
 the aims of education is to develop power of sense dis- 
 crimination. This power depends, partly of course, on the 
 integrity of the organs, but largely on the organization and 
 growth of the brain. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MEMORY AND EMOTION 
 
 Memory. — If we knew what kind of things a man or a child 
 remembers wx shall know something about the kind of imagina- 
 tion he possesses. A painter, a sportsman, a merchant, a little 
 child do not see a horse in the same way, or remember the 
 same things about him. The qualities which interest one are 
 quite neglected by another. 
 
 The great painter has, we say, great imagination. Memory 
 is the basis of this imagination. There are many specific 
 orders of memory. — Every sense, every order of perception, 
 every emotion has its own. The painter's is largely a visual 
 memory.* How much he forgets, how much he ignores in 
 order to remember, to awaken at will a certain order of mmd 
 image. Ghirlando could paint the portrait of any person 
 whom he had seen passing in the street. Holbein, on coming 
 to London, forgot the name of a patron, but remembered his 
 
 * The organic limitations of the artist, or at least of the young 2iX\\^\.^ 
 may be overcome by a certain order of teacher. Of late years it is becom- 
 ing common to engage one order of teacher for gifted children, who are 
 learning to draw, not for his artistic power, bat for other powers altogether, 
 For example : — A talented boy, who draws horses well, is st-nt to live with 
 an expert judge of horse-flesh. The latter " lends his eyes" to his young 
 pupil, points out things for which the artist never looks and which he seldom 
 sees, and thus helps him, as it were, to a double supply of mind images 
 to work with, viz. : these of the artist and these of the expert and jockey. 
 
Memory and Emotion 67 
 
 face so well that he painted a portrait of him. While Horace 
 Vernet painted portraits from memory after a single sitting. 
 Mozart's tone-memory was so great that he could play a w^hole 
 opera after having listened to it only once. Such specialization 
 involves sacrifice. Every faculty or order of memory which 
 enchains or suspends the action of the rest is a despot. Mozart 
 could not cut- up his own food, and of Turner it was said that 
 "he had holes in his brain." 
 
 "Equilibrium of the faculties, is in human intelligence what 
 equilibrium of forces is in the physical world." Yet all the 
 memories are not equal in any person — even in the well- 
 balanced. Taine observed that in his own case colour 
 memory was rather better than memory of form, but that his 
 memory for feelings or sentiments once experienced, was keener 
 than either. ''If I look back," he wiites, "I can see without 
 difficulty, after several years, five or six fragments of the out- 
 line of a scene, but not the precise and complete outline. I 
 can recall more easily than the outline, the whiteness of a 
 sandy path at Fountainebleau, the hundred little spots and 
 stripes made by the sprigs of wood strewed on it, its winding 
 carves, the faintly rose coloured tints of the heather by the 
 side of the path .... but I cannot trace the winding of the 
 path. Above, below, all is vague. In my case, all that is re- 
 produced uninjured and whole is the precise shade of emotion 
 I experienced." Thanks to this fine memory of sentiments, 
 Taine, and others of similar organisation, can renew pains and 
 pleasures. Other men, accustomed to pay less attention to 
 sentiments and more to sensations, might be able to bring the 
 colours before the consciousness with a clearness that would 
 almost equal that of the original experience. 
 
 The memories of any individual, then, are unequal : never- 
 theless, they have all something in common, viz. : — That they 
 represent the conservation of certain states of the organism, and 
 their reproduction. " Every impression leaves a certain inefface- 
 
68 MeiJiory and Emotion 
 
 able trace ; that is to say, molecules disarranged and forced to 
 vibrate in a different way cannot return exactly to their primitive 
 state. If I brush the surface of water, at rest, with a feather, the 
 liquid will not take again the form which it had before ; it may 
 again present a smooth surface, but molecules will have changed 
 places, and an eye of sufficient power would see traces of the 
 passage, of a feather. Organic molecules acquire a greater or 
 less degree of aptitude for submitting to disarrangement. No 
 doubt, if this same exterior force did not again act upon the 
 same molecules, they would tend to return to their natural 
 form ; but it is far otherwise if the action is several times 
 repeated. In this case they lose, little by little, the power of 
 returning to their original form, and become more and more 
 .closely identified with that which is forced upon them, until 
 this becomes natural in its turn, but they still respond to the 
 least influence that will set them in vibration " 
 
 It appears at the first blush as if the nervous system was for 
 a long time a passive instrument. And yet this is not the 
 case. — Infancy is a period of constant experiment. Acts which 
 seem easy to us were acquired with difficulty. Thus, "when 
 light first strikes the eyes of a new-born child, an incoherent 
 fluctuation of movements is observed. At the expiration of a 
 few weeks the movements are co-ordinated, the eyes have the 
 power of accommodation, and, being fixed upon a luminous 
 point, are able to follow it with precision." Thus we see that 
 organic memory implies *' 7iot only a modification of 7ie7'V0iis 
 elements, but the formation among these elements of determinate 
 associations for each particular act." Determinate associations 
 are formed gradually by repetition, and even after they 
 are formed they have to be maintained by exercise. Let 
 us take, for example, the case of the learned professor, 
 who became blind, and forgot how to see. A certain 
 organic memory, which, under normal conditions would have 
 been so stable as to be ignored, was partly lost, and had to 
 
Metnory and Emotion 69 
 
 be recovered. A great many nervous elements, differing from 
 each other greatly in structure and functions, in form and ar- 
 rangement, had to recover certain affinities, or power of work- 
 ing in certain definite relations, before the professor could 
 learn again one of the lessons of infancy. He had to return 
 and undergo part of the training of infancy. Memory de- 
 pends not merely in a particular modification impressed on the 
 nervous elements : it depends also on the establishment of 
 a certain living relationship between elements. If we turn 
 now from the consideration of the organic to the conscious 
 memory, the movement of life appears to be almost bewilder- 
 ing. What constitutes the highest, the most complex and un- 
 stable form of memory? Briefly, conscious memory implies first, 
 of course, all that has been already indicated, viz. : — The modifi- 
 cation of certain cells by repeated impression, the establishment 
 of certain dynamic associations ; but further, the association of 
 states of consciousness evolved through these, and finally the 
 connexion of all this by a chain of associations to the present. 
 The last of these conditions may alone be absent, while all the 
 rest is well established. For example, the poet, Wycherley, had 
 an admirable memory up to a certain point. If anything was 
 read to him at night, he awoke the next morning with a mind 
 overflowing with the thoughts and expressions heard the night 
 before! Only he had forgotten entirely that the thoughts were 
 not his own. The modification impressed upon the cerebral 
 cells was persistent : the dynamical associations of the nervous 
 elements were stable: the state of consciousness connected 
 with each was evolved : the states of consciousness were reas- 
 sociated and constituted a series. 7 heft the mental operation 
 was suddenly arrested. The series aroused no secondary state : 
 they remained isolated with nothing to connect them with the 
 present. They remained in the condition of illusions. 
 
 The localization in time appears to be a late, and very 
 gradually acquired power of memory. Only after an ap- 
 
70 Memory and Bviolion 
 
 preciable interval can we sometimes fix things in time. 
 In order to do it at all we require a certain power of dealing 
 with mind images, of forgetting as w^ell as remembering, of 
 sacrificing as well as gaining, of having but not holding 
 — that is to say, the fixing of things in time involves 
 great mental activity. Even the plastic artist's memory, 
 which is a vision, not in time but in space, implies 
 prodigious movement with loss — a movement inducing very 
 often sudden fatigue. '' If I wish to see the Moors again," 
 wrote Gilbert Ballet the painter, ''I will only have to close 
 my eyes and then — fellahs, granite columns, white marble 
 elephants, plains of gold and diamond cites ! O what mad- 
 ness ! What delight ... I will be drunken with marvels, 
 until completely under the power of hallucination, I at last 
 fall back into the world of mediocrity." ^' O I have a strange 
 memory," wrote Fromentin, " I never take notes. Sometimes 
 in travelling I grow weary. I shut my eyes. I say to myself. 
 * You are losing all that.' But no. Two or three years after- 
 wards I can see it clearly." The vision in space does not 
 involve the same order or chain of activities as the vision 
 in time. It is largely an hallucination. But every higher 
 form of memory involves prodigious activity a?id 7?ioveme?it. 
 Impression's are not registered in inert matter but in living 
 matter. They are not printed on the cells like a seal on 
 wax. The cells in continuous vibration catch the new 
 message and fix it in perpetual change and response. 
 
 The conservation of impressions depends then on change. 
 Stability of impressions depends on constant change — that is 
 to say, on nutritive changes. In some children the rapid regis- 
 tration and restoration does not take place. We say of them, 
 not " They have a bad memory " (that goes without saying), 
 but "The nutrition is poor." In old age, also, nutrition is 
 often poor, and incapacity for rapid change in the brain cells 
 is accompanied by a corresponding slowness and faintness of 
 
Memory and Emotion 71 
 
 memory — more especially for recent events and things. The 
 cells in many cases still guarding traces of the time when 
 nutrition was rapid — replacing these earlier traces w^ith what 
 energy is left in them. Innumerable facts show that there is 
 between nutrition and conservation the relation of cause and 
 effect. 
 
 These facts throw a great deal of light on many others. 
 Go into any slum school and ask such questions as these. 
 "What is your name?" ^'How old are you?'' "How 
 many brothers and sisters have you?" ''When did your 
 father die — and your mother ? " 
 
 The answer to such questions fall rapidly — instantaneously 
 from the lips of the well-nourished child. Unforgettable to 
 him seems his own name and the names of his brothers and 
 sisters. And very well he remembers that he is five and a 
 half or six and a half years old. But the girl of double that 
 age often looks troubled at your question. She has to recollect 
 with an effort even the most familiar things. She keeps 
 but a small hold on the past — or rather it keeps slipping from 
 her grasp, even though she may desire to hold it. " Where 
 is your mother?^' said a teacher one day to a bright-eyed 
 girl of twelve. The girl looked startled for a moment, then 
 collected herself and answered quickly ''She drowned herself 
 last year in the dam." It was plain that the remembrance 
 was a sorrowful one, and that the child, too, was not un- 
 conscious of the tragic element in her own forgetfulness. She, 
 like many others perhaps, realized dimly, that in forgetfulness 
 there is a kind of second death, that while the image lingers, 
 the beloved is not altogether lost. But the very poor are 
 literally not in a position to cherish the memory of the dead. 
 Take for example the case of a family in the slums, who had 
 a series of terrible misfortunes. The father fell off a ladder 
 and was killed. A few weeks later one of the daughters 
 caught smallpox and died in the hospital, and a brother was 
 
72 Memory and Emotion 
 
 injured in a street accident. A year later there were new 
 events. The mother married again, then separated from her 
 husband, a daughter too married, and one of the sons had a 
 sudden ri^e in wages. It was impossible to speak to any 
 member of this family about the series of sorrowful events 
 that had happened in the previous year, without seeing that 
 he or she was puzzled to recollect their order and nature, 
 everything concerning them had become dim and confused. 
 Periods of semi-starvation had intervened between the sad 
 events, and during these periods the springs of sorrow and 
 remembrance had been dried up. Doubtless urgent cares - 
 about to-morrow's supplies had made the sweeping away of 
 the past all the more rapid. Like people in a boat, breasting 
 a great storm, they did not turn back to see the billow^s, now 
 far behind them. 
 
 " If we want to get an idea of what the intellectual machine 
 
 "^ is, w^e must lay aside literary metaphors," said Taine. " We 
 must lay aside such words as Imagination, Will, Intelligence, 
 
 \ even Memory." These are but abbreviations, signs that 
 express a great sum of things. Below all else, and condition- 
 ing it, the physiologist sees myriads of cells, capable of 
 spontaneous development, modifiable through impression, 
 nutrition, association, and antagonism. The psychologist 
 sees only the immediate result of the activity of the diverse 
 cells, to wit mental images of various orders^ primitive or 
 consecutive^ gifted ivith certain tendencies^ modified in their 
 development by the aid or the a?itagonism of other images. 
 Both find in the cell and its varying condition the material 
 for all the higher structures of mind and the ''faculties." 
 How plastic it is, how susceptible, how charged with potential 
 energies we may devine from the events of our inner life. 
 Sometimes memories that have lain dormant for years, and 
 were apparently vanished for ever, will revive suddenly under 
 the influence of emotion. During illnesses in which the 
 
Meinoiy and Emotion J^) 
 
 circulation undergoes great changes, the mind will suddenly 
 turn over as it were the lost memories of childhood and 
 infancy. A servant girl who had heard Hebrew phrases in 
 childhood and forgotten them apparently for ever, displayed 
 her learning in an attack of fever, to the astonishment of all. 
 Another girl who completely lost the sense of hearing in early 
 childhood, recollected after many years, the rhythm of a 
 song she had heard in infancy. These sudden revivals prove 
 the persistence of long submerged images. Every sensation, 
 feeble or strong, every experience great or small, tends to be 
 Te-born through an interior image which fades and yet seems 
 to be capable of extraordinary resurrections. Thus the 
 human memory is like a great river that rolls along, catching 
 every reflection and holding it for ever. Everything that falls 
 on it is henceforth capable of revivification and re- birth, all 
 the debris of its gulf and shores have potentialities, that 
 await only the right conditions to reveal themselves. And 
 yet this river may become a mere channel of sluggish pools 
 and grey water tracks. A change in the cerebral substance, 
 fatigue, hunger, may prevent the awakening of images. Sir 
 Henry Holland relates how one day he lost, or appeared to 
 lose, all his past and its acquisitions. *' I descended," he 
 writes, " in one day two very deep mines in the Hartz moun- 
 tains, remaining some hours underground in each. While in 
 the second mine and exhausted both from fatigue and inanition 
 I felt the utter impossibility of talking longer with the German 
 Inspector who accompanied me. Every German word and 
 phrase deserted my . recollection, and it was not until I had 
 taken food and wine and had been some time at rest, that I 
 regained them again." - Here is a case in which the river 
 suddenly runs dr}^ In the case of many half-famished children, 
 the river is always kept shallow. Bad feeding in infancy 
 drains it at its source. Insufficient food at a later age, fatigue, 
 continual restraint — one or all of these causes may be 
 
\ 
 
 74 Memo7y and Emolion 
 
 active, and the effects are to be seen in the general failure 
 of all mental activities — but particularly in the poverty or 
 rather the paralysis of the Imagination. We see this illus- 
 trated tragically in the poor. We see it illustrated sometimes 
 even among the well-to-do. 
 
 The testimony of all those who attempt the training of the 
 Imagination is unanimous as to the great variability of even 
 the most promising pupils. " If I want my children to compose, 
 to do memory work on any free scale on any particular day," 
 said one teacher, " I must take precautions. Or I must ask 
 the parents to take precautions. If the children are not 
 quite ^fit' little is to be expected. We must fall back on 
 routine lessons — that is all." If all this precaution is necessary 
 for the favoured child, what is possible for the famishing? 
 Alas 1 the routine lesson is all that can be attempted in many 
 class-rooms. And even this, little as it taxes the powers, as 
 compared with the other, seems to be a burden to some. The 
 same lessons have to be repeated, the same explanations gone 
 over again and again ere the desired impression can be 
 effected. — Teachers wearied by the effort required to do even 
 so little make no attempt at a higher order of exercise. 
 
 Emotion — " Emotion is the ferment without which there is no 
 creation." Man, possessed only of intelligence, the power of 
 remembering, associating, distinguishing and reasoning, would 
 produce nothing. At most he would be but a very fine order 
 of automaton. 
 
 So far are we from being mere automatons in childhood that 
 most of us can look back to some day in early childhood when 
 we received a new initiation into life, through emotion, " After 
 thirty years," said Taine, " I can remember every detail of the 
 theatre where I was taken for the first time. The pit seemed 
 to me like a monstrous pit, all red and flaming, with myriad 
 dark heads surging above its depths ; below, to the left, was a 
 
Memory and Einotion 75 
 
 narrow platform, where tw^o men and a woman entered, gesticu- 
 lated, w^ent out and returned again. ... I was seven years 
 old — I understood nothing ; but the crimson velvet pit was so 
 crowded, so gilt, so illuminated, that in a quarter of an hour T 
 was quite intoxicated by the sight of it, and fell fast asleep." 
 Most of us have some such bright-tinted picture on the horizon 
 of memory — brighter than recent mind images, and more en- 
 during because of the emotion which stirred us on the long- 
 past day when we made them our own. It was emotion — 
 wonder, curiosity, astonishment, etc., which fixed our attention, 
 in the first place, and the emotion we now feel in remem- 
 bering the object or event helps to keep its colours bright 
 and permanent. Nor is it hard to trace the creative impulse 
 in such emotion. The painter and the romancer find 
 in such memories the material for much of their work. 
 Those not specially gifted in the arts re-create the whole 
 epoch of childhood in the light of them. And where does 
 childhood get the subject-matter of all invention save in 
 memories made clear and arresting through emotion ? 
 
 Without emotion, then, no development of imagination is 
 possible. Mental and moral development depends, not 
 merely on the learning of the right things at the right 
 time, but also on the experiencing of the right emotions. How 
 can we know that these emotions have been experienced ? 
 Only by the fruits of them, present and obvious in creative 
 work. Spontaneous child-inventions, such as child-words, 
 drawings, games, etc., are reassuring. They are all so much 
 evidence of the activity of creative imagination, of e??iotional 
 life, as well as mental life. Joy is the mother of many of 
 these creations — also, wonder and admiration. The germ of 
 human sympathy, as well as of intellectual activity is hidden 
 in that spontaneous creativeness — like the fruit in the flower. 
 
 Unfortunately, there are a great many children who, through 
 misfortune, have Httle impulse to create anything. They need 
 
76 Memory and Emotion 
 
 no new vocabulary. They invent few or no new games, and 
 have not the smallest desire to draw anything. When the school 
 door opens for these a great many new tools are provided."^ 
 There are books, pictures, colours — a new vocabulary even. 
 But all these things are mere husks ; for the natural emotions 
 have not yet been experienced that would stir the imagination 
 and give meaning to them. We may bring pictures of 
 of woodland and meadow, hills and sea into the school-room, 
 but what does the child who has never seen the hills or the 
 sea care for these things ? We may try to describe trees, sky, 
 waterfalls, etc., but we cannot give anything that will even 
 appear to take the place of an original sense-impression. Who 
 can describe a sound to one who has never heard the rushing 
 of water, the whisper of trees, the warbling of birds ? Nothing 
 avails here but experience. 
 
 But the deepest human emotions are those which have 
 their origin in human relationships. The little child learns 
 to know his mother's or nurse's face well, to recognise her 
 quickly and, in this recognition, emotion plays so great a 
 part that the familiar face becomes a kind of starting-point of 
 all the widening sympathy and interest of life. The law of 
 interest is acknowledged to be of the first importance in the 
 revival of images. *' Doubtless," said Ribot, "the law of the 
 affective life, the law of interest is less precise than is the in- 
 tellectual law of contiguity and of resemblance." And yet 
 it is more intimately concerned with the revival of memories. 
 
 * In many of our infant schools teachers play games with the children. 
 Froebel, we are told, also played games with children in the open air. 
 And perhaps, if he confined his own office very strictly to that of suggestion, 
 and did not interfere with the others, the grown-up playmate may have been 
 useful. But even this is not certain. The value of the game to the child, 
 as well as its " interest " lies here — that it is his own creation. Perez tells 
 how he spent much time in cutting a channel, filling it with water and sail- 
 ing boats for his three-year-old nephew, who resented the whole business, 
 nevertheless, and cried impatiently, " It isn't amusing ! " Our infants do 
 not, perhaps, expect the school-games to be amusing. They are an inven- 
 tion of grown-up people. 
 
Memory and Emotion yy 
 
 AVe remember a multitude of things in connection with the face 
 of the person who first cared for and tended us, any one of which 
 would call up the others in a more or less complete reintegra- 
 tion. x\nd why ? Because the emotion of love animates 
 all these, and binds them in a unity that could not otherwise 
 be realised. , 
 
 If early life gives little opportunity for the experience of 
 preserving and stimulating emotions, a remarkable mental 
 apathy is the result. ^' Unhappy the heart," said Tourgeniefif, 
 "that has not loved in youth." 
 
 The head mistress of a large school in Bradford found her 
 girls strangely lacking in observation. The school had good 
 reports always, earned full grant, and the girls sang, read, and 
 even worked sums quite satisfactorily. They made excellent 
 garments, and the discipline was excellent. Nevertheless the 
 teacher — a little puzzled, as many have been before her, at 
 the extraordinary mental apathy that may persist in children 
 who learn their three R's very creditably — made some new 
 tests. 
 
 The girls were questioned only about things they had seen 
 often. The school door is painted red and surrounded by a 
 coat of arms. Of thirty-eight girls only three had noticed 
 that there was anything over the door Some said the door 
 was painted yellow, others said it was black. All had seen 
 cows passing daily up the street to the slaughter-house. 
 Questioned as to the shape of a cow's foot, some said it was 
 " long," others that it was '' flat." Only two out of thirty-eight 
 noticed that it was cloven. Children do not often observe the 
 sky. It seems to be almost the last thing even grown-up people 
 look at carefully, unless they are afraid of a wetting. So it is 
 not surprising the class has little notion of the shape of clouds, 
 or even of the colour of the sky on fair and stormy days. It 
 was startling to hear from one girl, however, that " the rainbow 
 is mostly white and brown." Street boys are quick in finding 
 
78 Memory mid Emotion 
 
 their way about. But it appears that this faculty is not de- 
 veloped in all city children in congested areas. Several girls 
 of twelve and thirteen, of average ability, who had not followed 
 the various callings of the street, knew very little of the 
 buildings within a few minutes' walk of their own homes. 
 They could not tell where the Town Hall is, or the Post 
 Office, or the Parish Church, though these important buildings 
 are within a short distance actually of the side streets in which 
 they live. 
 
 Forty-five children from Standard IV. were examined. 
 These have all seen ducks very often, but only twenty-eight 
 have noted that the feet are webbed. Questioned as to the 
 colour of the sparrows that hop about the yard, two said that 
 they are *' yellow." A great many looked puzzled and could 
 give no answer. Of the thirty-five children in Standard II. 
 who were questioned, four said the sparrow has four legs, 
 one said it has six. One said the common house fly has four 
 wings — being obviously confused rather than enlightened by 
 the object-lessons from dead insects in school. Many, indeed, 
 forgot the names of the specimens in various boxes, or con- 
 fused them, so that nine out of thirty-five said the bee was 
 much bigger than the very large butterflies, which were the 
 only specimens in school. Six declared that the sparrow is 
 yellow, five said that it is red. One said the sparrow is white, 
 and another that it has six legs (another case of intruding 
 insects). Lessons in Kindergarten, though recent for these 
 scholars, were not applied Sixteen said that their play- 
 ground, which is oblong, was a square. Some children 
 affirmed that a man's arms are fastened to his neck. Ques- 
 tioned as to the position of the eyes of a horse, nine girls out of 
 forty five professed ignorance. The majority looked puzzled. 
 It may, of course, be argued that children profess ignorance 
 and express themselves inaccurately at times about things of 
 which they are in reality quite cognisant. But, generally 
 
Memory and Emotion 
 
 79 
 
 speaking, the drawings of the girls corresponded very closely 
 to their statements. Below is a memory drawing of a cow 
 by a girl of eleven. It is obvious that she had no idea of 
 position, even with regard to so conspicuous a feature as 
 the eyes. 
 
 vt Jy(y^ 
 
 The teacher realizing that the emotional life of her pupils 
 was languid, questioned them one day about the animal they 
 were to draw. " Where does the cow live ? " she asked with 
 animation. But the children who had seen cows only on their 
 way to the killing shed, and were not interested in their doings 
 or habits, replied that " the cow lived in the slaughter house." 
 Clearly it is not by animation on the part of a questioner that 
 an emotional background may be provided. 
 
 Neither do mere object lessons in class provide it. In every 
 school emotional life has to be more or less assumed. The 
 class room is not the place where all can be done, and 
 experienced. It is the place where what has been lived 
 through can be put in order. If the emotional experi- 
 ence is quite wanting, or of a depressing order, the teaching 
 and explanations, though never so well done, appear to be 
 
8o 
 
 Memory and Emotion 
 
 singularly futile. The writer has a number of memory 
 drawings of objects seen in school by children who have 
 never been in the country — or hardly ever. The drawings 
 reveal a great deal, and perhaps the fact of least importance 
 which they make plain is — that the children never had any 
 drawing lessons. 
 
 In some of the drawings there is evidence of confusion — 
 powerlessness to arrange even the few natural objects which 
 have fallen within the scope of the child's observation. Not 
 only do the contents of the insect boxes come forth in an 
 unwarranted manner. — The plants also behave in the same 
 way. The curves and tangents of stem and leaf begin to 
 appear in the memory drawings of animals, as in the case of 
 the girl, aged thirteen, who sends in the next illustration. 
 The horns between the ears are plainly a reminiscence of the 
 school plants, or, perhaps, of the brush drawing lesson. 
 
 Such a drawing, and others of a like nature (as, for ex- 
 
Memory and Emotion 8i 
 
 ample, that of a girl who draws the head of one animal on 
 the body of another), remind us that the class-room has its 
 limitations. It had its limitations in the days when it con- 
 tained only books, slates, ink, and paper. And it has its 
 limitations now, when it is furnished with bird-forms, butter- 
 flies, plants, and herbariums. In the mind of the child, on 
 whom new forms are thrust without preparation and under 
 artificial conditions, '* the elements," to use Herbart's phrase, 
 *• still commingle with one another." There is no " clear 
 antithesis of single things" to prevent this confusion, and 
 pave the way for true association. But above all the deep 
 emotional stimulus is lacking, which, wherever it exists moves 
 like a living thing, through even the faultiest, clumsiest work. 
 
 Some teachers, realizing the hopelessness of labouring with 
 those who have neither experienced the emotions, nor accumu- 
 lated the mind-images necessary for any kind of integrating effort 
 escape from the class-room with their pupils, and give them 
 a holiday time with opportunities. Pestalozzi was not long in 
 finding his way into the woods with his little flock. Salzman 
 and many other German teachers took the road with their 
 scholars. Bartholomai organized regular school journeys in 
 the streets of Berlin, undeterred by the laughter and jeers of 
 the crowd and the bitter complaints of the Philistines that 
 " the children's clothes and shoes were being ruined." Herbart, 
 being a private tutor, did not take flight with a large number 
 of children to the annoyance of the populace. But he remarks 
 that for every boy, the best companions are peasants, shepherds, 
 hunters of every kind and their sons. 
 
 These poor drawings are residues of confused experiences. 
 They, Hke the poverty of vocabulary, the lack of games, the 
 general want of interest can be traced to the same cause — 
 Dearth of clear and suitable mind-images and healthy emo- 
 tions. The invention by grown-up persons of suitable plays, a 
 stimulating manner on the part of the teacher, even a chance 
 
 6 
 
82 Memory and Emotion 
 
 visit to the country will not make the loss good. The teaching of 
 drawing and colour-work on rational lines will effect very little. 
 The school lesson as we saw already always pre-supposes 
 a great silent preparation on the part of every child — 
 the preparation of the mind — not by the learning of lessons — 
 but by experience, and even freedom in experiment or play. 
 The formal lesson cannot feed the sources of the creative powers. 
 The sources of creative energy are the country, with its life, 
 its human relationships in labour, its occupations and its 
 beauty. Tolstoi puts into a child's mouth the words, *'Art is 
 the expression of an inner force." And these words are true. 
 The drawings of the slum children are saddening, not because 
 they show a lack of manipulative skill, but because they betray 
 all the languor and weakness of the inner life — the dimness of 
 the original perception of which they are only the residue. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 tup: higher hungers 
 
 There is no doubt that we are often ashamed of them. Just 
 as the Highlander of old, scorned to show that he was famish- 
 ing when he sat down at a rich man's table, so many people 
 to-day scorn to show — or are afraid to show — that they love 
 bright and pure colour, even when it is within their reach. 
 The colour called " London smoke " was very fashionable for 
 a long time. Black is said to be always " safe," and so are 
 various neutral shades, all bearing depressing names such as 
 " Feuille morte " (dead leaf). Whence came this extraordinary 
 timidity or shame — this desire to take refuge in neutrality? 
 Did the Quakers initiate it, or the Puritans? Or did it show 
 itself most effectually in ultra-refined circles? The Quakers 
 are not to blame, surely. They loved grey, which is on the 
 road to white. The Puritans are more suspect, loving brown, 
 which is well towards blackness. As for the ultra-refined, 
 modern colourists, theirs was the tendency to that dirty-yellow- 
 ish-green, which Ruskin likened to a decaying heap of vege- 
 tables. Be the blame whose it may it is certain that the fear 
 of colour is now wid^ spread, and that those who show daring 
 in the matter of hues in everyday life, in clothes, decorations, 
 etc., run some risk of being decried as uncultured beings. 
 And yet colour is the joy of the eyes— the flame of Life's 
 
84 The Higher Htingers 
 
 fire. Tlie child loves it."^ Through it he learns something of 
 the outer world. By it he expresses, too, something of the 
 inner. It constitutes a kind of intimate life language. It is 
 therefore one of the free forms in which the imagination early 
 finds exercise. 
 
 The colour-sense develops early. At the age of nine months 
 the child of Baldwin showed pleasure in blue, red and green 
 papers. Comparatively slow as is the process of learning to 
 see, Preyer, Perez and many other observers all agree that long 
 before the end of the first year the gratification of the colour 
 sense is attended with real pleasure. A baby will clap its 
 hands on seeing a bright-coloured flower. By the time he 
 reaches school-age the colour-sense is well developed. If 
 his sight is normal he already sees and recognises, not only 
 the six spectrum colours — red, orange, yellow, green, blue 
 and violet — but darker and lighter shades (as he calls them) 
 of these. Already, too, the mere desire or appetite sweeps into 
 something like a capacity for joy. Children love the bright 
 colour of their own raiment, and enjoy the stimulus offered 
 by it everywhere. The hue of the walls, the wood stainings, 
 the colour of common objects are not matters of indifference. 
 But the living colour is, of course, the most thrilling of all. " My 
 heart leaps up," writes Wordsworth, "when I behold a rainbow 
 in the sky ! " And in this the poet was a child : keeping 
 something intact of the time when there was a glory on the 
 grass and a splendour in the flower that passed away later, 
 for we can safely afhrm that the heart of almost every little 
 child in the infant schools leaps up when he sees, for the first 
 
 * This does not mean that he is already artistic, or that he places colours 
 so as to be lovely ! Though exceptional children become artists almost as 
 soon as they can speak, yet such children are exceptions. The average 
 child is not sensitive to very fine colour distinctions and harmonies. He 
 will make an ugly tartan of yellow and red with his papers, when he comes 
 first to school, just as the ancient Highlanders made an ugly tartan of the 
 -same colours with wool. 
 
The Higher H7mgers 85 
 
 time, that wonderful band of living colours which is folded up 
 in a beam of light. 
 
 Well, the children of dark alleys and crowded side areas 
 arrive in school with a colour sense that has not yet met its 
 natural gratification. Fortunately it is possible to go a 
 long way in gratifying it. In the class-room there is space — 
 the first essential for colour schemes. Then flowers can 
 be brought into the school and window gardens kept 
 gay throughout the year. There seems to be a kind 
 of annual evolution in colour. The prevailing colour of 
 spring \^ yellow. As soon as the snow is gone, and* the snow- 
 drops and pale Christmas roses have faded, this colour of 
 youth springs up everywhere. Most of the spring flowers are 
 yellow. The foliage even is yellow in early spring, and 
 children are very fond of this colour and delight as do older 
 people in the primroses, buttercups, daffodils, and marsh 
 marigolds that come in *' the sweet o' the year." Later appear 
 the fruit blossoms, tipped with pink (another colour of youth) 
 and still later the June roses. Finally in July nature opens 
 her paint box wide and shows us what she can do. Some of 
 her flowers run through a kind of evolution — are born pink 
 and pass into blue. Some are blue from the first — born in 
 the purple. All these can be spread like a feast before the 
 eyes of city children. Beautiful examples too of graduated 
 colour can be shown in butterflies of various kinds, in shells, 
 etc., and the spectrum colours may be thrown on the walls for 
 the joy of those youthful eyes that have never seen the bow 
 in the cloud. 
 
 The hunger for colour can be satisfied then, without much 
 difficulty in school. That it is keen we may see by observing 
 the looks of the colour-starved children as they pass the small 
 bunch of flowers on the teacher's desk, or the few bulbs in the 
 window. A teacher relates how once she watched a pro- 
 cession of poor children march past a table where stood a 
 
86 The Higher Hungers 
 
 blue vase filled with daffodils. All the children turned their 
 eyes as they passed to look at this spot of colour. The country 
 child would probably not have glanced at it — living in a 
 plethora of flowers. But the gutter children gazed at it 
 hungrily. 
 
 Perhaps they gazed at it keenly— but that is not so certain. 
 For even colour-famished children do not always obsen'e colour 
 clearly — which is equivalent to saying, that even they do not 
 enjoy it long. They in their sparely furnished city school 
 room are as subject to the dangers of mere habit as are their 
 country cousins. 
 
 It is possible to look at even a little carelessly, so that 
 impressions may never become clearer or more definite, 
 and in this case the vague love for colour may be put away 
 by-and-bye as a childish thing — a thing unworthy the dignity 
 of persons who have to pass their lives in the dingy streets. 
 
 The mere looking at flowers on a desk then, or colour 
 on the wall is not enough. The mere looking at flowers 
 in a field or garden even is not enough. We would be 
 wrong in supposing that we have only to remove our 
 city-bred child to the country in order to see him develop 
 a keen and fine instinct for colour. We have seen how the 
 country child often goes to sleep in the country, and our city- 
 bred child set down in the green lanes and left there, might 
 behave in the same way after a little while. For nothing is 
 more striking about children than the readiness with which they 
 adapt themselves to new surroundings. They visit a new 
 place, and for a little while their life is a series of surprises. 
 They gaze, ejaculate, wonder at everything — and then all is 
 common-place again. They tumble into the new^ language, 
 country, and life, like water into a worn channel. The 
 scientists express this by saying " The nervous system tends 
 to adapt itself to repeated stimuli." 
 
 It is well that the nervous system adjusts itself rapidly. 
 
The Higher Hungers 87 
 
 Otherwise life would be difficult and progress slow. At the 
 same time this very adaptivity constitutes a danger. " Why 
 do you change the pictures so often ? " the writer said one 
 day to a Board school master. " Why ? Because after a 
 little while the children do not see the??ij^ was the answer. 
 Children note changes — change on the walls, as well as on 
 the face of the teacher. Monotony sends them to sleep, as it 
 sends bigger people to sleep. The Savoyard does not see 
 that his valley is an enchanting place. The tourist — the 
 guest of a night — sees that it is lovely. And in the native glen of 
 this same tourist, strangers are perhaps finding beauties which 
 he has never discovered. 
 
 Even change does not always arrest. To change itself we 
 may become insensible. And of this we are reminded when 
 we come to think of colour. For what else is so changeful 
 and various — so living ? It moves and drifts around us con- 
 tinually, so that the measureless spaces of the sky are trans- 
 formed hour by hour, and the hills of morning are not as the 
 hills of evening. And it moves in the tiny petals of a half-blown 
 flower, as well as through every handbreadth of the sunset 
 sky. But few are conscious of all this movement, few see the 
 tide of colour sweeping everywhere with its changing tones 
 and hues. Some are colour famished. — Most people are 
 colour blind, not through the eye but through the mind. 
 
 The first thing to be done is to make the pupils " at home 
 with colour." At home so that they may never be timid 
 with it, keeping to black " because it is safe," never over bold 
 either as are many well-to-do persons — but at home with it, 
 and ready to learn new things about it and to love its 
 harmonies. 
 
 We cannot get Nature's resplendent scales into our paper- 
 boxes, any more than the painter can get them into his colour 
 box. Scales, however, we must have, that is tO say, colours 
 following in order. Just as there is a key note for every 
 
88 The Higher Hungers 
 
 sound-scale, there is a key note for every colour-scale. The 
 key tone of a colour-scale is the standard colour or hue. 
 When we arrange one of the spectrum colours with its tints 
 on one side and its shades on the other, in regular order from 
 lightest tint to darkest shade, a colour-scale is formed. Thus 
 we may speak of the orange scale, the red scale, or the orange- 
 red scale. 
 
 There is an American firm which has taken the trouble to 
 draw up colour scales in kindergarten papers, and to name, 
 or rather to number the tints and shades,"^ (Milton Bradley, 
 Springfield, Masschusetts). In doing this they have 
 illustrated, among other things, the fact that colour is always 
 moving, that pure colour is a goal but never a resting- 
 place. Take for example the end colour in the spectrum — 
 violet. Leaving it, you advance on blue ; first you get a hue 
 of blue, then the colour blue itself with violet hue, finally 
 blue, and so forward into a new colour. And in drawing up 
 their charts of spectrum colours, the makers give not merely 
 scales of colours but also of hues. Thus there is a scale 
 of blue, a scale of green, and also a blue-green scale. 
 The colour chart is pretty, and children like to play with it 
 from the first, just as they like to strum notes on the piano 
 from the first. But it is not from the colour-chart, useful and 
 necessary as it is, that they will receive their most interesting 
 lessons. The chart is there, it will be referred to constantly, 
 and used in other ways But there is another instrument 
 of colour training which may now be introduced, an 
 instrument which appeals to little children as well as to 
 grown-up science students, and which is quite as useful and 
 necessary in the babies' room as in the laboratory. And this 
 instrument is the colour-wheel. 
 
 * Much of this Chapter has heen taken from Bradley Martin's Book, 
 ■■Colours in the Kindergarten," 
 
The Higher Htmgei's 89 
 
 Every schoolboy knows that if he sets the end of a stick on 
 fire and wheels it rapidly he will see what appears to be a 
 circle of light. And the reason of this is that the eye remem- 
 bers any impression for a while — remembers the light, in this 
 case, at a given point till the light comes round again. Thus 
 the vision of the blazing circle is formed. It is on this power 
 of retaining impressions that the training given though the 
 wheel is based. 
 
 Colours may be produced and analysed on the wheels by 
 means of discs spun at a high rate of speed. Formerly, 
 separate discs were used for every colour, but some years ago 
 J. Clerk Maxwell conceived the happy idea of cutting slits 
 in the colour discs, so that by joining two slitted discs of 
 different colours they could be made to show any desired pro- 
 portion of each. One of the results of this is that the kinder- 
 garten teacher can not only show her children the colours 
 that go to make up any given colour, but can measure the 
 proportions accurately. Suppose, for example, that the 
 children have learned to know the standard red and the 
 standard orange, and that the teacher now wishes them to 
 learn that there are a great many colours betiveen red and 
 orange. She has only to combine the red and orange discs in 
 various proportions in order to make the class familiar with 
 all those new colours. 
 
 For example, suppose you have four sizes of colour discs, 
 I, 2, 3, and 4. Show a red disc of No. 3 size, and ask what 
 colour it is ; also an orange disc of No. 2 size. Combine them 
 on the spindle, but showing only a very small part of the 
 orange. Then gradually add more and more orange, showing 
 orange reds, till the amounts of the two colours are nearly equal. 
 Finally substitute No. 3 size orange disc for No. 3 red disc, 
 and begin to work through the red orange hues in the same 
 manner. Or suppose now you want to show the tints and 
 shades of a colour. Every colour in nature is modified by 
 
90 The Higher Hitiigers 
 
 light. Bright sunlight reduces the colour, forming a tint. 
 Shadow obscures it, or makes it a shade. Of course, you can 
 never get the real effect of sunlight in pigments or on the 
 wheels. Yet tints are produced on the wheel by white discs, 
 and shades by black ones. The teacher, in showing progres- 
 sion of tint, adds more white, or illustrating the meaning of 
 a shade, gives a wide and wider section of black every time. 
 Does she wish to show greys? She puts black and white 
 discs on the wheel, with a certain quantity of blue, or red, 
 according as she chooses to show a warm grey, a cool grey, 
 or a neutral grey. The broken colours, the loveliest of all and 
 the most general, can be made familiar in this way to young 
 children. They see them on the hill-side, but their love and 
 appreciations is won very often, for this as for other things, 
 only when they can see " how they are made.""^ 
 
 Some of the more obvious advantages of using the wheel 
 will occur to anyone who knows something about the ordinary 
 infant-school. The large classes are a continual problem. 
 How to reach every child, and to cultivate the observation of 
 each, is a puzzle. The wheel solves this puzzle in some 
 degree for at least one lesson. Children are attracted by the 
 
 * A small percentaqje of children are more or less colour-blind. Some 
 can never have the sensation of red, others are incapable of seeing green, 
 and a very few are unable to distinguish violet. Cases have been known in 
 which two colour-sensations, the red and the violet, have been quite absent. 
 Both the red and the green blind person is unable to distingish between 
 the cherries an 1 the leaves of a cherry-tree. The red-blind person would 
 see the cherry as green and also the leaves. And the green-blind would 
 see them both as red. It is of course impossible to give colour vision by 
 training, but it would be a good thing for the colour-blind if their defect 
 were discovered when they were little, so that they need not always strive 
 to see as others see, and take posts for which they are unfitted. It is un- 
 fortunate when such people become drapers, or house decorators, but the 
 case may still be worse. It has happened more than once that colour-blind 
 people have taken the post of seaman or signalman with awful results. 
 The danger light was not seen, and the ship went down. Red was mis- 
 taken for green, and the train shot into the place of death. A little care 
 and observation would enable even the infant mistress to discover the 
 colour-blind children. 
 
The Higher' Hungers - qt 
 
 movement. They see at once that they can take colours to 
 pieces and put them together, just as they can take forms to 
 pieces and build them up. And very soon they may begin to 
 introduce into their paper work, the aims which are essentially 
 those of all great artists. For the great artist differs from the 
 little child not in belonging to another world and another race, 
 but in having new power in the same world, and new vision 
 of the same order. 
 
 At the threshold of the subject, however, a difficulty presents 
 itself. We must have a new colour language, definite and 
 accurate. We have a colour language, but it is not accurate. 
 
 We all begin our existence by feeling an interest only in self, 
 and by taking the mouth as our centre. And even when, 
 grown older, we show an interest in the doings of our neigh- 
 bours and the aspect of things near us, we still give evidence 
 that our own fiiouth is our starting point of interest and com- 
 parison. Take up a book of sample papers, and observe the 
 names you give to the colours. " This is lemon colour," you 
 say ; " and here is cream colour, and blue, and crushed 
 strawberry. And that is biscuit colour, and here are 
 orange, cherry colour, and chocolate." You may not 
 mention *^ salmon colour '' or '^ oatmeal," or " applegreen," &c., 
 yet, almost certainly, many of your colour names will be 
 taken from the orchard and the larder. We note this tendency 
 even in Chaucer, who said that one thing was ** as white as 
 Maine bread," and another " as green as a leek." The sim.ple 
 woman, then, and the great poet make colour names by 
 comparison, and very good and forcible names they are. 
 But we do not stop here. Fashionable dressmakers have 
 given us a new vocabulary, and many of their namiCS appear 
 to have their origin in mere caprice. They change so rapidly, 
 too, that we cannot be sure very long of their meaning. 
 " Reseda '' was once green. Now it is a kind of blue. Ecru 
 
92 The Higher Httngers 
 
 may mean one thing to one person — another thing to other 
 persons. It would be just as reasonable to teach a perishing 
 dialect, instead of the English language, as to teach this new 
 colour vocabulary of an hour. 
 
 Must we then get a new set of difficult names— a new 
 colour vocabulary, and teach it to all children ? No, indeed, 
 there are but six standard colours, and even little children 
 know them and know their names. " Red — orange — yellow 
 — green — blue — violet." These, with black and white, make 
 up all the hues one sees. '•' Sometimes," says Ruskin, '' you 
 see in a good picture a colour which you cannot name." But 
 it is certain that even this cunningly mixed colour is a com- 
 bination of some of the tints or shades of the standards. The 
 difficulty lies not in names but in quantities. To know how 
 much of one colour and another will give the desired effect — 
 that is the question. And the larder and orchard colour 
 names will not answer it. 
 
 But the wheel will answer it. With the aid of a white disc 
 graduated into loo parts, the teacher can measure the amount 
 of the different colours she spins. With a little practise she 
 may learn how various hues are made up. She will learn to 
 analyse even the most capriciously named colour — to fix it 
 on the wheel — and give it a definite if temporary name. 
 For example, take the colour known as '' Ecru." It is a broken 
 orange yellow — that is to say, a yellow with an orange hue, 
 and a mixture of black and white or grey in it. The actual 
 quantities are — O. (orange) 12, Y. (yellow) 15, W. (white) 15, 
 N. (niger or black), 56. '^Styx" is a broken red, R. 10, W. 21, 
 N. 69, and " Empire '^ a broken green-blue. Any teacher 
 can find this out by experiments with the wheel. And one 
 of the first benefits she will reap by learning about colour 
 combination will be that of being able to communicate with 
 the furnisher — to order what she wants, instead of having to 
 describe what she wants. (It is true that in England teachers 
 
The Higher Hungers 93 
 
 do not feel the urgent need of an accurate colour language, 
 but this is only because no very methodical training in 
 colour has yet been attempted.) 
 
 "But surely," you cry, ^-you are not going to puzzle our 
 little children with colour formulae. You don't want us to 
 burden their memories with so many figures." No, the 
 children need not learn the figures. Yet they cannot see the 
 wheel used without learning a good deal about the proportion 
 of colours in various combinations. At first, as for instance, 
 when they are learning the meaning of tints and shades, it is 
 not necessary to change the proportion of the main colours at 
 all. Suppose a teacher is showing the tints and shades of 
 orange red. The proportion of orange to red may be the 
 same throughout the lessons. Only the amount of white or 
 black is changed at every step. Accuracy can come only as 
 a final result. It is enough if the children learn, to begin 
 with, that the more white they use the lighter the tint, the 
 more black the deeper the shade. 
 
 Gradually the exercises may be made a little more difficult. 
 Indeed the range and variety of them is limited only by the 
 ingenuity and resource of the teacher. Such an exercise as 
 the following is introduced as a recreation in some American 
 schools when the children have made some progress. Make 
 a combination of two discs, holding them so that the pupils 
 cannot see them. Then when the discs have been arranged 
 on the spindle and a good speed has been secured, ask the 
 class what colours are mixed to produce this effect. When 
 several have answered, and the interest of all is roused, stop 
 the wheel and let the children see the discs which have been 
 combined to produce the colour. By merely observing the 
 discs they will get some notion of the proportions of the several 
 colours used. And this is enough — indeed, this is the end for 
 which the wheel is used in the infant and first standard rooms. 
 
 As for names, children use the right ones if no others are 
 
94 The Higher Hungers 
 
 suggested to them. Having learned, for example, that a 
 certain fabric is of an orange-red colour — that is, red with a 
 lesser quantity of orange in it — it will not occur to them 
 (though it occurs to some grown-up people) to call it 
 " mahogany-coloured." They accept the vocabulary of the 
 people around them, using the good or the inferior word-coin 
 indifferently. This is why the more observant teachers are 
 disowning the superstition of. the need of " baby-talk." They 
 have discovered that the child can as easily learn the scientific 
 name of a part of a plant as some other word that means 
 nothing. And what is true of child-language in nature study 
 is obviously true in the colour lesson. But in the colour 
 lesson the real name is the simplest and the most familiar. 
 It is natural for the child to call a primrose yellow, and a 
 rose red. And keeping to the simple colour-name, he can 
 supplement it later by indicating tint, shade, or hue. 
 
 But as impressions are vague and wavering until they are 
 acted upon, the child will not be at home with colour unless 
 he works with it. And with what colours should he be set to 
 work first of all ? " With the pure spectrum colours," 
 everyone must answer unhesitatingly " for these form Nature's 
 chart." And in what arrangement ? 
 
 With that which gives from the purely sensory stand-point 
 the greatest pleasure ! The elementary law of agree ableness 
 for pairs of colours is shown by Scripture in the following 
 diagram. 
 
 CURVE OF AGREEABLENESS FOR PAIRS OF COLOURS. 
 
The Higher Hunger's 95 
 
 " If the colours be arranged in a circle with complement- 
 aries (pairs of colours that in certain proportions produce 
 white) at the ends of diameters, a combination of two 
 colours increases in agreeableness as the colours are chosen 
 further apart, the maximum agreeableness appearing for 
 complementary colours. This is expressed in this Fig. in which 
 the circumference of the circle is supposed to be rolled out 
 to a straight line. 
 
 One of the colours is supposed to be stationary at 0° : the 
 curve of agreeableness rises as the other colour changes to 
 more distant hues ; reaches a maximum at 180°, and sinks as 
 the second colour again approaches the hue of the first. 
 
 Secondary factors come in and modify the colour choice of 
 highly cultivated persons. But even these new factors arise out 
 of the elementary ones indicated in the simple primitive love of 
 strong opposition or contrast. The oldest tartan is probably 
 the shepherd tartan which shows the supreme opposition of 
 black and white. Another tartan, said to be almost as old 
 consists of red and yellow. 
 
 The young child will at first prefer then to work with 
 complementaries, or perhaps to put red beside yellow ! And 
 he should work at first with wide colour contrasts. 
 
 Very soon, however, he may begin to introduce not only 
 opposition in colour but also in tone. This he may be led to 
 do without formal instruction, but simply by suggestion. It is 
 incredible how much a child can learn unconsciously through 
 the guidance of a teacher far in advance of her pupil, and by 
 no means concerned to make him conscious of all his 
 achievements. By and by having made himself familiar with 
 the complementaries and with some contrasts in tone he may 
 begin to enjoy the putting of active colours against passive 
 weaving his red with white, his blue with grey, etc. And 
 finally, provided with full scales of colour, and capable now of 
 appreciating smaller colour distances he may begin to pro- 
 
96 The Higher Hungers 
 
 duce colour harmonies which illustrate all the great under- 
 lying principles of art. At this point he will generally begin 
 to love not only the opposition of colour, but the movement of 
 colour — the subtle change which is everywhere — in the 
 harmonies of fading leaves, in the graduated flow on the 
 flower petals and through the wide expanse of the summer 
 sky. 
 
 At no point however is it right to sacrifice enjoyment 
 or gratification in order to secure a precocious refienment. 
 Susceptibility is largely a question of education — but pleasure 
 in colour itself is a stimulus which puts new energy at our 
 disposal."^ 
 
 The education of the colour memory need not be deferred. 
 No sooner is a tint learned than it may be learned by heart. 
 Lecoq deferred the teaching of painting until his little pupils 
 were well advanced in form. But no sooner was the paint box 
 introduced than the training of the colour memory was begun. 
 Details on memory training will be given in a later chapter. 
 
 Joy in colour is not for the painter and buyer of pictures 
 alone. Every one loves colour and may learn to love and enjoy it 
 more and more. Even to-day the least sensitive enjoy the 
 blue sky, the green parks and woods; and there is a growing 
 desire on the part of town dwellers to provide such relief and 
 pleasure as these afford for every eye. 
 
 Yet we are able to put up with an amazing amount of ugli- 
 ness — to do without relief and pleasure in an amazing degree. 
 Long lines of houses unrelieved — drab streets covered with 
 smoke pall we can endure. 
 
 "The eftecl of colour on the organism has been studied by Ferre and Binet. 
 The amount of stimulus of the various colours correspond to their place in 
 the spectrum. Red being the strongest stimulant, orange and yellow fol- 
 lowing ; violet is depresssing. The rooms of maniacs are therefore hung 
 with violet or blue hangings, and the light if made to pass through violet 
 glas>. It is clear tliat wc recognize red as an exciting colour. Few of us 
 care to go into a field where a bull is, with red clothing on. 
 
The Higher Hungers 97 
 
 Few even dream of colour schemes in streets such as Mr. 
 Ricardo suggests, " turquoise tiles in a street where the houses . 
 were fully clothed in vines and ampelopsis, and bright-coloured 
 boxes and blinds which would count as brilliant climaxes in a 
 symphony of green, their influences sinking and diffusing itself 
 in the general mass of colour as the rays of a star-sapphire 
 seem to pulse all through the jewel though they start from a 
 focus no larger than a point." Few dream of such colour 
 schemes for the street. The first condition towards securing 
 colour symphonies is of course that all should need or desire 
 them : and the second that all should agree as to the subject 
 each considering the whole. There is no great art possible 
 without renunciation. 
 
 The imagination of the masses does not demand colour 
 so imperiously, or use it so freely, as to make sacrifice or even 
 co-operation possible on a large scale to-day. 
 
 Only when the eyes have been gratified by colour the demand 
 for it becomes urgent and sacrifice becomes possible. ... In 
 this as in other things, progress is largely through pleasure, then 
 through observation — and the laying up of clear mind images. 
 
 The vSound Hunger. 
 
 *'John," shouted a school-caretaker's wife at the top of a 
 flight of steps. "John! Do you hear me? Are you there, 
 John ? John ! John ! There is someone for you. Is John 
 there? John-nie ! ! " 
 
 The woman spoke loudly and monotonously — returning with 
 obvious pleasure to the word " John " (which was the chorus^ 
 so to speak, of her speech) and accenting the last syllable in a 
 triumphant finale. Her face betrayed no anxiety for the ap- 
 pearance of John, but showed unmistakeable pleasure in the 
 act of calling him. And John too, found some pleasure in 
 listening. He made no haste though his mother's voice was 
 audible to him from the first, but moved about in the cellar 
 
 7 
 
98 The Higher Hungers 
 
 among his pails and brushes. Finally he came up the steps, 
 listening, with a beaming face, answering the summons in 
 person — and without a word. To answer by calling back 
 would be obviously enough in John's opinion, an interruption. 
 
 It is not necessary to look for the cause of such pleasure as 
 this in the associations called up by a mother's voice, still less 
 the sweetness of its timbre, etc. Wherever a few simple people 
 are gathered together we may hear a tumult of voices which is 
 not harmonious but which gives pleasure. Nay, simple people 
 and children find pleasure in listening to the voices of geese, 
 crows, or peacocks — and why do they take pleasure in a tumult 
 of voices, in croaking of crows, or screaming of peacocks. 
 There is only one answer, viz : " Because they love noise ! " 
 
 The healthy child of school age loves noise for its own sake. 
 Does he love music for its own sake ? "^ Before answering 
 this question let us listen attentively to a piece of music, and 
 see what it consists of. And first of all we shall notice that the 
 loudest notes will be repeated at regular mtervals. " If the 
 piece is in quick time,'' writes Lussy, "we instinctively move 
 head or foot in time to the loud notes, in other words, the 
 tegular recurrence of these loud or accented notes at the be- 
 ginning of each bar will give us an irresistible impulse to beat 
 time. . . We may have but little musical instinct, and yet 
 possess a feeling for metrical accent — the accent which makes 
 and gives the feeling of ti^ne — makes soldiers march in time, 
 collects the admiring crowed round the drummers, and directs 
 the movements of sailors, rowers," etc. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that nearly all children have the 
 
 feeling for metrical accent. Not only do they march in time ; 
 
 they show unmistakable evidence of a desire to stainp time 
 
 * We are not here dealing with the exceptional child — the child of genius. 
 The musical genius as we shall have occasion to note later, is very pre- 
 cocious, Mozart, Handel as composers, and Rubenstein, etc., as performers 
 showed extraordinary powers in early childhood. According to Donaldson, 
 ability to execute is dependent from the physical standpoint on the early 
 basal arrangement of the nerve cells. 
 
The Higher Hungers 99 
 
 now and again, and if a quick movement is played to them 
 they have some difficulty in keeping the feet still. Of all 
 nursery rhymes, that in which the accent is most emphatic, is 
 probably the greatest favourite. 
 "Jack and Jill 
 Went up the hill 
 To fetch a pail of water." 
 
 The mere instinct for emphatic and simple metrical accent 
 may indeed carry not only children but older people away, so 
 that they will not only stamp time exultingly on any and every 
 occasion, but find pleasure in jingling verse, in writing, they 
 may sacrifice sense completely for the sake of sound. The 
 Germans call such poetry ^' Klingelyric.'' 
 
 But to return to our piece of music. We hear loud notes 
 recurring periodically which even children can distinguish 
 and which mark the time. These correspond to accented 
 syllables in verse, and give us but little notion of the sense or 
 meaning of the piece. But if we listen more closely we notice 
 also that the sounds are separated not only into beats and 
 bars, but into groups; and that these groups — like the lines of 
 a poem — are heralded by accented notes or syllables, and end 
 with a falling inflexion of the voice or sound, which is gener- 
 ally confirmed by a rest These are musical phrases, con- 
 taining a more or less perfect musical idea. The accented 
 notes which announce them do not always coincide with the 
 accented notes which mark the bar, " but they coincide," to 
 quote Lussy again, " with the beginning of lines or half-lines 
 in poetry, and stand in the place of punctuation." Their object 
 is to separate or isolate the groups of sounds. Where the 
 separation of groups is false, the music has no meaning. Bad I 
 phrasing, like bad punctuation in reading, betrays the fact; 
 that the performer does not grasp the sense of what he is 
 saying or singing. Metrical accent appeals to the instinct. ' 
 Rhythmical accent appeals to the intelligence. 
 
 >^\ B « A /T?^ 
 
lOO 
 
 The Higher Hungers 
 
 But in every musical composition, as in every poem, there 
 
 is something more than this double appeal to instinct and 
 
 intellect. Besides the metrical and rhythmic accents, there is 
 
 the expressive or poetic accent which demands a souL"^ Its 
 
 essential characteristics are freedom and unexpectedness. It 
 
 can take possession of one note or of several, and can fall 
 
 anywhere, on accented or unaccented beats, at the end or at 
 
 the beginning of phrases or groups of phrases. The artist 
 
 literally chooses the notes to be accented and concentrates his 
 
 energy on them, destjoying it may be in so doing both the 
 
 metrical and the rhythmical accents. When many of these 
 
 ^'elected" notes follow one another, the performer has to 
 
 spend much energy in expressing them, imposing them at 
 
 first like unwilling guests on the ear, breaking up the metrical 
 
 accents, distributing the rhythms, changing the key perhaps, 
 
 as when Beethoven in his Sonate Pathetique modulates from 
 
 A|7 minor to E major 
 
 * It is at this point that the Imagination, having certain elements at its 
 disposition begins to assert itself. 
 
 Sonate Pathetique. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 M^ 
 
 ig 
 
 • d 
 
 ^ta^ttfSfl^ 
 
 
 sf accel. s/ 
 
 L^ -W m '^ -m^m 'M. M M M M M M 
 
The Higher Hungers 
 
 lOI 
 
 or introducing discords as in the Adagio of the Moonhght 
 Sonata. 
 
 A Bold and Beautiful Discord from tee Moonlight 
 Sonata. 
 
 # 
 
 ^ 
 
 t 
 
 ± 
 
 ^^^^^^W 
 
 M 
 
 4=^ 
 
 i^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 t 
 
 m 
 
 T-r 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 -f« 
 
 * 
 
 The ear rebels as it were against the great changes intro- 
 duced in such passages. For the auditory nerves, Hke all 
 the other nerves of the body, show a marked tendency to fall 
 back or rather to rest in mechanism. As soon as the ear 
 becomes aware of a succession of sounds subject to the laws 
 of metre, and rhythms, it expects the same succession in the 
 following groups. It will not accept any new or foreign 
 notes without a kind of struggle, and the less the note is 
 desired the stronger or more violent even must be the intro- 
 duction. The expressive notes are often violent. In the 
 passage from the Sonata Pathetique the crescendo begins in 
 the first bar. There already is preparation — a getting ready 
 
I02 The Hioher Himp-ers 
 
 for the battle. In the first chord of the second bar we pass 
 from the sofest key {A\) minor) to the fiercest (E major), 
 and this event is marked by sf. and followed by a hastening 
 of the time (accel.) the increase of sound and quickening of 
 tempo reaching its climax in bar three, where the opening 
 chord is marked ff. After this outburst there is a slackening 
 of time (indicated by rallentando) as though the performer 
 sank exhausted, but again at the close of the bar an accented 
 chord rings a new alarum. In the passage from the " Moon- 
 light," new discordant elements are introduced into the chords 
 which the ear would refuse but that they are forced and 
 pressed upon it. Yielding, it is carried away with the new 
 movement which broke the old order, that it might reveal the 
 new. Time may be quickened. Metrical accent (which is 
 of course not time, but the marking of time) may be dispensed 
 with altogether. Rhythms may be disturbed. All must 
 give way to expressive accent, which is the creative energy, 
 or soul of the music. 
 
 Expressive accent is, also, the creative power in speech. In 
 oratory it may destroy the balance of sentences ; in animated 
 conversation it breaks up the conventional phrases or even 
 invents new and strange words. Slang is not only a necessary 
 evil. It is a symptom of exuberant vitality and mental energy, 
 that cannot be imprisoned in any form of words, however 
 perfect, that have lost meaning or colour through languid use. 
 In the same way the poet's true licence is born of strength. 
 His finest songs are marked by intervals and changes in the 
 measure expressive of emotion breaking up the rhythm. In- 
 deed, in clauses of metre greatly affected by passion the time 
 itself is left more or less to the reader's own temper and will. 
 Here then we have three accents : 
 
 The metrical accent belonging to the instinct. 
 
 The rhythmical accent belonging to the intelligence. 
 
 And the expressive accent revealing the soul. 
 
The Hioher HitnQ^ers 
 
 lO^ 
 
 The child, or the adult, is capable of enjoying music only in 
 proportion as he feels and appreciates these. 
 
 Few favoured individuals grasp them all by intuitive force, 
 and discover without thought or training the most subtle 
 irregularities of metre and rhythm. As for the average child, 
 his musical perception keeps pace with his intellectual and 
 moral training. He beats time and sings rhyme almost in 
 infancy. His appreciation of rhythm on the other hand 
 depends almost entirely on his understanding of the sense of 
 what he reads or sings. As for his appreciation of expression, 
 Rousseau was right in saying that it is small, (" Children," he 
 writes, "sing with little feeling.") So monotonous is the voice 
 of the average elementary school child even in reading, when 
 left to himself, that teachers have hastened to impose on him 
 a great number of inflections which he imitates for the most 
 pa.rt without intelligence or feeling. 
 
 The introduction of a false expressive accent disturbs the 
 rhythm, and in doing so destroys, or at least blurs the sense. 
 The true expressive accent may break the regularity of 
 the metre or of the rhythm, but does not destroy the sense. 
 It deepens the sense, and the disorder into which it throws 
 every line is more lovely than the normal order, as wind-blown 
 leaves are lovelier than the conventional leaf-ornament. 
 
 Here is the opening verse of a great poem by Campbell, 
 which Ruskin has punctuated in verse and music in his 
 "Elements of English prosody." 
 
 y 
 
 h— 
 
 — f^ 
 
 f f fc 
 
 X 
 
 % 
 
 9- 
 
 ■—J — J — 
 
 Y« A\ar . 
 
 — f — 
 
 J J J 
 
 i . ners of 
 
 ^ ^ V- 
 
 — m J- 
 
 En^ . land 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 ± 
 
 ^ 
 
 —J J 
 
 J J J 
 
 — J 2 
 
 Who ^uard 
 
 our na . ttve 
 
 Seas 
 
I04 The Higher Hungers 
 
 The time is partly left to the reader's will, so that if we 
 added rnelody to the words some passages might be given in 
 quick time, and some in slow. 
 
 It is impossible to say how any educated and patriotic man 
 would read it. But it is easy to state, very precisely, how an 
 average elementary school child would render it. 
 
 Instead of reading simply : 
 
 "' Ye mariners of England " 
 he would begin : 
 
 of 
 Ye ers En 
 
 in g- 
 
 mar land ! 
 
 The voice would rise and fall in artificial inflections. 
 
 The rhythm would be broken up, but not through force of 
 feeling. There would probably be no feeling whatever behind 
 metre, rhythm or pace. 
 
 Such reading is of little value from any point of view. The 
 semblance of animation is — only a semblance. Impression 
 and expression are determined by forces acting on us. We 
 do not yield to caprice in yielding to them. How, and to 
 what extent they affect us depends not on our fancies or desires, 
 but upon our susceptibility. And if a child reads naturally 
 we learn something about him. But if we impose false tones, 
 inflections, and an appearance of vivacity we are simply teach- 
 ing him to conceal himself. In the elementary schools there is 
 indeed but little play for the individuality of the various children. 
 The pupils write the same hand, recite in the same manner. 
 But there is this difference between writing the same hand 
 and reading aloud in the same false manner. Letters are 
 conventional signs. They may be copied slavishly without 
 great harm following. But the voice, the tone, are not con- 
 ventional things. They are the true medium of expression. 
 When the voice is not true, it is false. 
 
The Highe7^ Hungers 105 
 
 What we may call " emotion drill/' or artificial inflection of 
 the voice in reading is quite vicious. 
 
 Instead of insisting on the semblance of feeling we must 
 make possible the reality. But how are we to do this ? 
 
 Hoiv are we to offer a full and fine range of experience 
 to all? This is such large question that I cannot attempt 
 to answer it fuller here. The minor question of how to give 
 voice and ear training is not to be put aside entirely, however, 
 in any book on elementary education, and on this subject we 
 must now touch, however briefly. 
 
 "Children," said Froebel, "learn by doing — that is by 
 movement." In no subject is his great principle illustrated 
 more forcibly than in the teaching of singing and music. 
 Children love to keep time by movements of the hand (or it 
 may be even of the foot). Various kinds of time or metrical 
 figures suggest various kinds of movement. For example, if an 
 air is played legato, slow, swinging movements are suggested. 
 If the same air or arrangements of notes are played staccato, 
 light quick movements impose themselves, and are yielded to 
 involuntarily. A third metrical figure may express energy. The 
 character and expression depends on the beat or time, not on 
 the notes. Many songs are written with the intent that they 
 shall fit themselves to any sentiment. The merry and the 
 melancholy parts may be sung to the same melody — the 
 character depending altogether on the time or mode. No 
 one can fail to note how quickly a young child learns the 
 language of expression. The tone of a spoken word tells him 
 all.— And this susceptibility is not confined to spoken words 
 The musical modes of expression may be learned in the 
 Infant-room. Yielding to the impulse to express the feelings 
 they awaken suitably the child soon comes to recognize them. 
 Later he will wan tto name them. The need for written 
 signs will be ft It. Just in the same way that a child 
 
io6 The Higher HM7igei^s 
 
 learns to speak a language before he learns reading, and speaks 
 correctly before he begins the study of grammar, so he should 
 be made familiar with ihe language of music, and at home with 
 its various modes or metrical figures long before he comes to 
 study the staff notation. 
 
 Even when the notation is introduced it is not necessary to 
 depend on it alone ! Formal ear-tests do not exhaust all the 
 possiblHties of ear-training. Progress in music is a matter 
 largely of growing susceptibility, and wihingness (gained by 
 experience) lo break awey from mere automatism and habit. 
 There is no reason why the instrumental music of the elementary 
 school should be confined to the mere strumming of a march. 
 I have already heard accompaniments played beautifully by 
 young teachers. If these young teachers wi^e allowed to go a 
 little further and play, not strum, at times to the children, the 
 results would probably be a new sensitiveness. And with the 
 new sensitiveness, a new demand. In spite of all our musical 
 training in schools to-day how dreadful is the use to which many 
 people put their pianos. How cruel is the fate of the sensitive 
 l)erson who has to listen to the strumming of the ordinary 
 working class girl or lad. And how is such insensibility possible 
 in the latter. Simply through the ear-indolence, induced by 
 monotonous voices, and jingling tunes ! 
 
 Clear and strong musical impressions are conveyed in the 
 folk music of many countries. And there is no better means 
 of preserving the musicial susceptibilities, and preventing 
 what we may be allowed to call the lethargy of the ear, than to 
 introduce at times the clear, strong, and awake ning/^//(' music 
 of other lands. 
 
 But it is not only while she is singing or playing that the 
 teacher is giving vocal suggestions and illustration. The 
 quality of her own voice offers itself continually for their 
 example. Nothing perhaps has more influence than the speaking ' 
 voice of the teacher, unless it be the speaking voice of the mother. 
 
The Higher Hungers 107 
 
 Alas ! We have given little attention to it ! Of late 
 years there has been a stirring, an agitation in the primary 
 education world as if managers, etc., were at last becoming 
 aware that the voice-boxes of the tens of thousands of teachers 
 under their authority were in a too lamentable state. The 
 managers did not dream in bygone days, perhaps they do not 
 even now dream of providing a good musical environment for the 
 children. But they have realized that a great number of 
 teachers are troubled with sore throats, and that the voices of 
 many of those who came before them differed in an unpleasant 
 way from that of other persons. So they have opened classes 
 for voice-production — and this is certainly a step in the right 
 direction. But voice-production cannot be taught to large 
 classes. Nor even very effectually to small ones. As we pass 
 from childhood to youth the teaching must become, as far as 
 the voice is concerned an mdividual thing. If the voice is 1 
 spoiled then only individual teaching can do anything. Few 
 people realize how difficult it is to overcome bad vocal habits. 
 Acquired when the speaker is young they are fixed by daily 
 and hourly practise. They can be overcome — but only by 
 very vigorous measures, by ifidividual teachings and long con- 
 tinued effort and practise. It is certain that the girls and 
 women who take a few lessons in voice-production never attain 
 freedom from old bad habits much less do they gain that control 
 of which clear, sweet utterance is the result. While hailing 
 with joy the tentative efforts made by the authorities in 
 elementary education to improve the voice production of 
 teachers who have injured their health through wTong 
 methods, it is well to insist that only teachers trained in right 
 methods from the beginning should have charge of the reading 
 or singing lesson. 
 
 If children are permitted to come under the influence of fine 
 
io8 The Higher Hungers 
 
 and flexible speaking voices, if they are allowed to hear simple airs 
 and melodies from their cradles, and are introduced also 
 through instrumental music, to simple, beautiful creations 
 they are prepared by such privileges for other studies 
 than that of music. They will come, for example, more 
 quickly under the formative influences of poetry and be pre- 
 pared for the great teachers' message. A voice sings for them 
 at the door of the great hall of literature. Of course it must 
 not long remain a mere voice. The good of poetry is not 
 really got ijnless the sense of the words is thoroughly learnt and 
 known. '\And yet feeling precedes knowledge, and prepares the 
 way for it. ) 
 
 Thus it is necessary to begin with poems which express feel- 
 ings appropriate to boyhood. Herbart read the Odyssey with 
 his seven and nine-years-old pupils, enjoying the interest they 
 showed in the doings of men in the adolescent period of the 
 race — the heroes of a young civilization with whom boys are 
 more in touch than is the matured man of modern days. And 
 there is no doubt that boys will read the heroic poem with feel-, 
 ing, who yet show profound indifference in reading the finest 
 lyric. *'The ode to the skylark" does not touch the ave age 
 boy very deeply. Yet there are poems which stir him. The 
 writer knew a boy — a pupil in Wellington's — of distinctly 
 predatory instincts and tastes who used to recite the 
 Lays of Ancient Rome with great feeling and unction 
 while he mended his fishing tackle, or cleaned his gun in 
 the holidays. 
 
 The writer remembers also the " Poetry-book " from which 
 she and her school-fellows (boys and girls between nine and 
 twelve years old) read aloud in a school in the Highlands of 
 Scotland. Many of the poems were beautiful — but few were 
 appropriate. One^the lam.ent of a father over his first-born 
 child — was very badly rendered as a rule, particularly by the 
 boys, who show^ed complete indifference to the trials of a 
 
The Higher Hungers 109 
 
 parent."^ A poem on the death of a young girl made some of the 
 girl pupils sad when they read it at home. In class it had no 
 effect whatever. And the master once read " Cato on the Immor- 
 tality of the soul " — on which occasion he became so excited, 
 and roared so loudly that the whole class was impressed. But 
 when at last he arrived safely at " the crash of wur-relds " and 
 resumed his ordinary expression, shaking himself a little as if 
 stepping out of this bath of emotion, the children appeared to 
 be relieved that the performance was over but quite indifferent 
 with respect to Cato's feelings about the soul. 
 Now take one of Campbell's poems : 
 
 ** It was ten of April morn by the chime, 
 ' As they drifted on their path, 
 
 There was silence deep as death, 
 
 And the boldest held their breath 
 
 For a time." 
 
 Here is a piece that would appeal to all. It is full of move- 
 ment — calm, imposing, yet dramatic. The equal time of the 
 metres "as of vessels moving at commanded pace under per- 
 fectly steady wind," seems to ban exaggeration. The pupils 
 listening to this might not admire the genius that chose the 
 right metre, which recalled the actual movement of the vessels. 
 Yet something of the music of the great poem would sing in 
 their ears many a time as they watched the sea, calm in the 
 morning sunlight, and the flagged ships crowding the harbour, 
 of the seaport Highland town. On every bright April morning, 
 when they heard the chimes they would feel something of the 
 poet's emotion. This work of art would belong to them for ever. 
 Given suitability or timeliness in choice of sentiment, a well- 
 read poem is more formative even than a well rendered song. 
 \ Aytoun's "Lays," and Macaulay's, the poems of "Campbell," 
 ' (the master of trimetre verse,) Scott, and Tennyson's Idyll's 
 
 * A like indifference to suitability is often seen in *.he choice of songs. The 
 writer has heard a big class of boys singing " Juaniter," a Spanish love 
 song. The effect was grotesque. 
 
iio The Higher Hungers 
 
 may be cited as appropriate for the boys of the elementary 
 schools of England. 
 
 Beyond all this there is the sublime poetry of the Psalms — 
 too little known in our schools^not included even in our 
 schemes for Scriptural instruction. In vain, Matthew Arnold 
 tried to induce managers of all shades of belief to give the 
 formative influences of Biblical eloquence and poetry to the 
 children of the people. " Make the getting by heart a selection 
 of the finest Psalms ... a part of the school work, to be 
 submitted to inspection and to be seen in its strength or weak- 
 ness like any other. Some will say that what we propose is 
 but a small use to put the Bible to : yet it is that on which all 
 higher use of the Bible is to be built, and its adoption is the 
 only chance to save the one elevating and inspiring element in 
 the scanty instruction of our primary schools from being sacri- 
 ficed to a politico-religious difficulty. There was no Greek 
 School in which Homer was not read. Cannot our popular 
 schools, with their narrow range in secular literature, do as 
 much for the Bible as the Greek schools did for Homer." 
 
 Never, perhaps, were we so inclined as a nation to discuss 
 the effect of Bible teaching on the young. Of discussion and 
 controversy there is literally no end. A few words we may 
 say here to those who still condemn Matthew Arnold's sug- 
 gestion as a disparagement of the Scriptures. 
 
 We have seen that sound is no empty thing. That the 
 very rhythm of words is full of the spirit that gave them 
 utterance. To feel and appreciate the^ound of a great psalm/ 
 is to have some kinship with the singer; and just as children] 
 will often use and enjoy a word before they have any definite 
 idea of its meaning, so they will often love poetry or noble 
 speech before they have fathomed its depth, or discovered all 
 its beauty. Man does not advance with regular steps, utter- 
 ing nothing that he does not fully understand. On the 
 contrary, we know that his words gain content very slowly 
 
The Higher Httngers 1 1 1 
 
 and gradually — that vague feelings precede words, and the 
 whole advance is made so that the spectator of a moment 
 might declare it altogether foolish and meaningless. 
 
 A recognition of the influence of the mere sound of great 
 poetry does not imply contempt for its deeper meanings. 
 
 On the contrary, it will impel us to look for these — to search 
 diligently for them, and to find them, it may be, after many 
 days. 
 
 In no subject has the want of continuity in education told 
 more disastrously than in voice-production. 
 
 The singing of the elementary school child is in many schools, 
 excellent. The voice production of pupil-teachers is lamentable 
 Yet the latter were school-children a few years ago, and earned 
 great praise for their singing. 
 
 As a matter of fact the expert in child-singing often declines 
 even to think of the pupil teacher's voice and its requirements. 
 The reason is not far to seek. In human life there are periods 
 of change. Our educational methods should meet these 
 chanf2;es. Otherwise we abandon our efforts, just at the 
 moment when we should realize them all in a new order of 
 training. But we have not been ready to meet the changes of 
 growing human life. Our system lacks continuity. 
 
 Breaks occur to-day at the door of the infant-room, at the 
 door of the Higher Grade school, and more or less at every 
 class-room door, as well as school door. 
 
 The aim of the new educational authorities should be that 
 of a certain old Highland oXd^n — Avisez la fin. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CHILD AS ARTIST. •» 
 
 Among the arts we may mention Dancing first, as it is the 
 idealization of simple movement. We would expect that the 
 child would learn to dance early — and this is the case. 
 Preyer's little child could dance in time to music at the age 
 of twenty-four months. The young children of savages are 
 precocious dancers. American Indian children (of three and 
 four) go faithfully through the dances of their elders. And the 
 children of tribes who indulge in more complicated dances 
 than these, quickly learn every step. The child of higher 
 civilization seems to have lost this precociousness — save in 
 exceptional cases. "Among the large number of children 
 whom I have seen dancing to music," says Groos, " I cannot 
 recall one who kept time regularly and with assurance, without 
 some teaching and example." 
 
 However necessary teaching may be as an aid to actual 
 performance, there is no doubt whatever as to children's ap- 
 preciation of good dancing. The rush on the pantomime 
 every year is a proof that parents and others acknowledge 
 this appreciativeness. But probably very few have any idea 
 of its actual range and quality. Kropotkine tells us how in 
 his early childhood he attended a performance by the finest 
 dancer in Russia — and how this great experience not only gave 
 
The Child as Ai^tist 113 
 
 him intense pleasure but made him indifferent to all inferior 
 exhibitions of the same order. '' We have no reason to doubt," 
 he observes, ^' that young children can appreciate the best in 
 this kind." 
 
 Dancing was an important subject in Greek education. It 
 is hardly admitted into the primary school to-day. Yet here 
 and there an effort is made to demonstrate the functions of this 
 beautiful primitive art. In a school in the north, numbering 
 600 girls, the physical training includes a form of dancing, 
 or rather, of slow movements which give grace and balance. 
 These ^re executed by the pupils with evident pleasure, and 
 not without profit, for the bearing and manners of the children 
 ard unlike anything that is seen in the ordinary elementary 
 school. 
 
 The fact that movement and even attitude has close relations 
 with mental states has been amply illustrated by experiments 
 with hynotic patients. Very little application of this principle, 
 however, has been yet made by educationalists. The ordinary 
 school drill is semi-military. It includes lunging, and a great 
 many arm-movements. Defiant attitudes characterize it. A 
 very subtle Roman priest has described this drill as devilish. 
 It is more correct to say that it is very limited in aim and 
 character — and can contribute little or nothing directly towards 
 the ethical training. 
 
 Very slowly do the teachings of the# great workers in the 
 laboratory find their application in the school. And yet here 
 and there a teacher is found already who illustrates them in 
 part. 
 
 There is no doubt that dancing will one day play a great 
 part in early education. 
 
 Music, — This is the art of prodigies ! Mozart composed 
 at three years old, Mendelssohn at five, Hadyn at four ! 
 Many children can sing the scale correctly before they are 
 
 3 
 
114 ^^^ Child as Artist 
 
 twelve months old. Musical images *'are organized before 
 any others," says Ribot. The creative energy can there- 
 fore find materials in this kind at its disposition at a very 
 early age. 
 
 At fourteen, Mozart wrote an opera of which his master 
 said : '^ It is true music — great, new, full of character, and 
 power." 
 
 The work of genius in music may then be virile, new, great, 
 at the age of fourteen. The Genius is an exceptional being — 
 but he does not live outside the reign of natural law. The 
 very fact that attainment of the highest kind is possible for 
 one, is evidence that the mode of activity in which such results 
 are attainable is precocious for all 
 
 There is no instance of a great scientist distinguishing 
 himself at the age of fourteen ! 
 
 As we have seen children show very early signs of suscepti- 
 bility with regard to voices. They imitate sounds quickly and 
 accurately. But as their memory or experience of emotional 
 states is necessarily small, it is in nowise surprising that most 
 children should sing with little feeling. 
 
 There are not wanting those who warn us against the 
 " abuse of music in schools." " The excess of musical train- 
 ing may destroy all precision and definiteness in thought and 
 action .... Music caresses and excites the nerves only to 
 send us to sleep agaim" And the moralist — such as Tolstoi 
 for example — describes the evils that may result from over 
 stimulation through music. 
 
 Doubtless the stimulus of music is always very intimate and 
 personal, and music is the language of emotion. It regulates 
 vibrations in which all the personal life is resolved. Other 
 arts awaken ideas which determine feelings, but music 
 creates states and conditions of nervous activity. Therefore 
 the Greeks were reasonable in attaching great moral re- 
 sponsibility to the choice of melodies, modes, etc. 
 
The Child as Artist 115 
 
 Yet on looking back over the history of our race and of 
 music, we must be convinced that a very large proportion of 
 people took music as a kind of narcotic. African music is 
 described as "somnolent" — a kind of hasheesh which even 
 the liveliest cannot long resist. The Cossack, the Negro, the 
 Indian, love monotony and rhythm, and plunge themselves 
 into a state of mild hypnosis by the aid of music. Even more 
 cultured and musical people betray the same tendency to seek 
 a dreamy pleasure in music, as our innumerable "berceuses," 
 " nocturnes " and " reveries " witness. At our Salvation 
 Army meetings, and in many other gatherings, thousands 
 plunge into a state of dreamy consciousness induced by the 
 singing ! Quite innocently the leader of a crowd may use 
 catching airs, and rhymthic clapping, and induce a state of 
 great suggestibility. 
 
 In Souriau's book on Art, the hypnotic effect of melody, 
 painting, statuary, etc., is set forth in detail. The artist en- 
 trances us — more or less — ^sweeps us away by the force of his 
 appeal, or the presentation of his subject. " Art employs 
 hypnotism the better to control our minds and keep our 
 imagination in the limits prescribed by her suggestions. 
 What we owe to her is not merely the sleep but the dream." 
 
 The inducing of the trance is the first condition of the 
 highest aesthetic enjoyment. But the fact that it can be easily 
 induced — in mere rhythm for example — that catching easy 
 tunes can act as chloroform to us all has probably induced us 
 to remain long on the threshold of this art. The true function 
 of music is not to tickle the ear, or to lull the senses, but to do 
 just the opposite. Just as in the drama, we expect to experi- 
 ence many feelings, and are content with the variety as long 
 as we are recalled finally to a sense of the beautiful, so the life 
 and language of music depends on the variety and newness of 
 states which it can awaken. 2rai?iing in music awakens. It 
 is probable that children are more ready than we imagine 
 
ii6 The Child as Artist 
 
 to leave the elementary stage and appreciate a higher order 
 of music. 
 
 RoMANCh:. — The myth-making age is often called the 
 Imaginative age of gold for the race, just as childhood is called 
 the golden period of life for the individual Imagination. It is 
 the tmie when the impulse to look for life everywhere is 
 predominant. And the primitive man and the child stand 
 distinct from the brute world (for only one writer pretends to 
 see any traces of animism in animal) and the Rationalist's 
 world through the life-giving impulse, which ensures to him 
 a world full of feeling and response if not sympathy. 
 
 Everything lives for the primitive man and for the child, but 
 it is of course his ow^n life which he sees everywhere. The 
 animals talk and the forest has caprices, and this identity of 
 nature in all opens the door to Romance. The kind of story 
 varies w^ith the creative power of the story-teller. It may be 
 absurd and horrible like the myths of the cannibals, or 
 beautiful and expressive like the myths of the Greeks. The 
 people of Oceania believe that the world is made by spiders, 
 grasshoppers and birds. More advanced peoples believed that 
 certain animals are gods in disguise. But the great majority 
 of myths are anthropomorphic. The primitive man and the 
 child tends to see himself, or something resembling his own 
 life in everything. 
 
 This giving of life to all is not necessarily accompanied with 
 any disinterested love of nature. All primitive poetry is 
 exclusively human. It is consecrated to human exploits and 
 pursuits. The Romans who peopled the world with dryads, 
 water-spirits, ^ genii' of every order — traversed Switzerland 
 many times but saw no beauty in it. Cassar crossed the Alps 
 and was so bored — so blind to the sublimity of the scene 
 around him that he distracted himself by writing a treatise on 
 grammar. *'The Greeks," says Schiller, "sublime artists as 
 they were never got far beyond man. They painted a land- 
 
The Child as Artist 117 
 
 scape much as though it were a shield or a toga — that is to 
 say with intelh'gence but without feeling. Even to-day the 
 ordinary countryman looks at a landscape from a strictly 
 practical point of view. " Beautiful ! " cried a farmer the other 
 day, driving down a sublime pass between steep hills and 
 roaring cataracts. "Why there an't a yard o' grazing ground 
 far or nigh ! / don't see the beauty o' rocks." And indeed 
 the modern craze for fine scenery is not a century old — and is 
 confined to a comparatively small section of the community. 
 Moreover there is a note of weariness sometimes in the 
 enthusiast's voice as he describes a scene which betokens little 
 ^cal rapture. "The spectacle of tropical vegetation and scenery," 
 says one writer, '*has had w^onderfuUy little effect on the modern 
 man witnessing it for the first time." 
 
 The process by which nature — not only human nature — 
 becomes interesting, attractive, and beloved is a long one. It 
 is possible through the Imagination — which has to be not only 
 the " forerunner of reason " but the forerunner also of sympathy, 
 appreciation, and aesthetic feefing. It is the importance of the 
 role played by the creative faculty doubtless, that fixes the 
 interest of so many investigations on the origin and history of 
 myth-making. " In the genesis of myths," says Ribot, " there 
 are two moments. The first the moment when the man (or 
 child) creates and qualifies Hfe in everything, and the second 
 moment is that of invention. Everything becomes material for 
 romance. Peoples of dry and cold imagination — such for 
 example as the Romans, never reach this point at all." The 
 EngHsh city child reaches it, however very early. A headmaster 
 in Bradford — an expert and very keen naturalist— who takes 
 his pupils out on school-journeys, gives some testimony on this 
 point which is of value and interest. " I no sooner began to 
 take out the lower standard children than I began to see that 
 they had their own peculiar way of looking at nature. They 
 were not athirst for scientific truths : but they no sooner 
 
ii8 The Child as Artist 
 
 became at home in their new environment than they began to 
 wish to hear and even to tell stories about everything." And 
 it was not difficult to find stories. For our forefathers were 
 close to the childhood of to-day in some ways. Here, 
 where the children are to-day, they have been almost recently 
 providing the only thing that was lacking, the plant lore ! 
 Many of the stories are of Pagan origin and others are 
 romances of the Saints and the flowers. A whole world of 
 beauty is locked up in this obscure literature — now in demand 
 because of the importunities and delight of children. " They 
 always crowd round to listen to the stories," says one teacher, 
 "even those who slip away or look indifferent when we begin 
 to dissect a flower!" Dissection and analysis were not in 
 favour with those who gave their homely names to all our wild 
 flowers ! Neither are they much in favour with the children of 
 to-day. 
 
 It is not difficult to discern in all this inventiveness the 
 frank egoism of childhood. It was a foregone conclusion 
 with our ancestors that the non-human world existed ex- 
 clusively for the benefit of the human. Plants existed in order to 
 injure, or to cure men — perhaps to warn them, to remind 
 them of saints — or it might be to form a kind of alphabet by 
 which the Divine Maker could communicate with men. Just as 
 the child sees his own life everywhere, earlier generations saw 
 the whole world only in reference to their own life. The 
 difference lies here however that in the case of the child illusions 
 are quickly opposed and destroyed, through the influence of 
 older persons who treat them as a kind of madness. There is 
 a growing feeHng of intolerance for fairies among the 
 rationalistic men and women of to-day. Verses are written 
 and given as recitations whose object is to check the free 
 movement of children's Imagination, Of such is the following, 
 which I have heard recited by little ones sometimes in the 
 lower standards. 
 
The Child as Artist 119 
 
 ^' If you always strive to act 
 As others do to you 
 You'll be as blest as if the best 
 Of fairy tales was true." 
 
 Such Rationalism is premature, and as poetry (an art of which 
 we cannot have too high a standard in the primary school) these 
 lines do not rank high ! Rationalists in a hurry can do a great 
 deal of mischief. 
 
 The evolution of the myth and of the fairy tale has been 
 often traced. "Literature is a transformed mythology." The 
 obscure divinity becomes a hero. The child's mythological 
 entity too, the fairy, the brownie, the giant draws near and 
 nearer to reality — becomes at last a familiar being. This 
 transformation is witnessed in his drawings as we shall see 
 later. The myth precedes fact, and prepares the way for 
 history. The "mythical mould" must be fashioned ere w^e "pour 
 therein the miore or less fluid metal of History." Roland and 
 Arthur, Siegfried and Dietrich overshadow the fairies, but 
 they in their turn are displaced by still more realistic heroes. 
 Just as the popular imagination incarnates in some real man 
 its own idea of heroism — ignoring all that it does not w^ish to 
 accept, so the child continually accepts the embodiment of 
 which he stands in need. There may come a time when he 
 will have a taste for History. But at first even events are 
 personified. As Tolstoi writes, " In children, that is to say 
 in those who have not yet lived, the taste for History cannot 
 exist. In order to render History attractive to them we must 
 not merely clothe it in artistic form — but personify all the 
 historic events, as events are personified in myths and in 
 legends. But then it is no longer History but Art. " Children 
 care for History only when it is vivified by Art. 
 
 Drawing and Plastic Art.— The child's first favourite sub- 
 ject is man. Cubes and squares, the innumerable designs intro- 
 
I20 The Child as Artist 
 
 duced in the kindergarten, even the flowers and leaves now so 
 much in vogue represent the teacher's, not the child's selection. 
 
 All moving things have indeed some attraction, and may be 
 chosen at an early date as models. Boats, engines, tram-cars, 
 animals have their claims. But the first favourite is man."^ 
 
 Sometimes the face is represented in profile. But the human 
 figure is often drawn at first in full face. Perez has traced its 
 evolution. 
 
 ■ It is naturally the head and face which interest the child most. 
 The black point which represents at first the eye in profile 
 drawings begins later to be surrounded by a black circle and the 
 pupils, lids, and lashes are finally indicated. This perfecting 
 of the drawing of the eye is not noticeable in the full-face 
 figures, the young artists feeling doubtless that here the placing of 
 the two black dots is enough. (The full face is always the 
 more elementary —the nose and mouth being neglected entirely 
 at first as in this drawing.) 
 
 Here is a figure as drawn on many slates, and paving stones — 
 * The Greeks represent the ideal childhood of the race. Their authors 
 
 resemble one another, as Herbart reminds us, in their childlikeness. They 
 
 emained faithful to the first model in plastic an. 
 
The Child as AiHist 121 
 
 an original from the pencil of an average child in the lowest 
 standard. Mouth, nose, ears are neglected. 
 
 The nose is badly done even in profile drawings, and by 
 children of ten and eleven. It represents often the family nose, 
 the young artists following quite unconsciously their dominant 
 impressions. The self-taught child succeeds very late if at all in 
 drawing the mouth well. The ear is not an essential organ 
 apparently for the child artist. It is absent in the early 
 drawings. 
 
 PVom the very beginning however the child is much occupied 
 with the head gear — and with the hair. The hair is usually 
 represented by massed lines or by a series of curves. 
 
 At first the limbs are indicated by straight lines — later by 
 double lines. Tiie fingers appear early but the child does not 
 count them. He puts six, seven, or eight on a hand indis- 
 criminately. 
 
 The point of insertion of the arms is very variable. When 
 the head and torso are united, it is natural that the arms should 
 spring from the middle or from the base of the badly drawn 
 square or oval. But even at the age of nine or ten many 
 children make both arms spring from the same side of the 
 body. As soon as they can place both arms, children usually 
 make one hand hold something up, and the other hold something 
 down. As they observe the upper limbs more than the lower 
 ones the curve of the arm is indicated, while the legs remain 
 at the mere straight-line epoch for years. 
 
 Not only does a child draw the human face and form by 
 preference. He ofien remembers it to the exclusion of feebler 
 images while he is trying to draw other things. Below for 
 example is a girl's drawing of a dog. 
 
122 The Child as Artist 
 
 11% 
 
 CLCUtt 
 
The Child as Artist 123 
 
 The face of a man imposes itself in spite of the accompani- 
 ments of four legs and a tail. And the same intrusion of the 
 dominant image is evident in this drawing of a cat by a girl of 
 thirteen, and also in the " cow" shown in a previous chapter. 
 Children who receive encouragement and help sometimes 
 reveal the same tendency. 
 
 Perhaps in this persistence of the image of the human, 
 (which haunts the young artist even when he turns to other 
 forms) we have an indication of the origin of the monster — 
 of the well drawn monster such as the centaur and satyr as well 
 as the clumsy and grotesque gods of wood and stone. Certain 
 it is that just as the primitive man and the child play with 
 the idea of humanity and force, and evolve gods, heroes and 
 giants, so they play too with the idea of humanity and form, 
 and conceive and execute grotesque drawings, which are 
 nothing but memories of living form interrupted and dominated 
 by the dominant image of the human. Sometimes children 
 have an idee fixe— dwell too long upon one object. The 
 human subject is the most effectual in breaking this up. 
 It is the point of return. A little boy paid a sea-side visit 
 and began to draw boats, but very soon he took to manning 
 them so heavily that nothing was visible at last but the 
 human forms and the sails. Another child drew engines 
 and waggons on suggestion. Then, by suggestion, he put 
 his grandmother in a first class carriage. That was the end 
 of the railway trains. Thenceforward he drew not only the 
 men and women he saw in the street but many other 
 subjects. 
 
 It is clear that the execution of the spontaneous memory 
 drawing involves the exercise of faculties which are absent 
 from any formal task. It involves for example a spontaneous 
 effort at abstraction. Something believed to be essential is 
 taken and the rest is left. It involves too, creation. Something 
 is forgotten; so something new has to be added which is 
 
124 
 
 The Child as Artist 
 
 the artist's own contribution. The spontaneous drawing thus 
 involves more than the mere recall of images. Here is a 
 
 
 
 V:.i-, '^\^' ' \ 
 
 / 'r \ ':^:/t-i^^^^^ 
 
 
 
 
 sketch giving the artist's impression of a tired rider on a tired 
 horse. I'he artist is four years and nine months old. 
 
The Child as Artist 
 
 125 
 
 The subject of the second drawing is not man or animal, 
 but an engine. (This is a favourite subject with the modern 
 child). The artist is four and a half. 
 
 And here is a third drawing by a child of three and a half. 
 He gives us his impression of a wood. The little one is 
 nearer the earth than older people. He does not look so high 
 
126 
 
 The Child as Artist 
 
 —and so here we have only the lower part of the bare trunks 
 visible in the drawing. 
 
 (These three drawings, and the four following ones, are 
 lent by Mr. Ablett, and are copies of the reproduction 
 
 of selected drawings from the Exhibition of the Royal 
 Drawing Society.) 
 
 The small artists whose drawings are given above were 
 plainly impressionists. In each sketch an aspect of the thing 
 observed is in close and peculiar relations to the emotional 
 state of the observer. The children are artists. Probably 
 they will reiiiain artists, while the majority are simply as it 
 were artists en route, or only for a time. 
 
 But the average child — the thousands of average children 
 who throng our elementary schools — are they artists ? Yes, 
 during a certain period of life (many psychologists have 
 already mentioned the fact) we are all artists. Who has not 
 drawn mannikins on his slate ? Who has not listened to 
 fairy and hero tales ? All children will not remain artists, in 
 
The Child as Artist 127 
 
 the restricted sense of the word, after their twelfth or thirteenth 
 year. But we are all artists happily when we are children. 
 
 And when a human creature is a child, he must grow as a 
 child, learn as a child, even create as a child. 
 
 The nascent faculty of imagination chooses the freest forms. 
 The primitive man as well as the child draws pictures, creates 
 and loves stories and legends. Through these free forms of art 
 alone can the imagination at first embody itself. To forbid 
 such exercise to the child is like shackling the limbs of the 
 infant. For it is by such exercise that progress and growth 
 are possible. How then shall we teach Drawing? 
 
 To begin with, the motor training. All hand and eye 
 training are motor, since the sense of form depends largely on 
 the muscular sensibility of the eye. The early training given 
 by the successful teachers of forty and fifty years ago to young 
 children was rigorous — indeed very severe. For example, 
 Lecoq de Boisbaudron, a man whose eminent success justifies 
 us in quoting him largely at this point, began the training 
 of his pupils by making them draw lines and squares perfectly. 
 His first lessons were nothing if not a rigid discipline. He 
 made his pupils draw horizontal and vertical lines with great 
 exactitude, permitting them indeed, and encouraging them 
 even to help themselves by the use of dots — a method common 
 with primitive artists, as illustrated for us in the drawings of 
 early bushmen, and untutored artists in our own day. Only 
 after they had learned to draw lines accurately did he permit 
 them to go a step further. 
 
 The tradition of this method is still with us, and is held 
 most tenaciously perhaps by many who are not — as was 
 Lecoq — skilled and trained teachers of drawing. But as a 
 matter of fact experience has shown that where freedom and 
 ample opportunity is offered for practice, the need for such 
 rigorous training in accuracy is done away with. The 
 child, free to make large movements, draws boldly. His 
 
128 The Child as Artist 
 
 lines and circles, like his mannikins, owe nothing at all to 
 bread crumbs and india-rubber. It is only when he is 
 struggling with small free-hand copies that his own hand 
 becomes timid — almost cowardly. When a child first begins 
 to learn td write, he moves his tongue, his facial muscles and 
 perhaps his feet. If he writes, or draws on a very small 
 surface and at a desk, these free movements are in part pre- 
 vented, and the difficulty of his task increased. A child does 
 not learn to walk by being obliged to walk correctly. Sup- 
 pression means only that the right movement cannot be 
 quickly selected, and that many useless movements are 
 repeated again and again. If the child is free he soon 
 finds the right movement. If, in the same way, the little 
 child writes or draws on a large surface, he makes many 
 unnecessary movements at first, but very soon those useless 
 discharges are suppressed. All over the country to-day, 
 we have little children drawing freely and boldly on large 
 surfaces, swinging circles, drawing curves, lines, and figures, 
 learning to draw and to write, in short, as easily as they once 
 learned to speak and to walk. 
 
 All the movements involved in these achievements come 
 under the category of "secondary automatic movements." 
 They are a step above those automatic functions which are 
 primitive or innate, for they are acquired movements. The 
 groups of movements which constitute the apprenticeship of 
 the manual labourer are also acquired. They are acquired, 
 in the first instance, with more or less difficulty. But pro- 
 gress should be rapid. When it is slow something is wrong. 
 Given freedom so that the right movements may be selected 
 by the child himself, and the conditions furnished for the 
 acquisition of orga?iic memory^ a little child should soon draw 
 a circle, a curve, etc., well just as he to day learns well and 
 quickly how he must move one foot after another and how 
 he can maintain the equilibrium of his body. 
 
The Child as A^^tist 129 
 
 From infancy the eye is educated up to a certain point in 
 comparing and measuring distances and relations in space. 
 In the Infant school to day, this natural education is not sup- 
 plemented and carried on with the seriousness which such an 
 important subject deserves. The retina and muscles of the 
 unexercised eye— like all other unexercised parts of the body — 
 show early signs of lethargy. The spontaneous education 
 does not go on long enough. Lecoq indicates how it may 
 be continued in school. 
 
 On a sheet of paper a line is traced by a child. The child 
 indicates also by dots certain measurements — a centimetre, half 
 a centimetre, etc. When he has become familiar with these 
 measurements, the paper is taken away and he indicates them 
 at dictation and from memory. In this way he may be taught 
 to appreciate the length of one centimetre, then of two, and 
 three centimetre, of several metres. 
 
 Later he may begin to estimate the length of the window 
 frame, and the door, the relations between the height and 
 breadth of various things in the room — the distances between 
 the trees outside, etc. In short many exercises may be devised 
 by which he will begin to have some idea of the proportion of 
 objects and distances. Who does not see that all this will be 
 invaluable to him when he fairly embarks on the study of form ? 
 
 It is easy also to see that this form of education is merely a 
 continuation of something begun in infancy that spontaneous 
 education of the eye through which a baby learns to measure the 
 distance between his hand and his sucking-bottle, and begins to 
 realize that the moon is a great deal further off than the rattle 
 on his coverlet. The measuring of distant things is adapted 
 to the long sight of early childhood, whereas many of the 
 *' occupations" now so much in vogue are certainly unsuited 
 to it. Enough has been said already, however, in this book 
 on the work of children in infant schools. We have now to do 
 with the question of drawing. 
 
 9 
 
130 The Child as Artist 
 
 The first apprenticeship over — which is designed to over- 
 come the lethargy of hand and eye — Lecoq de Boisbaudron, 
 far from quarrelling with the child's own choice of subject, 
 accepts it at once, and holds fast to it, making it the beginning 
 and the end of all his instruction. He sees that the children 
 draw mannikins. Like Leonardo da Vinci * he has never 
 despised the mannikins. Indeed all his teaching is designed 
 to give the children the power of seeing and drawing the 
 mannikins well. "Experience shows us," he writes, "that 
 the young draughtsman, whose training has consisted mainly 
 in a study of the human form, can specialize very aptly later, 
 if occasion requires, in any other kind of drawing." 
 
 Lecoq then began at once to give his pupils the human 
 
 face and head as a study. At first they appear to have 
 
 used copies, simple line profiles, without any shading, a kind 
 
 of free hand face practice. Later, they copied shaded profiles, 
 
 and finally the model in relief was introduced. Eye trainmg 
 
 of a merely mechanical kind ended here. " The pupils now 
 
 learn the apparent modifications of size and form, the effects 
 
 of perspective and foreshortening. They observe the shadows, 
 
 lights, and half-lights, reflections, degradations of tint, in 
 
 short their eyes are opened." It is plain that the teacher 
 
 believes that mechanical training given through the tracing 
 
 and measurement of lines, and the memory of these were a 
 
 * This great artist — a rare man among rare men for he was not only a 
 great artiat but a great thinker — was very anxious to impress on teachers 
 the duty of carefully examining the figures children draw on their slates. 
 He pointed out the fact that there is a difference between the children who 
 draw only profiles, and those who attempt three-quarter figures and various 
 poses. Among the latter may be found many budding artists. In every case 
 the spontaneous drawing is important. It is drawn from life. The child is 
 interested in it. He will gladly listen to criticisms on it. "It is prefer- 
 able," said Lecoq, " to provoke attention and remarks from the children 
 on real objects, rather than on representations from drawings. It is 
 preferable to teach them through their own drawings of real things seen 
 than from copies. If, for example, a child draws a man riding a horse he 
 will gladly listen to criticism on the proportions, and look keenly next day at 
 the riders in the street. 
 
The Child as Artist 131 
 
 necessary prelude to this revelation. Modern teachers 
 would do well not to follow him too slavishly in this. We 
 rejoice to see the copies vanish from the class-room. What 
 an arrest they made possible — what waste of time ! Let us 
 return to the mannikins ! 
 
 The pupils are drawing the human face, a subject which 
 interests them. The most prominent feature in profile at 
 least, is the nose. And yet the average child of ten or eleven 
 draws even this conspicuous feature, very badly, or rather he 
 declines to represent the individual nose at all. In his drawings 
 of faces he shows the family nose repeated in every face, that 
 is to say he yields quite unconsciously to his dominant im- 
 pression of noses. 
 
 Lecoy began the training of the visual memory of the face 
 with the study of its most prominent feature. He gave each 
 child a model of a human nose to carry home with him and 
 to study and learn visually by heart just as he learned orally 
 by heart the recitation, or the answers in the Catechism. 
 The next day the child brought the model back, handed it to 
 the teacher as he would give up a book, took his place in 
 class, and drew a picture of the model from memory. This 
 is the "recitation dessinee," whose object is to store the mind 
 with clear and accurate images. Of course the teacher did 
 not confine his pupils to the human model or fragments of it. 
 The subjects of the Visual Recitations were very numerous 
 indeed. Ink bottles, book, jars, cups, saucers, boxes, and 
 models of animals were used. Only later indeed were 
 full faces and heads given often as models. But the great 
 point in Lecoq's teaching is that he was not afraid of 
 introducing the human model at any and every stage. 
 From the beginning he let the child's effort and observation 
 swing towards it fearlessly, and let him record his impressions 
 of it from the first. 
 
 Those who complain that this will induce bad habits can 
 
132 The Child as Artist 
 
 hardly have a very clear idea of how good habits are 
 formed. 
 
 They are formed by the avoidance of innumerable wrong 
 movements, possible or inevitable, at different points of 
 progression. 
 
 The early introduction of the human model is justified by 
 Lecoq, Ravaisson and others, not on the ground of any rapidly 
 acquired power to draw it well on the part of the children, 
 but because through the study of it the power to deal with 
 other and simpler models is quickly gained, so that the little 
 artists can apply themselves soon to every form of minor art. 
 
 It is astonishing how quickly children trained methodically 
 to observe, and record their observations in drawings or 
 modellings that have the human form as centre and point of 
 return have their eyes opened, and their emotional nature 
 quickened so that they begin to receive vivid impressions of 
 the world around them, and to reveal something of their own 
 physical and mental characteristics in the interpretation of 
 these. But however early this awakening may be the 
 teacher must forestall it Lecoq introduced copies of the 
 masterpieces,^ into the elementary class room, following a 
 precedent set by Leonardo da Vinci, who surrounded his 
 young pupils with the immortal examples of the antique, so 
 that the influence of these should correct and purify the 
 taste as well as stimulale the imagination. In this way 
 alone can we counteract the effect of all the ugliness and 
 imperfections of form that assail the eyes of even the most 
 favoured children. And yet the child, having his own sub- 
 jective outlook in nature, is not suffered to sink himself in any 
 stream of impressions. He is to be saved alive as a being with 
 
 * There is no doubt that sculptured models attract children more than 
 pictures, or at least more than engravings. And there is also little doubt 
 that pictures of men and animals are a great deal more interesting to them 
 than landscapes. The subtle effects and fugitive lines of landscape do 
 not appeal to children, who as a rule, love only tlie dramatic. 
 
The Child as Artist 133 
 
 an outlook of his own, and is not to be drowned either in the 
 dark gulf of ugliness, or in the sweet wine-butt of beauty. 
 The teacher of drawing must needs regard sameness, even in 
 the conventional art of writifig as an ominous sign. In his own 
 class-room such results would be simply like the ringing of 
 an alarum bell. *' We have seen in some schools drawings 
 of figures which resemble each other closely in character, 
 and there are people who congratulate themselves on such 
 results. "The children learn from one another," they 
 cry. The teachers, however, who understands the principles 
 of our method will see in this similitude of result the most 
 crying danger of collective education. . . He will strive from the 
 first to save every pupil from the pitfall of mere imitation. 
 He will point out to him that he must be — first of all and 
 above all — himself.""^ 
 
 It may appear to some very strange to speak of a little child 
 as an individual, with a subjective outlook all his own. And 
 yet it is during childhood that we gain, or rather find, what 
 personality we ever possess. Directly we cease to receive and 
 retain new states of consciousness, we fall into automatism. 
 For then the series of conscious states, constituting our physical 
 activity, becomes so well organised that we concern ourselves 
 with them no longer. Nothing new is introduced to modify or 
 disturb. The shallow and indolent person illustrates this state. 
 He ceases to change or modify his views in the least. Thousands 
 cease to change much after the age of thirty or forty. Happily 
 for us, however, we are all artists in our earlier years. The child- 
 artist acts on his own impressions, and above all on his new im- 
 pressions. And the time during which he continues to do this 
 
 * Since writing I see that a new author conscious of the same danger and 
 seeing no way of avoiding it, advises that art, as well as religion, should 
 not be taught in schools. But this counsel is a running away from 
 difficulties — not a facing of them. Children are artists pure and simple. If 
 they cannot be educated as artists their elementary education should be 
 abandoned ! But they can be educated. Art teaching must be revolutioned 
 but not destroyed ! 
 
134 The Child as Artist 
 
 is essentially the growing period of life. For growth and vitality 
 depend on a faithful acting out of the latest original feeling. 
 
 It is, of course, when he is face to face with the living model 
 that the pupil is open to receive the most vivid impression. 
 It is then, above all, that he must receive it in his own way. 
 This palpitating model and himself are in peculiar relations. 
 Can he render them ? In any case no one else can render 
 them — not even the greatest master! "With the drawing of 
 the living form the individual feeling and expression begins to 
 manifest itself. Its aspect, even in the tranquil pose, guards 
 something of the mobility of life — something fugitive and un- 
 determined. And everyone perceives this quality of life in 
 his own way, and would express it in his own way if circum- 
 stances did not prevent such free expression." In general, this 
 palpitating model terrifies the untrained teacher more than it 
 alarms his pupil. The latter, as we know, has been drawing it 
 (clothed it is true) for years. Life does not repel children. 
 Movement does not repel them. The child in the kindergarten 
 will paint a running animal with far more success than he can 
 draw or paint a stationary one. The paper-cuttings of little 
 ones, grotesque as they are, illustrate action. Indeed, the one 
 feature of child-drawings which veteran artists unite in com- 
 mending and wondering over to-day is the movement of the 
 living figures. Nor is this a new development in child artists. 
 For the veterans testify that, in their own experience, life means 
 a losing as well as a gaining as they pass from one stage to 
 another. Thus, at the age of ten. Sir John Millais could draw 
 horses with a spirit which his later work hardly rivals. To 
 the modern psychologist this is very easily accounted 
 for. In childhood, the pathways of the nervous system are 
 j;elatively clear. And the very simplicity of nerve structure 
 favours the swift transmission of impressions. If, during this 
 particular period of life, the eyes are opened so that movements 
 
The Child as A7'tist 135 
 
 are accurately observed, it is almost inevitable that they will 
 be forcibly expressed. 
 
 And now the question arises, "Are these stored memories 
 mere dead coin, or have they any life in them ? Do they rouse 
 latent power ? " Yes, they do. That is why they are useful 
 to the young. The memories of living creatures are, of course, 
 living ! It is true that, just as our knowledge of the future is 
 all taken from our knowledge of the past, so we must expect 
 to find the most spontaneous drawing composed of memories 
 of bye-gone impressions. And yet these drawings are not 
 mere reproductions. 
 
 "The first element in the creation of a new myth," says 
 Ribot, " is fusion or combination." The first element in the 
 creation of a child's new drawing is also fusion. In it the 
 objective element may be " drowned in images, transformed," 
 or the objective element may " remain master, though subjected 
 to much innovation and change." In either case the fusion of 
 something old, with something new and personal is effected. 
 
 The use of recall-images is at first very free — almost exube- 
 rant. The child tries to combine all that he has heard with all 
 that he has seen. Everything appears in his drawings — fairies, 
 angels, water-sprites, etc., etc. 
 
136 
 
 The Child as Artist 
 
 'THE FIRST COMING' 
 
 The above is a fanciful drawing by a little girl — a true 
 child's drawing She shows the entrance of a little child into 
 
The Child as Artist 137 
 
 the world in her own way. Here is the cloud of angel-faces, 
 the background of wings, the Great Hand — all she has seen, 
 read, or heard is used freely to make the picture. 
 
 Fantastic forms are the result of very free use of images. 
 The children like them. Later, there is a tendency to let 
 them go. There is a growing desire to be content with 
 the actual. In short, the child progresses in the direction 
 of Realism. 
 
 There are degrees of Realism. In general, the artist stops 
 short at the point where the desire to understand begins to 
 trouble the joy of vision. " Even when painters begin to 
 interest themselves in science and philosophy, be sure their 
 heart is in them ! " cries Arreat. "That which attracts them 
 is not science or philosophy, but the trappings in which 
 the scare clothed." Ingres forbade his students to study 
 anatomy, and Ruskin spoke of modern science with great 
 impatience. Nevertheless, Lecoq drew up a catechism of 
 anatomy for his pupils. " Name such and such a muscle." 
 " What is the anatomy of this projection ? " " Explain the 
 anatomical causes of the changes of form resulting from such 
 and such a movement." Not content with giving his pupils a 
 human skeleton to draw, he gave exercises like the following : 
 " Let the pupils draw figures from life, in which every joint and 
 projection is emphasized. Then, on rough outline copies of 
 these draw in the bony framework as represented in the various 
 attitudes ! 
 
 These anatomical studies end, as do all the rest with 
 visual recitations ! What is learned, must be learned by heart. 
 It must be realized in the form of recall-images. For recall- 
 images are the artist's raw material. To possess a wealth of 
 these, and to be able to use them freely, and rapidly— that is 
 the question. 
 
 Such realism as this, which allows us to choose the skeleton 
 as a model for the child artist may repel many persons. 
 
138 
 
 The Child as Artist 
 
 Experience does not show that it repels children. There are 
 many Traddleses among boys, and indeed not a few among 
 
 girls also. '' The pleasure of the eyes," says one writer, 
 "is cruel." As a matter of fact the pleasure of the eyes is 
 
The Child as Artist 139 
 
 neither cruel nor kind. It is wonderfully little concerned with 
 the personal feeling. That is its mark — that it is objective. 
 The horror of the man in the street for the nude model is in 
 strange contrast to the detachedness of the real artist at work 
 on the study of the nude. Drawing, as Herbart has made 
 clear in his grouping of subjects, is a link between humanistic 
 and scientific studies. And that is one reason why it takes 
 such an important place in the eyes of all great teachers of 
 elementary schools. 
 
 But to return. With visual training and years the actual 
 world breaks through the golden mists of childhood. Lecoq 
 does not change his methods, he amplifies and extends 
 them. More complicated models are distributed for the 
 "visual memory lesson,""^ and the living model is studied 
 with new energy and attention. The fairies trip away, but the 
 real world becomes more absorbing. 
 
 Here is a memory drawing by a girl of thirteen — re- 
 presenting the artist's own little sister seated before the 
 nursery fire. 
 
 Compare it with this drawing of Saint Catherine ; near the 
 saint, in the latter, stand angels, and beyond are cherubs. 
 The little artist has given the rein to her fancy, she has not 
 restricted herself to what she has seen. Memories of various 
 kinds are represented and combined in the picture. It is a 
 work of free art. The best in this kind may be master- 
 pieces from the brush or pencil of great artists. But they 
 in common with this sketch represent the early period, or 
 " golden age " of Imagination. 
 
 * Lecoq suggests as one visual recitation lesson, for example a model of 
 a fawn playing with its mother. The pupils handle and consider the 
 model for an hour — later, they take occasion to see a living fawn and 
 mother. — Then, having conned the lesson, and considered the difficult 
 parts, such as the joints, extremities, etc., well — they draw the animals from 
 memory — each pupil being warned against imitation, and secured from it 
 as far as possible. 
 
[40 
 
 The Child as Artist 
 
The Child as Artist 141 
 
 Compare both with this drawing of a donkey by an older 
 child — where imagination is even less free, than in either of the 
 preceding drawings. It is restricted almost sternly by 
 the visual memory of the living donkey. That is to say, the 
 artist has become a true realist. This progress towards realism 
 
 is very marked in the light literature of to-day; that is, in 
 certain works which we call fiction, but which are in reality 
 very careful representations of characters and phases of life 
 observed by the writer. In former days a flowery epistolary 
 style was de rigueur for all forms of light literature. To-day"^ 
 
 * Although it is true that each observes in a way peculiar to himself, 
 selecting what attracts him, yet it is also true that close and full obser- 
 vation goes far to constitute originality, for it gives materials for new 
 
142 The Child as Artist 
 
 simplicity and plainness have come to be regarded as essentials. 
 To write plainly what one feels, to report faithfully what one 
 sees are later ideals. 
 
 Realism, however, implies more than mere suppression. 
 The realistic novel does not owe all its success to its faithful- 
 ness to an original. The creative power is still the spell which 
 lends force and charm to the work, even although it seems 
 absent. But it is not allowed to intrude itself. The freedom 
 of childhood is left behind, and the character of inevitableness 
 becomes more and more impressed on the work. Thus the 
 child may say at the end of every story, '' They all lived happy 
 ever after that." But of the great drama, or modern novel 
 we say, '^ It could not have ended otherwise." 
 
 The fact that children are artists is admitted to-day, but 
 timidly, half-heartedly. In the " occupations " of infant schools, 
 brush-drawing, modelling, music, etc., find a place. But this 
 training abruptly ceases when the early standards are reached 
 — or it is carried on almost furtively. The well-to-do mother 
 who sends her little one to an expensive private school is afraid 
 all the drawing, painting, etc., may be mere waste of time, and 
 the inspector and manager have similar misgivings. 
 
 It is time to place the whole question of the art period of 
 
 life, and the training adapted to it, and possible to young 
 
 arrangement. The case of Sir Walter Scott illustrates this very forcibly. 
 " I observed," said Mr. Moritt of him, " that in visiting the mined Abbey 
 of Eggleston, he noted down even the peculiar little wild flowers and herbs 
 that accidentally grew round and on the side of a bold crag near his intended 
 cave, and could not help saying, that as he was not to be on oath in his 
 work, daisies, violets and primroses would be as poetical as any of the 
 humbler plants he was examining. I laughed in short at his scrupulousness, 
 but I understood him when he replied, that in nature no two scenes were 
 exactly alike, and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes would 
 possess the same variety in his descriptions, and exhibit apparently an 
 activity as boundless as the range of nature in the scenes he recorded ; 
 whereas whoever trusted to imagination would soon find his own mind 
 circumscribed and contracted to a few favourite images, and the repetition 
 of these would sooner or later produce that very monotony and barrenness 
 which had always haunted descriptive poetry in the hands of any but the 
 most patient worshippers of truth." 
 
The Child as Artist 143 
 
 children, on a firmer basis. Tentative efforts have been made 
 in the past. They have been overlooked largely because the 
 connecting truth behind all of them was not understood. 
 Herbart whose critical and comprehensive mind was far enough 
 removed from that of the artist, saw that the spirit of 
 pedantry which mingles so easily w4th education was highly 
 destructive to it. (" The intent to teach spoils children's books 
 at once ; it is forgotten that everyone, the child included, 
 selects what suits him from what he reads. . . . Interrupt the 
 story with moral precepts, and they will find you a wearisome 
 narrator. But give to them an interesting story rich in 
 incidents, relationships, characters, strictly in accordance with 
 psychological truth, and not beyond the feelings and ideas of 
 children then you will see how the charm of change ends in 
 ])reference for the best.'") But he did not banish pedantry 
 through making art the soul of all his teaching. John Stuart 
 Mill assured England that catechisms were very poor substitutes 
 for beautiful stories, that clear mental pictures were the first kind 
 of mental furnishing necessary for the young. Nevertheless 
 the spirit of pedantry has found an abundant entrance. It 
 premeates the modern school. It is rampant in the class- 
 room of the little ones in the first standard ! It is tolerated in 
 the Infant room even. 
 
 The spirit of pedantry can be kept away only by the 
 spirit of childhood — which is also the spirit of the great 
 artist. 
 
 The affinity between the child and the artist can be 
 established now on an anatomical basis. Here is a drawing 
 of a brain, copied from a book by . Maurice de Fleury. 
 It shows the three or four modes of relationship with the 
 world which are brilliantly represented in various artist 
 types. 
 
 This man, we will say, is an artist in writing or painting. 
 He differs from other men in innumerable ways but we are 
 
144 
 
 The Child as Artist 
 
 here concerned to note only two facts with regard to him. 
 
 The first that he receives by way of the optic nerve, at 
 
 the visual centre, an 
 exceptionally fine, 
 and full rain of im- 
 pressions from the 
 outer world. And 
 secondly that he 
 transforms these im- 
 pressions readily 
 into certain appro- 
 priate movements 
 through the medium 
 of line, colour, or 
 written words. The 
 impressions enter 
 the brain as vibra- 
 tions, energy. They 
 are received at the 
 visual centre, which 
 may be called the 
 capital of the 
 painter's or writer's 
 brain, and they are 
 to be transformed 
 into appropriate 
 movements. What 
 can help towards 
 this realization? 
 Only the vigour 
 and^ richness of 
 the original tem- 
 ^ perament — the man 
 and his genius^ 
 
The Child as Artist 145 
 
 But what may hinder ? Not defect alone may hinder. 
 Development has its shadow side. Every thought and 
 idea of ours has a physical basis, and involves a physical 
 process. All the erudition of the wise, the comparison and 
 analysis of many facts, the evolution of mind in short is 
 attended by an enrichment of the nerve processes. The brain 
 of a great reasoner and philosopher like Taine, or Hume, or 
 Herbart, is like a luxuriant wood. A shaft entering there is 
 subject to arrest — divergence. Every impression is modified, 
 tempered, altered by innumerable bye-channels of in-coming 
 influence. The brain of the artist, superior as it is in certain 
 respects, is, as compared with that of the reasoner, as the thin 
 wood to the thick labyrinth. But this, from the point of view 
 of artistic power, is a great advantage. All the impressions 
 pouring in on the visual centre are sent forward to the motor 
 centre without interruption, without attenuation, and they are 
 there discharged in appropriate movements with all the force, 
 the fire, the verve, and fulness of the original impression. 
 
 The limitations implied in what we may be pardoned for 
 calling those splendid reflexes, are indicated in anatomy. 
 But what has all this to do with the training of children ? 
 
 It has much to do with it. It has every thing to do with it. 
 The child is allied to the artist (with all respect to the latter 
 be it said) through his simplicity, his poverty. His brain 
 also is, for the time being, like a wood in spring. Experience 
 and erudition have not done their work in him. He has 
 certain facilities now for learning through art. 
 
 These will be sacrificed later. We • lose to gain in life. 
 But every stage of life has its opportunities. And great men 
 have as it were alighted at everyone of these stages. Artists 
 are glorious children. They, if not the teacheis of childhood, 
 are the true inspirers of teachers ! What then are we to 
 think of the attempts at art training offered to-day in the 
 training colleges of elementary teachers ? It is surely obvious 
 
146 The Child as Artist 
 
 that the relation of the child to art, and the place of art, as a 
 means of educaiton is almost ignored. 
 
 And why is the help of a great artist dispensed with so 
 lightly. Is it possible that we believe he exists only to adorn 
 our walls, to tickle our ears — in short to gratify our senses. 
 
 Alas ! Mankind has always been ready to treat the artist 
 as a foolish child ! Kings and rulers even treated him as a 
 spiolt child — forgave his insolence, laughed at his tempers, 
 and gave him plenty of flattery and enormous fees. Even 
 the dress of our divas shows that the public make them feel 
 they exist mainly to please, and everyone thinks that Bohemia 
 should be indulged. It is a depreciation of the true role of 
 the artist. There is a little truth in its suggestion, but it is not 
 the whole truth. 
 
 But this attitude after all is an insulting one. Amongst 
 the artists of to-day there are a few who have rendered great 
 service to public bodies— and who have shown that their 
 function and service does not end with the signing of songs, 
 and the painting of pictures. 
 
 It is impossible to doubt that the activity of the artist is 
 nearer to reflex action than is the mental labour of the 
 reasoner and philosopher. Far from establishing a universal 
 title to superiority for the philosopher, this may prove his unfit- 
 ness for certain orders of work and influence. The artist is 
 the king of childhood's world. He is himself in the words of 
 Fleury, " a sublime child." The scientist no longer belongs 
 to that world, and he has often made great blunders there. 
 
 Let us no longer give up our schools to the spirit of pedantry. 
 Let us no longer ignore the great, the stimulating influences of 
 great art in elementary class-rooms. 
 
 If the artist declares himself in childhood, that is because 
 
 his powers, however great, belong to childhood."^ He is 
 
 Mozart revealed his creative power at three, Hadyn at four, Schubert at 
 eleven, Giotto at ten, Raphael at eight, Greuze at eight, Van Dyck and 
 Michael Angelo at thirteen. 
 
The Child as Artist 147 
 
 not alien, however superior to the average child. "The 
 child learns by doing/' said Froebel. The artist teaches by 
 doing. He is the great child, the elder brother and best 
 teacher of the young. 
 
 And only when this kinship is admitted can the power and 
 function of art in elementary education be fully appreciated, 
 and the scattered teachings of such great theorists as Froebel, 
 Herbert, etc., be linked together, and worked out into a more 
 or less perfect system. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CHILD AS ARTIZAN 
 
 Childhood is called the Age of Gold of the Imagination, 
 because during that period the Imagination seems to hold 
 the field alone untrammelled by reason. Yet the rational 
 element is present in childish imaginings, and grows until at 
 last it seems to become the antagonist of the faculty out of 
 which it sprung. 
 
 Ribot represents the growth and rivalry of the Imagination 
 and Reason in the following table. 
 
 
 / 
 
 (^ 
 
 I 
 
 \4 
 
 
 ^ •'"' 
 ,-/" 
 
 
 
 
 L 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 The line IM represents the growth of the Imagination 
 through the period of childhood, adolescence and youth. 
 The line RX represents Reason. It begins later, progresses 
 very slowly by comparison with the other. At X the two 
 intellectual faculties are on a level and face one another as 
 
The Child as Artizan 149 
 
 powerful rivals. The second period begins at MX when the 
 antagonism between Reason and Imagination, between the 
 inner world and the outer world is fairly established. In the 
 majority of people the imagination appears to give place 
 cefore the invading power of the younger faculty. In child- 
 hood the fancy is nimble, later, in adolescence and youth, 
 it has a new efflorescence — differing from the imagination of 
 childhood — but exuberant. Then in middle life the illusions 
 of youth are laid aside. Day dreams are no more indulged in, 
 and the actual and practical alone have a serious hold on the 
 mind. This decline of the imagination, however, is only 
 partial. It is indicated by the letters MN between which 
 the curve of Imagination falls rapidly. 
 
 Nevertheless the lines MN and XO show Reason 
 and Imagination maintaining equal ascendancy. This 
 represents the case of certain persons — " pure Imagina- 
 tives," Ribot calls them — in whom the inventive and creative 
 power remains to the end vivacious and active as in youth. 
 Development may be continuous and along one line, as for 
 example in the case of the young inventor. Watt, who revealed 
 his vocation in early life and remained faithful to it, or in the 
 case of young writers who compose stories and plays in 
 childhood and go on later to the composition of original and 
 virile literary works. But development may also be through 
 deviation or complete change of work and material. Thus 
 many great inventors have begun by composing poor music, 
 or romances, or painting inferior pictures, and only later found, 
 after much groping and failure, their true vocation. Some great 
 scientists too have made their debut by a poor literary 
 venture, then cast such work entirely aside, and found their 
 true vocation. 
 
 It is easy to see how deviation is necessary, not only for 
 the few but for the majority. Pratically all children run 
 through an art period. But not even a Newton or a Darwin 
 
150 The Child as Artizan 
 
 proclaim themselves scientists in the Infant School. For the 
 scientist must possess the power of abstraction (which 
 develops slowly) and a wide experimental knowledge which 
 it is impossible to gain in the earliest years. The same is 
 true, up to a certain point of the mechanical genius and inventor. 
 It is quite impossible then that the scientist or mechanical 
 genius should erupt like the baby musician. And yet the . 
 creative power develops if exercised in the early as well as in 
 the later years. It is developed at first through certain 
 means of expression which will be discarded later. That is 
 to say, there is deviation, not in the case of a few, but of 
 nearly all children."^ 
 
 Deviation- does not imply interruption. On the contrary 
 it is deviation at the right moment that alone can ensure 
 continuity of development. This appears strange to us 
 to-day because we are accustomed to associate Imagination 
 almost entirely with certain orders of work — noticeably with all 
 free forms of art, poetry, music, painting, fiction — while ignor- 
 ing the more prosaic forms in which the creative faculty 
 embodies itself. It appears to many that the mechanic, the 
 "practical" man who discovers a new way of lighting or 
 ventilation, can have nothing in common with the musician, 
 the painter, and romancer. Yet there is identity of nature in 
 the creative power of both. 
 
 Here is a drawing of a machine. It is quite certain that 
 the inventors exercised Imagination. It is equally certain 
 that they could not indulge their fancies in the making of it. 
 Their imagination was not free to do as it pleased. It was 
 subject to rigorous necessity. While the artistic creation 
 which finds expression in words, sounds, lines, forms, colours^ 
 
 *The biography of many great philosophers and scientists show that they 
 gave little indication in childhood of their powers, or at least that those 
 nearest to them were mistaken with regard to them. Hume's mother 
 believed him to be a dull boy. Darwin's father anticipated little from 
 him. And at twelve Isaac Newton was accounted a dunce. 
 
The Child as Artizan 
 
 151 
 
 is poured into a fluent mould, this kind of creation has to take 
 its place beside the productions of nature. Any miscalculation 
 in the planning must mean failure. In the working it may 
 even mean death. 
 
 ■^ ^ 
 
 
 1 
 
 * '^^^Sd^tS^f^f/ 
 
 
 L *= 
 
 Yet this machine has something in common with the draw- 
 ings which we have seen in the former chapter. For all the 
 drawings are imitations of life. Nay if we had shown in place of 
 this complicated machine, a simple basket woven in the kinder- 
 garten, a hammer forged in the iron-work centre, we might 
 still say the sam.e thing. All are imitations of life. For the 
 basket is a substitute for the hand. A gimlet, knife, or 
 hammer are substitutes for a moving, active hand. The 
 machine is higher in the scale of evolution than the utensil, 
 or the mere weapon. It imitates a complicated organism. 
 Thus in this drawing legs are represented, also an arm with 
 elbow and hand indicated."^ Here are substitutes for lungs and 
 
 ^ Some machines have not only feet but ankles ! 
 
152 The Child as Artizan 
 
 mouth, and even for a brain, in the finer controlHng machinery. 
 Moreover the machine has a respiratory system, a digestive 
 system, etc. Its makers have imitated hfe. They have 
 passed from Reahsm into Rivalry. And so successfully that 
 machines displace men to-day. They do the work of men, 
 while men very often do the work of machines. No wonder 
 that workmen have hated them as if they were alive. 
 
 The genius that creates machinery is not quite alien to 
 that which does not attempt to rival life, butt)nly to interpret it. 
 The intuition of primitive peoples is right, which declares the 
 great inventor and tlie great artist to be twin-brothers ! In the 
 Homeric poems, Vulcan, the inventor, and Minerva gave all 
 artizans power to '' execute lovely work." It was only later that 
 a divorce was established between the artist and the inventor. 
 
 Happily, it is not very hard to see, even to-day, the con- 
 nexion between the artistic and the industrial forms of creative 
 power. Educational authorities to-day admit an "art-period," 
 since they introduce clay and colour work into the kinder- 
 garten. They admit an ''artizan-period," since they open 
 manual training for boys between the age of eleven and four- 
 teen. Experience has not as yet shown us how the cultivation 
 of the visual memory and the motor training given through 
 art, prepares the young artist for the following period of 
 development through manual labour. We have not co-related 
 the work of the standards enough to earn such "results." Yet 
 enough has been attempted to show that art offers a means of 
 expression and training in the earlier years, whereby the outer 
 world is reduced to proportions, made familiar, and harmonized 
 with the inner. (Compare the drawings of the children in the 
 fourth chapter of this volume with those of the trained 
 children, whose work is shown in the sixth chapter). We 
 j^now that it prepares the child to become an artizan. 
 
 There have been but few artizan prodigies as compared witf> 
 the number of '"wonder-children" in music, or even drawin 
 
The Child as Artizan 153 
 
 And yet, in this field, also, genius is precocious ! At the age 
 of nine, Poncelet took a watch to pieces and put it together 
 again correctly. Newton, as a boy, learned the art of manag- 
 ing tools and contrived machines ; and Watt made observations, 
 as a child, which contained the germ of later discoveries. 
 Fresnel, at nine, made experiments with arches of wood, 
 and in early youth Herbert Spencer invented a velocimeter. 
 Humphrey Potter, a machine-minder, at twelve made 
 an invention which had an influence on the development 
 of automatic machinery. But in all this the child of 
 genius, though precocious, is no anomaly, no "bolt from 
 the blue," born to distract by a chance which no man 
 can estimate. Other children, having arrived at a certain age, 
 show similar tendencies. Most children wish to make useful 
 things — to invent, or at least to imitate, the inventions of 
 others. The artizan -period, like the art-period, is a time of 
 preparation, which arrives for nearly all children, and offers 
 new opportunities to the teacher. 
 
 Certainly, the wood work or iron work centre cannot be 
 a hall of fantasy. Still less is the workshop or the forge 
 a place for free fancy. Yet men have imagined more in the 
 work-a-day world than in any other world. And this is re- 
 cognized, after a fashion at least, by many nations. Thus the 
 French say of a rather dull person, not '* He has not painted the 
 'Assumption' or 'La Giaconda,'" but, "He has not invented 
 powder." 
 
 The origin of inverition is necessity. People built houses for 
 shelter. They invented ploughs because they were hungry, and 
 swords because they had to fight enemies. In a higher 
 civilization desire and necessity are still the motor power. " I 
 can affirm," said one inventor, " that, for me, the conception of 
 any new thing is always the result of a moral or material neces- 
 sity. Thus^ in 1887, a discourse of Bismarck put me m a great 
 
154 T^^ Child as Artizaji 
 
 passion, and I at once conceived the idea of arming my country 
 with a new kind of gun." Emotion will stimulate animals to 
 great displays of intelligence. The other day a swan lifted 
 her nest (which threatened to be submerged by a flood), by 
 stuffing straw underneath it. And children will invent and 
 devise very cleverly under stress of circumstances or feeling. 
 The child, Humphrey Potter, became an inventor, thanks to 
 his yearning desire to go and play in the streets with other 
 boys ! 
 
 In modern schools every need seems to be met in a rather 
 fatal way. Much attention is given to the provision of 
 good apparatus. This is not a thing to regret from every 
 point of view — and yet there is a shadow side to all this ample 
 provision, and a very dark shadow side it is too. The inventive 
 faculties are not stimulated by the introduction into schools of 
 costly and intricate apparatus. The inventive faculty is stimu- 
 lated now, as in pre-human days, by necessity and desire. 
 Where everything is provided, — desire receives its quietus. 
 Moreover, every complicated piece of apparatus represents 
 the labours, and inventions, not of one man, but of many. 
 How can an immature mind follow all these — understand 
 an aggregate of discoveries and achievements ? It is like 
 a difficult book, which the young learner has not learned to 
 read. And why should he learn to read it? It was not thus 
 that the inventors (of whom myriads have been forgotten) re- 
 ceived their training. They made their own trials — invented, 
 and rejected, failed and succeeded on their own account. And 
 there are persons who think that this process is the only one 
 worth anything. " All apparatus used to illustrate the funda- 
 mental laws of physics," writes Kropotkine, '* ought to be made 
 by the children themselves. . . . Instead of making themselves 
 an Atwood's machine with a broomstick and the wheel of an old 
 clock, they are to-day shown a complicated apparatus, and, in 
 most cases, the teacher does not know how to explain to them 
 
The Child as Artizan 155 
 
 the principle of the apparatus, and indulges in irrelevant details". 
 And so it goes on, from the beginning to the end, with but 
 a few honourable exceptions." 
 
 As often happens it is the nation least exposed to the 
 danger which is most conscious of its existence. The 
 Americans, enterprising, industrious, adaptive, have provided 
 the world with wonderful labour-saving machinery. They are 
 the artizan nation par excellence — the inventors who transform 
 the industrial world. Their steam-ploughs, and stump-ex- 
 tractors, etc., are world-famed ; and, over and above all these 
 greater achievements, they busily contrive innumerable smaller 
 ones. Nowhere is the housewife aided by so many labour 
 saving appliances. They multiply their improved carpet- 
 sweepers, plate racks, kitchen ranges, lifts, etc. Thanks to 
 the amount of imagination consecrated to the improvement 
 of material life, even the working class of America live in 
 comparative comfort. If there w^ere not in these people many 
 desires, appetites, tendencies, they would not display such 
 lively imaginations. Yet they fling hack their young people, 
 at times, or\. primary desires — on primitive needs. In summer, 
 classes of boys (some from luxurious homes), are sent out to 
 the prairie and forest to make a summer school. Literally, to 
 make a summer school : for they have to cut the timber for 
 their house, build the walls, put on the roof, and find the 
 furnishing. Their parents probably think that their children 
 should be at least as inventive as the Indians, who made every- 
 thing, from a house to a needle from the buffalo skin and bones, 
 and made books from the bark of trees. Later, there may be 
 science lessons in the rude house of the school-boys, botanizing 
 excursions and sketching in the fields. But the pupils begin 
 by feeling the spur of primitive needs. 
 
 It goes without saying that they respond to it otherwise than 
 did the primitive man. Already their minds are furnished 
 with many concrete images, many ideas to which his w^as a 
 
156 The Child as Artizan 
 
 stranger. Already their hands have been trained to use certain 
 implements, and construct others out of rude materials. But 
 it is recognized that all this manual skill, all these mental images 
 are inert, unproductive, mere baggage to be carried about unless 
 there is that which can move and handle them — that the 
 origin of invention is in the emotional life, not in the quantity 
 or quality of representations which we have at our disposal. 
 In the American the primitive desire to live has been trans- 
 formed and refined into an ever-growing desire to live better, 
 to live with more comfort, more luxury. His wants have not 
 merely kept pace wnth his inventions, but outstripped them. 
 A new desire has been the spur of every new invention. Yet 
 he allows his children to feel the primitive need out of which 
 all the rest has sprung. 
 
 Let us sum up in a few word all that is meant by the phrases 
 " the art " and " artizan periods of life." 
 
 The animism of early childhood is an embryonic form of 
 imagination whence issues the aesthetic faculty. Through the 
 exercise of this faculty in play, in art, in idol-making even the 
 intellect is trained, and the moral susceptibilities deepened and 
 widened. " The majority of new functions," said Espinas, 
 *' whether social or individual, are exercised in the first instance 
 under the aesthetic form." Machines, for example, were first 
 used as a kind of holy plaything, an article de luxe of the 
 temple. The wheel, which plays such an important part in 
 the construction of vehicles, machines, etc., etc., was at first a 
 kind of sacred toy used by the devout worshipper, a rosary of 
 the East. Recitation and the songs of the poets were once the 
 only kind of intellectual labour of which youth was believed to 
 be in need. 
 
 It is not necessary to go back so far, however, in order to 
 see how the mind of man is educated as primarily through free 
 art. Our forefathers of four and five centuries back were still 
 
The Child as Artiza7i 157 
 
 pouring a great amount of creative energy into forms which are 
 now almost neglected. They had stories and legends, not 
 only about various localities, but about every weed and flower. 
 They enjoyed colour with a naive appreciation which we have 
 lost. Their highest works were great works of art, and the 
 first step in the thought process — that of affirmation — was 
 emphasized and dwelt on so that they represented every 
 degree of belief from the highest form to the lowest range of 
 credulity. 
 
 In the modern man the creative faculty is not weakened. 
 It expresses itself in new forms. We listen no longer for 
 divine voices in the torrents, we look no longer for a mysterious 
 message written in the blossoms of the field. "^ Yet the quantity 
 and power of the imagination is not really diminished. We 
 have fewer stories, but more inventions. Less joy in free 
 creation, but more patience in research and experiment. 
 Imagination is still the architect of theory. It still pervades 
 and illumines every field of human activity. 
 
 The child — despite the influences of his modern environ- 
 ment — retraces the journey of the race. Nothing justifies us 
 in believing that he can skip any process of human education 
 with impunity. The dangers of omission are exemplified not 
 only in the humblest, but even in the greatest thinkers. John 
 S. Mill regretted that his early education had been that of a 
 youth rather than of a child. He eloquently testified that little 
 ones learn more from "fables, myths, and hero tales," than 
 from precept and dogma. Scotland left the objective arts out 
 of her great scheme of popular education. The omission was 
 unfortunate. The gloom of Galvanism overshadowed the lives 
 
 * Yet the poets make these lovely trouvailles still ! 
 
 A beautiful example of this is to be found in Longfellow's Evangeline : 
 *' Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from the meadow 
 See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as the magnet 
 This is the compass flower, that the finger of God has planted 
 Here in the houseless wild to direct the travellers' journey ! " 
 
158 The Child as Artizan 
 
 and darkened the wisdom of many of her sons. Her greatest 
 metaphysicians illustrate the dangers of an exclusively subjective 
 view of life and the world. Greek scholars she had in abund- 
 ance, but the secret of the " sane, sweet cheerfulness " of the 
 Greek was never shared by them. 
 
 Not only the evils of omission but also the evils of arrest are 
 illustrated for us by the Scots — illustrated well because they 
 have had an education worthy the name. In the islands of the 
 outer Hebrides there are men of considerable culture and 
 wide reading. Nevertheless their education shows great gaps. 
 Mechanical trades are practically unknown to them. The houses 
 are but poor sheltering places, where the smoke of the peat fire 
 wanders out through a barrel in the wall. There is no wood 
 in the islands — nothing to remind the islander that he has 
 never become an artizan. He is a seaman it is true — but all 
 his manual craft is in the management of his boat, the hauling 
 and casting of his nets. The women gut, salt, pack the 
 herring. They even dig the oat and potatoe patches as well 
 as do the work of the homes. 
 
 In the mind of the Hebridean all is moving and fugitive like 
 the travail of the sea. His myths and legends are not em- 
 bodied in any objective art. He invents nothing. His 
 imagination still roves free in the wild realms of phantasy. In 
 the dark, beautiful eyes of his children he sees no eager 
 desires, no ardent hopes, only the light of dreams, the dusk of 
 sorrow. " Tliis represents a type," some will say. As a matter 
 of fact all this is largely the result of circumstance, of experience, 
 and education. And all this may change- rapidly. "Man is,'* as 
 Dalton said, "so educable an animal, that it is difficult to 
 distinguish between what has been acquired through circum- 
 stance, and that which is, the original grain.'' The past fifty 
 years, and the changes they have brought have shown us all 
 how quickly the very disposition and character of men may 
 undergo modification as the result of a new direction of 
 
The Child as Artizan 159 
 
 creative impulse. The problem appears to be this — how to 
 touch without dimming or degrading what is good in the 
 heritage of the past, and to stimulate the mechanical genius 
 at the same time so they may not linger in the wake, industrially, 
 of other men. 
 
 This is a local problem ! But it illustrates the larger 
 problem ? Does any one imagine that the teaching of the three 
 R's constitutes elementary education — that this is enough for 
 the masses ? Why, we have just seen that subject that are yet 
 regarded as extra in the curriculum are much closer to the de- 
 veloping child than is reading or writing, that the deeper pro- 
 blems of human destiny are concerned with the influence of 
 arts which we have ignored and which many cannot yet 
 bear to hear mentioned in connection with the education of 
 working-class children ! Squalid homes, neglected powers, 
 degraded surroundings (which would be unendurable to 
 any human being who had received an elementary education 
 worthy the name), point no lesson to many. In their haste 
 to be practical they decline to look below the surface and 
 find the truth. . . . 
 
 The masses illustrate to-day the results of arrested art training. 
 . . . It is perhaps iiuomen of all classes who offer the most 
 striking illustration of the effect of missing the "artizan" 
 training. Every art or trade practised by man has its 
 technique — that is to say, its laws and rules of action 
 established by experience. The laws of trades were at first 
 regarded as sacred, to meddle with them was an impious 
 act. But in the later development of every trade or art, the 
 workman was continually gaining new consciousness of himself 
 as an active, innovating agent. Some great inventors could 
 even find an advantage in being ignorant of much that was 
 accepted in their day. They were thus free to introduce new 
 methods boldly. But the domestic arts, perhaps more than 
 any others, represent still a code of rules, rather than a series 
 
i6o The Child as Artizan 
 
 of opportunities for the display of the initiative ! Sewing, 
 cooking, washing, mending, etc., are performed in much the 
 same manner from one generation to another. The knitting 
 machines, sewing machines, etc., have indeed been invented — 
 by men. But the Hfe of an artizan's wife to-day is not very 
 different to that of the housewife of less enlightened days. 
 She invents no more — perhaps she invents even less than did 
 her great-grandmother. As for educational, authorities they 
 indeed recognise the need for a certain amount of knowledge 
 in the working woman. We have domestic training centres 
 in every city. But the pupils in these follow certain routine 
 methods. Little is left to their own initiative. Few invent 
 anything. 
 
 This halt of w^oman at the threshold of the artizan period 
 has had a disastrous effect on her whole mental development. 
 If she is well-to-do and continues her education she may pass 
 literary examinations brilliantly. Her weakness appears as a 
 rule however in the field of original research. " Even in art," 
 says Arreat, " woman has not opened out any new tract 
 or taken any foremost place." It is only just to add, 
 however, that many paths were closed to her from the first, 
 more especially in that sphere which above all others is the 
 school of initiative. This may explain partly at least, why she 
 is often as the Frenchman said, " the slave, of latent memories." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE COMMERCIAL SCHOOL 
 
 In many schools, situated in crowded areas, and attended by 
 children of the- poorest class, many striking illustrations can 
 be found of the precocious development of the " Commercial " 
 imagination. The parents take no special pains to cultivate 
 it. Teachers are not concerned with it. But Necessity — 
 acts as a spur. And the inventive and creative powers are 
 turned in the direction of " business ! " 
 
 Here, for example, is a big school in a poor district of a 
 northern city, which furnishes us with various kinds of money- 
 makers. The elder boys and girls who attend it are nearly 
 all half-timers, and work at the mill. But many of the younger 
 ones, unable to earn money, in this constitutional way sell 
 papers in the streets. Some not only sell papers, but engage 
 other children to sell for them. These take risks and chances 
 with their small capital, assume responsibilities, keep accounts 
 after their own fashion, and are in fact genuine employers of 
 labour. They offer us a good example of how necessity will 
 determine the direction of the creative powers. And this 
 activity is not without effect on the general mental develop- 
 ment. The teachers report that these small buyers and sellers 
 and employers of labour are much brighter and quicker in 
 school work than are the half-timers — even though the latter 
 
 II 
 
1 62 The Commercial School 
 
 are usually much better fed, and come from a more respectable 
 class of home.^ 
 
 The commercial form of inventiveness and resource differs 
 from that which we have been considering. It depends 
 mainly on intuition — a kind of unconscious reasoning in the 
 field of human relationships. The materials for the exercise 
 of this form of imagination are accumulated early by the street 
 arab in his wanderings. He learns to know humanity — at 
 least in a few aspects and relationships, and learns also liow to 
 adapt himself in his dealings with it, as the result of experience. 
 More fortunate children are precocious in the same way, 
 their powers of reading character sometimes astonishing their 
 elders, as w^ell as their readiness to apply the result of bye gone 
 experience to new cases. " It may be noticed,'* says Carpenter, 
 " that children display a power of bringing ' common sense ' 
 to bear upon the ordinary affairs of life, which seems much 
 beyond that of their elders . . . They perceive the application 
 of self-evident ccnsiderations to the case at issue, without 
 being embarrassed by a number of other considerations which 
 distract the adult." 
 
 To be sure only a few justify the promise of early years. 
 "A very sensible child," said Carpenter, "' will often grow into 
 a much less sensible man." Few indeed, if any of the children 
 of the slums ever enter the world of finance. Their sharp- 
 ness does not as a rule develop with intelligence. It stops 
 short usually at the point of cunning. 
 
 No one can read the biographies of different types of great 
 men, or even observe the life of different types of average 
 people, without seeing that character is influenced very largely 
 
 * The case against the mill as a place for children, rests now almost 
 entirely on the monotonous nature of the employment. New methods of 
 sanitation and regulations for protection of juvenile mill hands do not 
 touch this fact — that the round of tasks makes no call on the initiative of 
 the young worker. Teachers report that the brightest children become 
 dull when they enter the factory. 
 
The Commercial School 163 
 
 by occupation, by the order of image and the nature of the 
 creative activity with which the mind is usually concerned. 
 Thus for example the mechanic, dealing as he does with 
 rigid materials, and observing certain laws of matter is in 
 a more neutral state habitually towards human beings than is 
 the tradesmen or the diplomatist. Of artists, Arreat in his 
 " Psychology of Painters " writes, " We hardly meet in them any 
 of the lower forms of egoism, such as avarice, the desire to amass 
 material-wealth, the violent thirst to acquire." On the other 
 hand the artist is not as a rule a very active citizen. There is 
 no " Psychology of Scientists and Philosophers " in existence 
 as yet, but all that can be gathered from biography, report, and 
 the testimony of their entourage goes to show that the 
 scientists too are privileged from the point of view of 
 morality. As a class they possess the virtues of tolerance, 
 rectitude, and patience in a high degree, and it appears that 
 few, if any, among them have dimmed their laurels through 
 petty jealousies, vulgar pre-occupation, or immoral life. There 
 is no need to fall into raptures over all this. It may 
 be accounted for largely by the fact that the scientists' 
 interests and labours lead them far from the arena of personal 
 emulation. Not only is it impossible to quarrel with a theorem 
 or an hypothesis, but it is impossible even to give close atten- 
 tion to these without being diverted from personal considerations 
 and relationships. The passion for truth may make self- 
 forgetfulness inevitable. Science has had its martyrs, its 
 enthusiasts, its ascetics, who, professing no faith, were ready 
 for any trial. 
 
 During much of their life they are removed from the 
 storm of clashing interests. Like Nature, they are during a 
 great part of their time allowed to be non-moral ! 
 
 Far otherwise is it with the tradesman — the financier. He 
 is required to be every moment, either moral, or immoral. 
 
 The success of a financier depends very largely on his ability 
 
164 The Commercial School 
 
 to know at any given moment two things. First, what people 
 will want; and secondly, what people will do. He has to 
 satisfy his own wants through them. Yet this type — whatever 
 its failings — does not furnish the original of any great portraits 
 of the egoist. It is notorious that the successful man of 
 business usually spends little on himself. The American 
 merchant is said to be an unconscious martyr to his family 
 instincts. He will toil incessantly, deliberately shortening 
 his own life in order to minister to the ambition of his 
 wife, or the aspirations of his daughters. And the same 
 characteristic has been noted in the French, for they have a 
 significant proverb which applies very obviously not to the 
 poor artizan, but to the rich tradesman, " P^re de famille 
 capable de tout." Capable of cruelty, of deceit perhaps, but 
 also of sacrifice. But the commercial genius does not always 
 apply himself to working for his own family. He often 
 works for the enrichment of a whole class, a whole nation. " All 
 civilised nations," says Ribot, " count in their history men who 
 have conceived a great financial system and have succeeded, 
 in various degrees, in applying it, as did Fourier and other 
 idealists." In England Robert Owen offered an illustration 
 of how financial ability and inventiveness may easily shift its 
 aim from the personal to the social, from the sphere of family 
 interests to that of public interest. 
 
 Even in the case of the business man who becomes 
 avaricious and deaf to all claims save that of self, there is a 
 susceptibility for reform which suggests that he is an abortive 
 member of the social type, rather than a bona-fide egoist. 
 
 The conversion of Scrooge would be unbelievable if Scrooge 
 had not belonged to a type of person, in whom such sudden 
 transformation is (under certain circumstances) natural, 
 perhaps even inevitable. 
 
 Practised on a large scale, commerce to-day, however, 
 resembles war — is, indeed, a kind of war, in which the leader 
 
The Commej'cial School 165 
 
 reconnoitres other camps, gains intelligence and prepares to take 
 his competitors at a disadvantage. Practised on a small scale, 
 commerce is a sort of hand-to-hand engagement. Customers 
 have to be dealt with separately, and personally, as in ancient 
 warfare. And at every moment the tradesman is exposed to a 
 storm of conflicting suggestions ; he is honest or dishonest — 
 truthful or untruthful — every moment. And not only is he 
 continually exposed, he is, we may add, expected (by other 
 people) to fall every moment. This is why " trade " is despised 
 by many, who, perhaps, themselves could ill stand the tests 
 it imposes. That there may be a heroism possible in it is, 
 however, admitted by a few. Thus Ruskin, whose imagination 
 was fired by the sight of a helmet and shield on a knight's 
 tomb, yet admitted the heroism of his own father, by writing on 
 his tomb-stone the words, " An entirely honest merchant." 
 
 The preparation for this career is after all largely humanistic. 
 The pupil has to learn among other things living languages. 
 If the previous training has been good and timely this should 
 present no great difficulty. The various memories once trained, 
 the pupil is prepared to take possession, as it were, of the new 
 tongues. It is not enough to have trained memories. One 
 must be allowed to use them all freely. Dictation and 
 recitation appear to be in this, as in other subjects, of indispens- 
 able value."^ Let the teacher (it goes without saying that he 
 must speak the language he is teaching purely and correctly) 
 dictate, while the pupil writes — making at first doubtless many 
 mistakes. Then let the pupil hear the dictation read, and read 
 it himself, correct it, and finally learn it by heart and recite it. 
 Thus eye, ear, hand will re-inforce one another, and the pupil 
 will quickly acquire a vocabulary, and an intimate knowledge 
 of words and phrases. Practise in conversation, and (in the 
 fulness of time, but not until much has been mastered 
 previously) the study of grammar will do the rest. 
 
 * Dictation and Recilation are as we have seen inportant in Drawing. 
 
1 66 The Commercial School 
 
 As soon as possible the pupil should be introduced to the 
 new Literature. This should be done, not that he may read 
 new books, but in order that he may be introduced to a new 
 order of human mentality. All the studies of modern races 
 serve to show that they have powers and modes of feeling and 
 thinking which are largely complementary. 
 
 The teaching of ancient languages is believed to have an 
 immense effect on the mind. Why should the teaching of 
 living languages be regarded as ineffectual for all higher 
 purposes ? 
 
 Certainly, if ethical training- is wanted for any class of 
 students, it is needed for the pupils in commercial schools. 
 Book-keeping, invoicing, modern languages, and geography, 
 etc., are necessary ; and yet none of these directly take into 
 account the nature of those human relationships in which the 
 creative power of the pupils is to find the material of its activity. 
 "We almost all," writes a great American merchant, writing for 
 smaller merchants, "are liars and hypocrites in business 
 — and think it no shame. It is not an insult to call us liars 
 and hypocrites, by a percentage of ninety-nine in one hundred, 
 in business. We freely confess it among ourselves, when we 
 say that ' we can't do business without it.' " Is there no higher 
 aim than that in commerce ? 
 
 Yes ! In the commercial school, as in every school, we must 
 assume the existence of heroic forms of virtue. The financial 
 genius may take, as its aim, the reform of the finances of a power- 
 ful state — the enrichment or uplifting of the helpless masses 
 who are in the power of the classes above them. There is no 
 limit to be set on the aim of the developed commercial imagina- 
 tion of the financial genius in the future. And, if this order 
 of heroism is very late in making its appearance, that is mainly, 
 perhaps, because it involves, not only a high development of 
 the creative powers, but a great discipline and triumph of the 
 moral nature. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 IMAGINATION IN THE SCIENCE-ROOM 
 
 Progress seems to imply not merely new learning, but new 
 forgetting : not acquisition alone, but also apparent loss. 
 Few savages have: the gift of carrying a picture in the mind's 
 eye, and few children, as we have seen, can reproduce forms 
 clearly from memory without training. The "gift" belongs 
 to the favoured individuals among children and uncivilized 
 races. It is a conquest of the race. And yet as members of 
 the race continue to advance the gift ceases to be in evidence. 
 It is ignored, and apparently lost. Thus Dalton found that 
 the great majority of the men of science to whom he applied 
 for data on the power of visualization denied the possession 
 of any faculty of " mental imagery." " It is only by a figure 
 of speech," said one, **that I can describe my recollection of a 
 scene as a ' mental image ' which I can see with my mind's 
 eye and I do not see it. The mind possesses it." 
 
 The mind's remoter acquisitions are we know, not lost, but 
 sunken out of sight, far below, it may be, the movement of 
 conscious life and effort. And it is in this sense alone, doubt- 
 less, that the power of visual representation — feeble as it is 
 known to be among scientific men — is lost. Mental pictures 
 would be a cumbersome kind of medium of thought for those 
 who are occupied largely with highly generalized and abstract 
 thought. Substitutes for these have been found in symbols 
 
i68 Imagination in the Science-room 
 
 Nevertheless it is not reasonable to suppose that because a 
 faculty for seeing clear mental pictures may one day be 
 supplanted, and even suppressed, the acquirement of it can be 
 at every stage of life and education neglected. To become 
 the master of any faculty involves a discipline. We have 
 seen that memory may become a tyrannical thing. We have 
 to learn to deal with it freely, masterfully, to forget and re- 
 member at will. Just in the same way we may learn to deal 
 with the power of visual representation — which is indeed a 
 high form of memory. — Here as elsewhere possession is good, 
 and mastery better. Dalton himself declares that the power 
 of dealing easily and firmly with mental imagery is the surest 
 criterion of a high order of intellect. Some have disciplined 
 the visual power till in them, or in their descendants, it 
 appears to be lost. Yet it is not lost ! The highest minds 
 are, according to Dalton, these in which it is obviously not lost, 
 but subordinated. 
 
 It is not difficult to understand how the power of clear and 
 rapid visual representation is useful to the scientist — and 
 particularly to the discoverer. Half the difference between 
 the discoverer and the ordinary man may be said to consist 
 in this, that the former can see that which is invisible to 
 the other. — He can conceive movements and forms that 
 are beyond mere physical vision. To Dalton for example the 
 atom was not an abstraction, though atoms and molecules are 
 abstractions to many of his followers. He could see it. The 
 chemists of to-day, as Tyndall has pointed out, stop short of 
 the intelligible atomic theory, and take refuge in the doctrine 
 of multiple proportions. The discoverer was not so timid, or 
 so abstract. He conceived a particle of vibrating matter, 
 occupied himself with its architecture, its behaviour, realized 
 it in short, and formed a mental picture of it. Not only the 
 great discoverers but all the great teachers of physics appear 
 to be able to resort to visual representation. " Tiie bodily 
 
(university) 
 
 Imagination in the Science-rbWl 169 
 
 eye," said Tyndall. " cannot see the condensations and rare- 
 factions of the waves of sound. — But we construct them in 
 thought " — that is, wt ^-^ a a mental picture of them. " No 
 research," said Sir Norman Lockyer at the meeting of the 
 British Association, " could be more abstract to-day than the 
 study of the emanations of radium." But one of the most 
 eminent physicists of to-day aids himself in the study of this 
 subject by drawings illustrative of the behaviour of the 
 molecules of this substance in various conditions. " When 
 I look out of a railway carriage," says another, " it seems to 
 me that I see very plainly the billions of molecules liberated 
 in the change of heat into motion, and this power of seeing is 
 as useful almost in the world beyond sense as in the little area 
 of immediate observation." There is no reason to doubt that 
 in the realm of physical science the gift of visual representation, 
 i?i its higher form ^ is not merely an aid, but a necessity. 
 
 The same is true of the group of sciences which we call the 
 " social sciences." To take one of these, history. We have 
 seen that the child is no historian in the modern sense — that 
 history is an art for him, nothing more. He does not see 
 the past as it was. He has no true vision of far-off lands, 
 or vanished civilizations. So he constructs a fantastic, or 
 grotesque substitute for the true vision. Later he is under 
 no such necessity. He knows more — can realize the past, and 
 unseen people better. But he realizes them through the same 
 faculty by which he once supplanted them. Just in proportion 
 as his vision is clear, his interest is strong, and the past 
 become real to him. The historian, like the physicist then is 
 dependent more or less on his power of visual representation. 
 
 This power — on which so much depends — is almost ob- 
 trusive in childhood. It may be developed in every lesson — in 
 history as well as physics — in arithmetic as well as drawing. 
 
 Dalton discovered that many eminent scientists, as well as 
 a considerable proportion of the general public are in the habit 
 
170 Imagination in the Science-room 
 
 of seeing numerals in forms. Most of these forms are mere 
 diagrams in which every number has its own definite place. 
 But others are shaded drawings, and some forms are brilliantly 
 coloured. The faculty of associating numerals with forms is 
 however more common with children than with grown-up 
 people, and illustiate their general tendency to dramatize 
 everything. Even when dealing with such abstractions 
 as figures they do not at once cast aside all dependence 
 on mental pictures. The tendency indeed is towards en- 
 franchisement. *' The more attention I give to the properties 
 of numbers," said one of the seers of number-forms, " the 
 less I am troubled with the clumsy shaded frame work 
 for them. . . . The higher numbers are to me quite abstract 
 and unconnected with a shape.'' In the earliest years the de- 
 pendence on such aids is more or less general. Successful 
 teachers of mathematics to young pupils owe much to their 
 practise of leading the child to visualize scenes and concrete 
 things. 
 
 In giving a lesson in number, for example, of which money is 
 the medium one very successful teacher encourages the child to 
 represent to himself the shop where the transaction takes place, 
 to visualize the coins that pass from the customer's hand to the 
 seller's and vice versa. Such aids are of course useful mainly 
 to beginners. But their effects are not to be confined to the 
 early stages of learning. There is great reason to think that 
 to them many far reaching successes may be traced. Very 
 often it happens that a pupil may go a certain length in 
 mathematics only to find himself suddenly balked. A subtle 
 weakness or deficiency makes the further field of labour dim. 
 What can this deficiency be but a lack of experience and of 
 representative power ? And the cause may lie far back in the 
 early life and training. Even the child prodigy in mathematics 
 is not exempt from such arrest. Very often it happens that 
 as he approaches manhood his power declines, while other 
 
Imagination in the Science-room 171 
 
 people, who have gone forward to the physical sciences, 
 shoot far ahead, reinforced by teachings drawn from the 
 concrete, from experience."^ 
 
 The material offered to the imagination in science differs, it 
 will be seen, from that offered in art, commerce, artizanship, 
 etc. Even the material offered in different sciences varies 
 greatly. For the mathematician it consists mainly of symbols, 
 abstractions. The geologist, botanist, astronomer, etc., is not 
 independent of mathematics, but the material on which his 
 imagination acts is largely concrete, and depends on sense 
 impressions. 
 
 Whatever the science, however, the worker's activities fall 
 into three distinct orders. He begins by observation, then pro- 
 ceeds to conjecture, and finally to verification. Observation 
 and information supply material. All that can be learned 
 constitutes the material. The power that creates, the motor 
 power is not in it. It is with the second step in the process 
 of creation and discovery that the imagination is concerned. 
 The scientist who creates an hypothesis, the little child who 
 hazards an explanation reaches it. In the third or last 
 step — verification — reason is paramount but imagination is 
 not absent. 
 
 If we look at our elementary schools to-day we see that 
 the first step is far from being entirely neglected. Serious 
 efforts are made to cultivate the power of observation in 
 children. With this end in view object lessons are given 
 early in the school life, and though, in the case of children of 
 poor physique and very limited experience, the results are 
 discouraging, yet in favourable areas and for children of 
 more favoured type and circumstance their value is recognized. 
 
 * A complete contrast to the method of Ijeginning with the concrete is 
 to be found in that of Mr. Stelling, Tom Tulliver's tutor, who, keeping 
 closely to abstractions, finally convinced a very intelligent hoy that Euclid 
 was only a means of torture, and left him quite powerless to connect the 
 p'^oblems with anything in his own world of experience or interest. 
 
172 hnagination in the Science-room 
 
 The " object lesson " is, indeed, a test lesson for the young 
 teacher. So that even the most captious critic cannot say 
 that the taking of means whereby the imagination of children 
 should be supplied with materials is still quite neglected. 
 
 It is when we come to think of the second step in creative 
 activity that we see ground for dismay. Are we helping 
 children to "conjecture," to create for themselves the 
 material for rational investigation ? To be sure, the question 
 is somewhat absurd. We cannot " help " others to an im- 
 pulse. Or in any case the help we can give is of a 
 very negative kind. We cannot bestow imagination as a gift."^ 
 No teaching or training can make a creator and discoverer, 
 else it would be indeed imperative to fabricate genius at any 
 cost. On the other hand we have power to prevent the 
 development of creative power. And no institution is more 
 aptly designed to effect this than a school. In schools we 
 give innumerable solutions, the results of the travail of creative 
 mind for many centuries. This kind of giving is necessary, 
 otherwise no generation could profit from the labours of the 
 past. But it is attended with risks to which eminent men are 
 no longer blind. " Education as at present conducted," said 
 Professor Boyd Dawkins at the meeting of the British 
 Association in 1903, "is killing the insatiable curiosity of 
 children. All children have faculties of investigation that 
 would teach them much if they were not dulled by education." 
 Certainly schools may be very destructive, and, indeed, it is 
 their constant tendency to become so. 
 
 Conjecture is provoked through curiosity. Curiosity like 
 other emotions, is a stimulus, an excitant. The search for 
 truth is a hunt, differing from the ordinary hunt or chase 
 only in its object. And all who have observed healthy 
 children in a state of freedom must admit that they long to 
 
 * Fichte taught that "the most original thing in us is the impulse to 
 action." 
 
Imagination in the Science-room 173 
 
 join in this hue and cry. In the lonely islands of the Hebrides 
 you may often see groups of children poking sticks about in 
 pools, gathering lichens and shells among the rocks, over- 
 turning stones in black swampy earth in search of living 
 things. Having caught their spoil (for which they have no 
 practical use, and which they show no desire to kill or torture) 
 the children gather round it with cries of joy, place it on a dry 
 stone, turn it over, watch its movements. Sometimes a bolder 
 spirit hazards explanations (perhaps quite fictitious) in Gaelic 
 which are always deemed worthy at least of criticism. It is 
 easy to see what the function of the teacher is, and the school. 
 The function of the former is to help at the right moment, to 
 set the "hunters" on the right track, and of the school to 
 train the rational faculty to act on the material provided for 
 it by the imagination. 
 
 Much of this material will be rejected. None of it probably 
 will be lost. The little child as well as the great scientist pro- 
 gresses through his own mistakes — not through being pre- 
 vented from making mistakes. A false hypothesis has often 
 served the race well. Just in the same way the illusions of 
 childhood serve children well. Their wildest conjectures, 
 are like the early movements of infancy, through which 
 the little one learns finally the power of accommodation, 
 and is able to suppress useless discharges. Their false 
 explanations form a kind of bridge across which they pass 
 into the world of new light and knowledge. Their self- 
 created methods guide them even when they are false 
 Illusions and mistakes are a part, as Pascal declared, of every 
 thinker's force. They are the preconceived ideas which serve 
 the little child as well as the great discoverer as guide. 
 
 It is in incitants that the modern system of education 
 is lacking. All the efforts made to improve it appear to 
 be directed to other ends than this — that the creative original 
 power of every pupil should be roused to activity. Accuracy, 
 
174 Imagination in the Science-room 
 
 fulness, method — the need for these is recognized more or 
 less. Only from the kindergarten, where the little children 
 have all their work prepared for them, to the upper standards 
 and colleges where the young teachers learn what they have 
 to do and be, and follow close in the traces of an all-foreseeing 
 pedagogic providence, the master fact, the key-stone verity ot 
 human education is forgotten, and that is, that the greatest 
 success, the unknown, undreamed-of, ever fair triumph comes 
 only to those who can use knowledge as an instrument, 
 and who apply it in ways that display the whole power, the 
 new power of each individual mind. 
 
 And yet the wealth of original creative power is desired 
 ardently to-day by all civilized nations. Of this abundant 
 evidence is furnished by the numerous costly schools of research 
 which foreign European nations have recently built and equipped. 
 Even England is making great, and will perhaps make still 
 greater sacrifices in order to secure the best kind of national 
 wealth. " No man,'' said a prominent statesman lately, 
 " can honestly say that we have done enough to equip research 
 with all the costly armoury which it must have in these latter 
 days." 
 
 The " costly armoury " is the outward and visible sign of 
 the great, though gradual advance which places the investi- 
 gators and discoverers of to-day in another world than that in 
 which the early thinkers dreamed in peace, and created their 
 own solutions of world- problems in freedom. The develop- 
 ment of reasoning power, and the increase of knowledge has 
 checked facile creation. Only primitive peoples imagine 
 as primitive people, only to young children do the gates of 
 fairy-land swing wide at a touch. When the dreamer is a- 
 wakened by experience, and informed by new knowledge the 
 creative power is necessarily subjected to new conditions. 
 Thus prevented, driven into new channels, it escapes the ob- 
 
Imagination in the Science-room 175 
 
 servation of many, and is believed to have been destroyed by 
 the march of higher faculties. Some think of it with contempt. 
 (Among these, curiously enough, are many successful, practical, 
 business men in whom, as we have seen, imagination, along 
 certain limited ways, is well developed). Others look on 
 it with fear — and these timid ones belong in many cases 
 to the higher orders of men! "There are Tories," said 
 Tyndall, " even in science who regard imagination as a 
 faculty to be feared and avoided rather than employed." 
 As knowledge is increased, and experience deepened and 
 amplified, the creative imagination is subjected to new con- 
 ditions, so that many cease to recognise it in what seem very 
 prosaic callings ! But its role in the drama of mental activities 
 remains the same. It is still the motive-power, the power 
 that makes advance everywhere possible. It is still the 
 fore-runner of reason, which does indeed correct it and even 
 guide it, but guides not as an angel that goes before, but as a 
 captious grumbler and fault-finder that hobbles after. Even in 
 its fault-finding Reason is not the initiating power. Under all 
 calculations, inferences, etc., and more obviously in the creation 
 of all methods of logic and proof there is a moving, vivifying, 
 initiating something — and that something is imagination. 
 
 The " costly armoury " is provided to-day then in many 
 lands, for the discoverer. Only in the elementary schools we do 
 not train children as future discoverers. No, that is trouble- 
 some. We are tempted to hustle them along the path of 
 mere learning. The path is so long and straight. After 
 all the terra incognita is far away. A long journey must 
 be made to reach it. Much must be learned before any- 
 thing new to the race is discovered. Thus preliminary 
 learning threatens to-day to be suppressive — to degenerate 
 into a mere mechanical reception of facts and tabulation of 
 sequences. So that genius itself may be smothered by 
 erudition, like a flame under damp fuel. 
 
176 Imagination in the Science-room 
 
 Yet this crushing out of the initiating power in young 
 scholars is a ruinous course. The increase of knowledge does 
 not render it necessary. The world is old to the experienced. 
 They are familiar with it. But it is new to every child. 
 The creative power like a vital current must still flow below 
 all his mental life and vivify it. The little child who 
 himself finds the method for solving a simple problem is 
 a discoverer. And without such discoveries and free 
 exercise of the creating and initiating power of the mind 
 by all pupils in all the elementary schools, there can be 
 no real preparation on the part of any nation for the use of 
 the " costly armoury " which is to be furnished forth to the 
 advanced students. Methods of invention, creation, and dis- 
 covery can never be taught. 
 
 But that children may have their powers of invention 
 and discovery weakened by suppressive methods of early 
 training we have little reason to doubt. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 IMAGINATION AND MORAL TRAINING 
 
 The various faculties of the mind are not absolutely inter- 
 dependent. On the contrary, certain faculties may be highly 
 developed in the absence, or atrophy of others. Some idiots 
 have an extraordinary memory. Many persons have fair reason- 
 ing powers with little imagination. The most Striking fact in 
 connection with partial development, however, appears to be this : 
 that a good development of the intellectual powers may be found 
 in certain persons who are, from the moral standpoint, imbeciles. 
 At the bottom of the scale we have "moral imbecility." At 
 the top, we have "moral talent," and "moral genius." It is 
 useless to pretend that the possession of the latter places men 
 at a great advantage in the struggle for existence. The moral 
 genius is, even to-day, at a great disadvantage in most spheres 
 of industry, and, at no very remote date, the same order of 
 gifted person was exposed to grave personal risk. Neverthe- 
 less, the progress of the whole race, in morals, as in science or 
 industry, depends very largely on initiators, or ?nen of genius. 
 The superiority of the moral genius need not extend to every 
 sphere of intellectual life. Yet it distinguishes him from all 
 others. "Through causes of which we are ignorant," said 
 Ribot, "analogous to those which produce a great poet, or a 
 great painter, men of moral genius arise, who feel wliat others. 
 
178 hnagination and Moral Training 
 
 do not feel, exactly as the poet or the painter feel and see what 
 others appear to be insensible to." 
 ^ The most striking characteristics of this, as of other orders 
 
 • of great men, is originality. They take a course that is more 
 or less new, more or less unexpected. In some cases the 
 innovation may, it is true, be a negative one. The chief of a 
 
 ^ barbarous tribe announces that it is his pleasure that no human 
 
 • sacrifices should be made at his burial. He is obeyed, and 
 this bloodless funeral constitutes a new departure for all his 
 people — the beginning of milder thoughts and manners in the 
 presence of Death. A barbarian chief spares his prisoners of 
 war, and this merciful course (which is without precedent) 
 startles his subjects, but, at the same time, implants in their 
 minds the idea that vanquished enemies may be dealt with in 
 more than one fashion. In no sphere of life is originality 
 more telling than in the moral sphere. 
 
 In his autobiography, Kropotkin describes how on one oc- 
 casion, the high-born lads who composed the School of Pages, 
 received what was virtually a kind of moral shock, through the 
 original behaviour of a plebeian writing-master whom they 
 were tormenting. The boys, full of the insolence of youth, 
 and pride of rank, insulted the poor, young master in various 
 ways. One day a member of the class threw an ink pot at 
 him, ruining in so doing the clean new shirt which he 
 was wearing. The young barbarians then expected nothing 
 but the sending of the culprit to the head-master for punish- 
 ment and the disgrace of the whole class, every member of 
 which had joined in the persecution. But the master betrayed 
 no sign of anger. He looked sadly at his ruined linen, said a 
 V few words of regret, and calmly went on with the lesson. This 
 conduct amazed the boys. It was unexpected — inconceivable ! 
 When the paroxysm of astonishment was over, many of the 
 boys blamed the culprit, took the part of the master, were 
 startled in short into something like remorse and humanity. 
 
hnagination and Moral Training 179 
 
 Scattered through every society there are persons who have a 
 higher moral potentiahty than others. And just as the progress 
 of any society in industry or science depends on the existence 
 of minor discoverers and inventors whose names are never 
 heard of, so progress in morals depends very much on the 
 existence and example of many minor reformers and initiators 
 who are continually illustrating the advantages of slightly new 
 and difficult modes of behaviour in the face of provocation. 
 
 The great moral reformer, as well as the great industrial 
 reformer is, of course, he who brings in a new motor power. 
 In the Egyptian " Book of the Dead," there is a Profession of 
 Negations — a Religion of Negation."^ One may compare it to 
 the many rules of the early craftsman. The command, " Do not 
 to others what ye would not that they should do to you," is far 
 enough removed from that other command, "Do to others what 
 ye would that they should do to you." With the enunciation of 
 the latter, the former rules became superfluous. Fear, which 
 from time immemorial, had determined the attitude and relations 
 of men was to be cast out, and superceded by a new power. 
 Thus far there is a certain analogy between the great moral 
 reformer and the great inventor in the industrial world. The 
 discovery of each is radical and positive. But the working out 
 of one presents a curious contrast to the working out of the 
 other. When the possibility of locomotion by steam was 
 illustrated successfully, nothing more was necessary but to- 
 cover the land from end to end with a network of railways. 
 When the uses of the microscope and telescope had been 
 demonstrated, it only remained to set instrument makers ta 
 work all over the land. But the moral genius has not merely 
 to demonstrate the existence and power of the new social force, 
 but to awaken in others the human disposition and powers 
 without which it can never be generated. 
 
 * It begins " I have not been idle, I have not waylaid, I have not: 
 boasted, I have not stolen," and so on ad injinittim. 
 
i8o Imagination and Moral Training 
 
 This task presents difficulties. The disciple, if he has a 
 marked individuality, transposes and changes (according to the 
 constant tendency of the creative faculty), the original. If he 
 be a weak person he becomes a copyist, and gives us all but 
 what was most important and inimitable in the original. As 
 for the vast majority of the followers of the great teacher, 
 their fidelity takes the form of observances of customs, and 
 practices. Grant Allen has pointed this out in his book "The 
 Evolution of the idea of God." " If you," he writes, " were to 
 ask almost any intelligent and unsophisticated child, * What is 
 Religion ? ' he would answer off-hand with the clear vision of 
 youth, ^ Oh ! it's saying your prayers, and reading your Bible, 
 and singing hymns, and going to church or to chapel on 
 Sundays.' If you were to ask an unsophisticated Hindu 
 peasant the same question, he would answer in almost the self- 
 same spirit, ^ Oh, it is doing poojah regularly, and paying your 
 dues every day to Mahadeo.' If you were to ask any simple- 
 minded African savage, he would similarly reply, * It is giving 
 the gods flour, and oil, and native-beer, and goat-mutton.'" 
 Among Roman Catholic peasants the ** duties " are often 
 spoken of. The priests, too, speak of the *' duties," and these 
 are going to mass and confessions, and attending to the 
 various customs and practices of the Church. 
 
 Moreover, just as one order of superior mind does not 
 always understand another — as the great scientist and philo- 
 sopher Darwin, for example, lost the capacity of enjoying 
 music and could not appreciate the powers of Beethoven 
 or of Bach — so the great moral genius does not find interpreters 
 i save among those of his own order. The weakest and least 
 j convincing pages of the great psychologists and philosophers 
 are perhaps those in which they strive to explain the life and 
 motives of the men of commanding moral genius. 
 
 The psychology of the moral genius closely resembles in 
 'essential characteristics that of other great men. Like them 
 
Imagination and Moral Training i8i 
 
 he towers above his fellows largely in virtue of the greater 
 freedom and power of the Imagination. In him, as in the 
 scientist or artist, sudden discovery, "inspiration " as it is called, 
 is sudden only in appearance. A period of incubation, or 
 preparation comes before it. Newton was ready to see the 
 meaning of a falling apple and so discovered the law of 
 gravitation. The mathematician Hamilton brooded for years. 
 Then one day as he walked near Dublin bridge his method 
 of quaternions flashed on him. It would be unreasonable 
 to suppose that during the period of incubation the 
 creative power is inactive. On the contrary, it is unresting 
 in spite of failure, is preparing all the time to take that higher 
 leap in the dark which issues in discovery. The birth of great 
 moral ideas is subject to the same laws, and depends on the 
 like sequence of events, only in the moral genius they are 
 emphasized. The concentration is longer, more conscious, 
 more painful, the illumination more dazzling, the verification 
 more difficult. Buddha practises asceticism, meditates for 
 seven years, sees the light, renounces a life of contemplation 
 and preaches for fifty years to the people. "True or false 
 historically," as Ribot says, " this order of events is psychologi- 
 cally exact. A fixed and persistent idea, then a series of 
 efforts and gropings, the decisive moment of the eureka ! then 
 the internal revelation manifesting itself to the outer world, 
 and imposing itself on millions. How does this mode of 
 creation differ from others, at least on the practical side ? " 
 
 It does not differ at all. The vitality of the moral genius is 
 realised, as it were, in his work, as is the vitality of 
 any other thinker. Only in the case of the former, the 
 channels worn by the inner activity seem to be deeper, the 
 concentration greater, so that the energy gathered, and freed at 
 last appears to project itself with astounding force and efficacy. 
 Nothing kills the power that is instinct in their teachings. 
 True that teaching itself is mutilated, is subject to a hundred 
 
1 82 Imagination and Moral Training 
 
 misrepresentations. And it embodies itself after a little time 
 in mere ceremonies, customs, and observances. These 
 practises and customs do not represent or reflect the whole 
 power of the original genius who is responsible for them any 
 more than do the shells cast up by the tide represent the whole 
 power of the ocean whose movement has fashioned them. 
 
 The moral potentialities of human beings appear to be quite 
 at the mercy of circuaistances as are their intellectual gifts. 
 Severe illness in early childhood may impair the character. The 
 after effects of convulsions, of scarlet fever, and other disorders, 
 are concerned in some instances only with the moral nature and 
 disposition. Thus we hear of a truthful and honourable child 
 who becomes a dreadful liar as the result of malarial fever. 
 
 Pedagogic science, in its present stage, can do very little 
 for the moral imbecile. It is agreed by all authorities that 
 this type of child should be separated from others, and not 
 allowed to mix with the children in the ordinary school. It is 
 agreed too that moral imbeciles should be watched. Here 
 doctors and other advisers halt — for the present. 
 
 The first condition of moral development appears to be in 
 all cases, the existence of feeling, or rather a capacity for feeling. 
 Without this mere intellectual development can effect nothing 
 at all ! But where feeling is present or possible the processes 
 involved in creation or growth from within may be set up. 
 
 There is first then a capability for feeling, then the growth in 
 intensity and clearness of the feeling, later, the shaping of it 
 into clear mental images, then the handling of them with 
 growing freedom and versatility. We have traced this process 
 in Art. We have only to repeat it in the realm of morals. 
 Human creativeness in every sphere is governed by the same 
 fundamental laws. 
 
 We have now to deal with the role of Imagination in 
 the sphere of morals. Morality is made possible for us 
 
Imagination and Moral Training 183 
 
 through a capacity we nearly all possess in some degree 
 of feeling for other people. The original extent of this 
 capacity varies widely in individuals, yet it is determined 
 largely by experience, just as artistic capacity or original feeling 
 varies, yet is determined largely even in the case of the most 
 gifted by experience. The education of the sympathies, like the 
 education of the art instincts, is carried on by means which 
 ensure a growing clearness and vividness of mind images, and a 
 growing versatility in the use of these. Now there is, as 
 Edward Carpenter has pointed out in a beautiful essay, a con- 
 stant tendency in every mind image to clear itself- — to emerge 
 out of dim chaos into light and action There is "a continual 
 ebullition and birth going on within us, a continual evolution 
 out of the mind-stuff of forms which are the expression of 
 underlying feeling." Moral education does not consist in the 
 reversal or upsetting of this process, but in the aiding and 
 supplementing of it. 
 
 A young child's impressions of other states than his own are 
 very few and very vague. Even where the moral potentialities 
 are good, they may remain vague and few for a long time, 
 as the numerous examples of originally well endowed but spoilt 
 and selfish children attest."^ " Why should Baby have so. many 
 roses ? " said a little boy to his weeping mother who had bought 
 the roses to place them on Baby's grave; "/want them all!" 
 This apparent callousness shocks us because we do not at once 
 realize that a little child does not spontaneously learn to image 
 other states than his own any more than he spontaneously begins 
 to draw objects in good perspective. He appears cruel, yet not 
 from lack of feeling, but rather from lack of power to shape his 
 feeling into any definite thought or imiage, mirroring the actua- 
 situation. Where our power of representing to ourselves other 
 states than our own fails, sympathy fails. That is to say, where 
 
 * American children are said to be spoilt and troublesome. Yet later 
 they become devoted sons and daughters. 
 
184 Imagination and Moral Training 
 
 imagination fails, sympathy fails. Feeling may exist, and yet be 
 quite inoperative through lack of those clear mind images (and 
 their attendant impulses), in virtue of which we give it expression. 
 
 The child himself, however, makes spontaneous efforts to 
 obtam this kind of material and elaborate it. It certainly 
 is not furnished in mere precepts or axioms, and so the 
 child is disposed (as every teacher and mother knows) to 
 regard the moral of every tale as a mere superfluity. Yet his 
 love of the tale itself is largely due to the fact that it supplies 
 him with new and clear impressions of human conduct and 
 character. A story is not a mere series of incidents for him. 
 It is a series of opportunities. It offers new moulds into which 
 he can project himself. For history, as we have seen, the child 
 has his own uses. There are no half-tones about the boys' King 
 Alfred, Charlemagne or Henry IV. These characters are in 
 reality moulds into which he projects his own ideas and 
 sentiments. He incarnates in his hero his idea of bravery, of 
 heroism, and in others his idea of cowardice, treachery, cruelty, 
 etc. These are all fashioned after a certain workable image, 
 and become useful as types, just as wooden engines were once 
 useful as toys ! They form part of that " historical material " 
 of which Herbart says that it '' stands in close relation to the 
 child's own personality — that in studying it he considers the 
 actions and motives of men and develops his own moral sense." 
 
 Sometimes it happens that a child, not content with historical 
 lay-figures, will create phantom friends for himself, who assist 
 in the inner drama of his life. Thus, for example, a little boy 
 (known to the writer), was on very intimate terms with an 
 i maginary friend called *' Madou," who behaved, at times, in 
 very strange ways, and drew from his creator expressions of 
 astonishment. " Why, Madou ! how can you say that ? " the 
 child would suddenly exclaim, turning round quickly. In order 
 o find a parallel to this, we should have to turn to those great 
 writers who concentrate their minds on the characters in their 
 
Imagination and Moral Training 185 
 
 tales, till these seem as real to them as living beings."^ Balzac, 
 having listened to a conversation about the men and women 
 around him, cried out suddenly, *' Come ! let us talk about 
 the real people — the people in my book." It appears as if the 
 actual world may become very shadowy as we withdraw from it. 
 
 Now, the spontaneous means which a child adopts to ensure 
 that the inner drama of life shall have some variety and colour, 
 indicate a real need, just as does the cry of hunger, and vigor- 
 ous taking of nourishment, the asking of questions, the draw- 
 ing of pictures — in short, all the other healthy activities of 
 childhood. To suppress such efforts is simply to suppress life 
 and its strivings. For the same reason that we supplement the 
 efforts or aid a young child to find its proper food, and direct 
 it in its activities, we supplement the effort of the inner life to 
 dramatize feeling, and create new situations and opportunities of 
 (pictured) action. 
 A^ *• What ! " some may exclaim at this point with indignation, 
 ^ " to help children to dramatize feeling — to picture action, and 
 give vivacity to the inner life ? But surely moral teachers have 
 something better to do than this? They have to exhort, to 
 to give precepts and axioms, to press homo moral truths, etc." 
 
 It is difficult for even the highly trained thinker to shake him- 
 self free from every trace of pedantry : difficult for many learned 
 men to believe — though surely the evidence is overwhelming 
 — that mere exhortation and precept has little effect on the 
 young, or indeed, for that matter, on the majority of older 
 people. And yet if we find (as we do), that few are much 
 influenced, in reality, by external commands, prohibitions, warn- 
 
 * Other parallels can be found in dreams, and in madness. In dreams, 
 the activity of the inner world proceeds without interference or correction. 
 The mental images become intense, vivid, until at last they may awaken 
 us. Nothing interferes with them. They occupy the field alone, while 
 they last. In madness, too, the conxctive power of the objective world is 
 broken — the chain of connection is snapped. Thus, a madman believes 
 what the riotous inner world imposes, and is not able to receive the counter 
 message from without. 
 
1 86 'Imaginatio^i and Moral Training 
 
 ings, precepts, advice, etc., the reason probably is this : that 
 the precepts, etc., have Httle or nothing to do with the series 
 of changes continually taking place in the inner life, changes 
 which alone constitute its moral progress or backsliding// 
 
 The power of sympathy, like every other power, grows slowly, 
 mainly because it is subject to many limiting circumstances. 
 A mother loves her own child and divines all his wants and 
 wishes. She has moral genius where he is concerned. But 
 where the child of a stranger is concerned, she has no power of 
 divination. Primitive tribes and clans were faithful and devoted 
 to their own kindred. Beyond the family their virtues did not 
 extend — it was not even conceived that one could love a 
 stranger ! To take less extreme cases of limitation however 1 
 Young people draw together. Girls have girl friends. The 
 rich make- friends with the rich, and the poor with the poor. 
 And the reason for this is that sympathy depends on power of 
 imagination — power of representing other states than one's own. 
 But the state of those near and similar to us is more easily 
 represented than that of the stranger. Where the power of re- 
 presentation (or imaginative power) fails, sympathy fails. 
 
 This is illustrated in all the prejudices of caste, rank, colour, 
 race, and religion. The country English hind in *'Adam 
 Bede," declared that Frenchmen were dressed-up monkeys. 
 He had never seen a Frenchman, and could not imagine one ! 
 But country hinds are not the only people who suffer in this 
 way. Exclusive persons, even if they are highly '* educated," 
 tend to become dwarfed and stunted through lack of experience, 
 and finally of imagination. A lady of the Southern States is 
 reported to have almost fainted on seeing President Lincoln 
 acknowledge the salutation of a black man. This act of com- 
 mon politeness horrified her. And yet she was probably a good 
 wife and mother — a good friend perhaps, and much beloved 
 in her own set. And why did she behave and feel like a 
 barbarian outside her own set or caste? The answer is simple. 
 
Imagination and Mo7'al Training 187 
 
 Because her power of vivid representation did not extend 
 beyond her own set. Prejudice and cruelty of every kind 
 marks the point at which the power of the Imagination in the 
 moral life has exhausted itself. In the sphere of morals as 
 well as the sphere of intellect, Imagination is the forerunner. 
 Where it fails there is no going forward. 
 
 This being so, the duty of the teacher seems plain. He must 
 supplement and refine the stock of mind images through which 
 the pupil seeks to gain a knowledge of other states than his 
 own. 
 
 And having done this successfully, it appears to be necessary 
 to refrain as much as possible from doing more. If a child 
 has a right to make his own discoveries in mathematics, or 
 geometry, has he not an equal right to make his own dis- 
 coveries in morals ? If he suffers in one sphere of activity from 
 having solutions and formulae pressed on his acceptance, how 
 can it be well for him to be coerced into taking everything on 
 trust in another? /As a matter of fact, where the representation 
 is clear and forcible enough, the judgment is nearly always 
 spontaneous and original. David having murdered Uriah 
 judged himself. But how was he led to do this? Simply by 
 having the picture of his own action revealed to him. Seeing 
 it he cried out, "The man that hath done this shall surely 
 die." The prophet left him to pass judgment."^ 
 
 All this does not imply, of course, that there should be no 
 theoretic teaching at all in the sphere of morals, but merely 
 that theoretic and authoritative teaching, however supported, 
 cannot take the place of real education of the Imagination. 
 
 *' If," said Hinton many years ago, '*the Imagination is to 
 be dormant until the heights of any science are attained, or 
 until, through long experience and discipline, a criterion of 
 
 * To take an example from actual experience : It was found that some 
 boys in a Higher Grade school were in the habit of teasing the pupils of a 
 "special centre" or class for the feeble-minded. Reprimands were given 
 
1 88 Imagination and Moral Training 
 
 truth is gained, it will, — at least if it resembles any of the other 
 powers — become atrophied."/ 
 
 An effort has been made ih this book to show that Imagination 
 is precocious, and that not only is it a supremely important faculty 
 in itself, but that all the higher faculties are dependent on it ! 
 
 To make it '' lie dormant " then in youth and early childhood, 
 is to atrophy it, and in so doing to atrophy and destroy 
 the whole mental and moral life. 
 
 " But," it may be truly said, " the education of the Imagina- 
 tion UTiplies not mere learning, but great and important events 
 — events and changes in the organism itself. The experience, 
 not of mere excitement (such as is felt by those who strive for 
 prizes) but deep emotion, the fixing of clear mental images, 
 and freedom of initiative. And how can these be secured in 
 elementary schools for the children of the masses?" 
 
 The answer is, " These can be secured when many, or 
 perhaps a few teachers, inspectors, and administrators feel 
 that they are necessary, and all-importajit." 
 
 It is not difficulties that paralyse us, but doubt, fear, and ignor- 
 ance of the goal. 
 
 If we do not see the true goal, it is easy to understand why 
 we are easily discouraged, ready to magnify our difficulties and 
 to follow the line of the least resistance. 
 
 But the real goal, the true aim of education is fixed. It is a 
 brighter, a higher aim than even the greatest theorists of the past 
 dreamed of. To catch a glimpse of that goal is to be strong to 
 overcome all difficulties, to win a new insight in dealing with the 
 materials of knowledge, and to find a new power of evoking, 
 even under great difficulties, the capacities of the human spirit. 
 
 — then punishments, but all were unavailing. At last a relative of one of 
 the ringleaders took him aside, and described to him in detail and with 
 great force the condition of one of his victims. This word-picture took 
 hold of the young tyrant. It came into his narrow field of vision, like a 
 torch. He stopped his persecution, nnd became the champion of his 
 former victims. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 A GREAT deal has been said in this little book about lines 
 coloursy-sounds, etc. That was inevitable, since it is a book 
 about the training of the imagination in childhood. 
 
 Art is, as Tolstoi has shown, a human activity, by which we 
 communicate our feelings to others. 
 
 Speech is a human activity, by which we communicate our 
 thoughts (our feelings are communicated mainly by gestures, 
 tones, expression). 
 
 Without Speech there could be little development of the 
 reasoning power. 
 
 Without Art there can be little development of the emo- 
 tional life. 
 
 If people lacked the power of speech, that is the capacity to 
 receive the thoughts of other men and communicate their own 
 thoughts, they would be like wild beasts. 
 
 And if, to quote Tolstoi literally, '' they lacked this other 
 capacity of being infected by art, people might be more savage 
 still, and above all more separated from, and more hostile to, 
 one another." 
 
 But the power to speak is attained early in life — that is about 
 the second or third year. 
 
 And the capacity for art, and desire to express feelings that 
 have been lived through is also attained in early childhood — 
 and may be highly developed and trained in childhood. 
 
1 90 Conclusion 
 
 The desire to express feeling, and the power to express it 
 is not confined to art-critics. Indeed, it is doubtful whether 
 these have any feehngs to express, though they may have many 
 thoughts about art. Simple people, (like the Japanese) young 
 nations like the ancient Greeks, working people of all 
 lands, and children, have originated the music, the drama, the 
 sculpture, the games and the stories that are immortal. 
 And they have done this not because they have some occult 
 power denied to all others ! But because they have expressed 
 truthfully and naturally feelings that do not die, and that are 
 common to all. 
 
 This fact is obscured for us to-day when we go into the 
 houses of the working classes, and see only cheap and showy 
 pictures hung on the walls, and inartistic furniture in the rooms. 
 But a Uttle consideration only is needed to see that these showy 
 things — namely, the bead ornaments, and ugly china, the cheap 
 pictures, and flaunting wall-papers — do not express the emotional 
 life of their owners at all, or in any case, they express only their 
 most superficial, temporary and insignificant feelings. They 
 are bought in haste. ^'I nivver bothered wi' them," said a 
 Yorkshire woman of her ugly pictures. No. There was nothing 
 of her life or feelings in them. They were supphed by vendors 
 and furnishers who are certainly not concerned to express the 
 deep emotional life of any human creature. 
 
 That children need emotional expression, and strive to find 
 it not simply by cries, and clamorous efforts at speech, as in 
 their babyhood, but through art, is easily forgotten to-day. 
 For our whole system of elementary education, up till recent 
 days, was designed to crush this desire, and prevent its expres- 
 sion. Even in those schools where drawing and music were 
 taught, these arts have hitherto been treated not at all as means 
 of expressing the true feelings of the children. That is why 
 the children did not respond. 
 
 Impressed as they were by living forms and faces, by active 
 
Conclusion 1 9 t 
 
 creatures of the lower animal world, they were set to draw cubes, 
 boxes, and extraordinary artificial forms called 'free-hand' 
 copies ! Songs were taught which had no reference at all to 
 their life and feelings. In some cases the whole interest and 
 energy was consumed in technique — even while the most 
 importatit part of technique, such as the breathing and control 
 of the breath was neglected. In' other cases, songs unsuit- 
 able — such as ' Juanita, a Spanish love song ' — were given. 
 And the very notion of dancing in elementary schools was 
 scouted by the majority of public educationalists as perfectly 
 monstrous. It is not strange that the children soon ceased to 
 remind the people that they had any capacity for art ? 
 
 And yet one has only to observe the common people and chil- 
 dren to-day in order to see that they not only have a capacity for 
 this human activity, but that in all their intercourse it is the 
 prominent factor. They no sooner come together in unre- 
 strained and disinterested intercourse than the will and the 
 power to transmit feelings through art reveals itself. In the 
 North and West Highlands the people still meet together 
 in the evenings round hut or bothy fire-sides. Tales are 
 told at such gatherings that are models of fine art in their 
 way. Not a superfluous word, not a single ineffective or super- 
 fluous gesture. Sometimes the tale-telling passes into a kind 
 of discourse. One speaker stands forth from the rest and holds 
 the whole company's attention. " They are born orators," 
 said a priest who had listened to such discourses round the 
 peat-fires of poor mud-floor dwellings in the Hebrides. 
 Nor have we any reason to think that these men have special 
 gifts denied to others. Carlyle records the wonderful art ex- 
 hibited in all the word-portraits sketched with careless ease by 
 his father as he talked at the fireside. Even the Englishman, 
 if not wordy, certainly expresses feeHng infectiously when he 
 meets his fellows under favourable circumstances. Last night, 
 in a cellar underneath a public hall, an old Yorkshireman (who 
 
iga Conclusion 
 
 had never been to school) kept the eyes of an admiring circle 
 fixed on him. It was not difficult (even though he spoke a broad 
 dialect not easily to be understood by the strangers) to follow 
 all he said. For he acted out all his story with gestures which 
 could not be misinterpreted — so vivacious and expressive were 
 they. As for children, do we not see how, even in the darkest 
 slum, they will dance, if anj^ street organist will play — how they 
 will sing, if it be but the refrain of a music-hall, or some vulgar 
 jingo-air. The superficial observer, hearing and seeing may 
 think that they are incapable of appreciating anything better. 
 And yet these very children choose the best when it is offered 
 to them. When slum school libraries were being introduced 
 a visitor would ask the children in a class which stories they 
 liked best. It was believed that they would name some weak 
 writer of little scraps, or sentimental tales. But no. The 
 story of Joseph was found to be the most popular of all, and 
 close after followed Hans Anderson's Tales, the * Ugly Duck- 
 ling' being perhaps the prime favourite. Grimm and Anderson 
 were read eagerly. The story of Joseph was spoken of with 
 sparkling eyes. And these were the best stories. As for sing- 
 ing, even little children of five and six soon learn to sing beauti- 
 fully. If only the teacher knows how to use her own voice, and is 
 not content merely to learn the 'Sol-fa' and give ear-tests — if she 
 love music and can give the right kind of teaching then very 
 quickly the class-room becomes a place where the child's claims 
 as an artist are vindicated. Prima donnas have listened in wonder 
 and admiration already to the singing in Board Schools. More 
 than one great musician has exclaimed ** What a field is here 
 — what wealth of musical talent which we never dreamed of." 
 
 No ! We have had no time to dream of the powers possessed 
 by children. We have been too busy in forcing upon them things 
 for which they were not ready. We have not had time to 
 think of their real needs, because we were so anxious to give 
 them things which they do not need, and will not yet use 
 
Conclusion 193 
 
 Just as we are apt to forget that the working people are the 
 producers of wealth, so we are apt to forget that they, and their 
 children are already possessed of great wealth. So we let the 
 wealth be wasted. In every slum district, where means have 
 been taken to supply the childrens' needs, where washing and 
 swimming baths are provided, where bright laundry and 
 cookery centres are attached, so that neglected children can 
 learn what it is to put clean clothes on a clean body, where 
 light, and fair colours, and green living things, and sympathy 
 are found — where teachers are allowed to help ere they 
 teach, and to strengthen ere they admonish — in these districts 
 young human life springs forth glad and bright, and the love of 
 art and desire to express fresh tender, lovely feelings that 
 infect"^ is born. The slum child seems to slip from all his 
 degradations as his shameful soiled clothing is cast from him. 
 Very soon he begins to move gracefully and expressively, to 
 sing, draw, act. He is no longer a creature who can give 
 nothing but only receive. He also has something to give. 
 
 And to whom will children give this new, free gift — the most 
 original, the most disinterested gift of all — that is to say their 
 own feelings expressed in art. The answer is obvious. They 
 will give it first of all and above all to their parents. They 
 will give their art to the working people — to those who 
 have ceased to express their own feelings adequately, 
 and have bought cheap prints, and ugly ornaments to take 
 the place of their own lost art. And, some children, 
 happily not the majority, will offer their gifts to parents who 
 have ceased to try to express themselves and communicate any 
 more as human beings, and who go in despair to see spectacles 
 that convey de-humanising feelings, or, who it may be, drown all 
 human consciousness in strong drink. Will they understand 
 
 * " To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having- 
 evoked it in oneself then, by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds 
 or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may- 
 experience the same feeling — ^^this is the activity of Art ! — Tolstoy. 
 
194 Conclusion 
 
 in reeeiving their childrerL^s offering that the)r are really getting 
 back their own — that this power is theirs since they have 
 transmitted it ? We cannot say. But one thing we may affirm 
 with great decision, viz, that if they cannot accept this kind of 
 restoration, they are not likely to receive any other. If the 
 voice of their own children — and the art of their own children, 
 true, not imposed from without, but expressing feelings that 
 have already been lived through — \ithis be ineffectual, then all 
 the popular concerts, free-art galleries and philanthropic 
 entertainers can never hope to succeed. 
 
 Only this child art must be true. On sincerity everything 
 depends. The great characteristic of child-art during the 
 past century was insincerity. We all remember those more or 
 less lifeless drawings which scholars used to bring back from 
 schools. They had perhaps, some little show of animation at 
 one point or another — that was where the drawing-master had 
 touched them up. If he were a good drawing-master he could 
 make them appear to live. 
 
 But the poor scholar's work was dead. He or she, had 
 nothing to express. The work might be theirs partly, and 
 yet they were not in it. It was an empty thing. Such 
 drawings are still brought home alas ! and framed and placed 
 on walls. They remind one of the blown eggs which country 
 folks string together sometimes and hang up as ornaments. 
 They are prettily coloured or spotted, and remind you of 
 something that is dead. Only the drawing appears to pretend 
 that the something is still living. It is insincere. Not only is 
 plastic art insincere — we have managed to make even the 
 speaking voice false. Thus we have seen how in elementary 
 school inflection is taught mechanically and the changes of the 
 child's voice in reading and speaking bear no relation to his 
 own feelings. Recitation to-day is often as dead as were the 
 young ladies' landscapes of yesterday. Such art can infect no 
 one with any genuine, healthy human emotion. It is false. 
 
Conclusion 195 
 
 Ti^le child art cannot exist when children are not allowed to 
 experience the emotions natural to childhood, or where they 
 are compelled to occupy themselves in " artistic '^ work that 
 does not embody these emotions. A little boy, beholding the 
 solan geese plunging into the sea near a great rock was deeply 
 impressed and interested and immediately made a drawing of 
 the rock, birds, and sea. This was true art — the outcome of 
 real feeling. 
 
 Six little girls of five, act a play called "The Troubles of 
 Babies." Every one of them has a baby sister or brother at 
 home whose behaviour has impressed itself on them, and they 
 are themselves moreover very close to the baby-period of life. 
 Even though the play has been composed for them by grown- 
 up people they act in it with great sincerity. This performance 
 was an immense success. Tired mothers look beamingly at 
 the little creatures. The recital of * Cassius and Brutus' by 
 two older boys produces not the smallest impression. 
 
 Thus the true art of children, appeals quickly and powerfully 
 to parents. The sympathy it evokes from them differs entirely 
 from that feeling of empty pride which the dead drawing or 
 the dead recitation might awaken. It seems to remove, and 
 suddenly, the pressure of that iron hand that has silenced the 
 music of their own lives, and almost quenched the natural 
 desire for communion. 
 
 No one, looking back on the history of the past century 
 can fail to see that the development of industry was accompanied 
 by a corresponding loosening of parental ties. The North 
 country artizan at first scouted the idea of sending his child 
 to the mill. And yet very soon the mills were filled with 
 little children of six and seven years old. In that cold, iron 
 world the children soon ceased to feel what children feel. 
 The parents too began to cease to feel what parents feel. 
 There was no art, because the natural emotions were crushed. 
 Later new protective laws were passed for the little ones. 
 
196 Conclusion 
 
 And Nature driven out with a fork comes running back. But 
 the parents have forgotten the language of human emotion, 
 through the use of which humanity is helped and strengthened. 
 They have long believed they had no part or lot in the world 
 of art — that they were incapable of full human life. They 
 beheve this still and what is quite as bad, many rich, good, 
 and intelligent people believe it. 
 
 Yet no sooner are their children allowed to experience natural 
 emotion, and taught the first principles of drawing, music^ 
 etc., than they begin to restore to their parents what was lost, 
 and to lift them to that state of human receptivity and higher 
 feeling from which they have for a moment fallen. The lost 
 human life and language which the greatest preachers, artists, 
 and philanthropists had sought in vain to win back is recalled 
 by children. 
 
 Thus the effectiveness of the school as a social factor 
 increases in proportion as we make the teaching timely, and 
 well fitted to the stage of life through which the pupils are 
 passing. And yet art training in childhood is in no sense a 
 mere missionary service to parents. It is, primarily, for the 
 child's sake that we must introduce it. As the blossom comes 
 before the fruit, and ornament before dress, so the human 
 imagination embodies itself first in the free forms of art. 
 Through art the creative power is exercised and prepared for 
 the world of realities. So that, having found materials, not 
 impediments, it begins at last to manifest itself in other forms, 
 in the inventiveness of the artizan, the tradesman, the moral 
 reformer and the thinker. 
 
 Finis 
 
 ' or THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 W. folly «5r» Sons^ Prinlejs, Aberdeen. 
 
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