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BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 HANDBOOK OF THE EARTH. 
 
 Natural Methods in Geography. By Louisa Parsoks 
 Hopkins, Teacher of Normal Methods in the Swain 
 Free School, New Bedford. Price 50 cents. 
 An inductive treatise in geo^aphv, which is offered 
 to the general student as an onginal and philosophical 
 presentation of the subject; also designed lor the use of 
 teachers and normal-scnool classes, as a review and gen- 
 eralization of geographical facts, a guide to right methods 
 of study, and an application of the principles of psy- 
 chology to the art of teaching, which shall educate as 
 well as improve the pupil. 
 
 NATURAL-HISTORY PLAYS. 
 
 Dialogues and Recitations for School Exhibiiions. By 
 
 Louisa P. Hoi'KIns, author of *' Handbook of th« 
 
 Earth," etc. Boards, 30 cents; cloth, 50 cents. 
 
 The contents of this book comprise dialogues and 
 
 movetntnt'Plays among the bears, the beavers, the 
 
 squirrels, and m.my other animals, which have been 
 
 successfully used by pupils from seven to twelve years 
 
 of age. 
 
 They are designed for concerts or part-recitation and 
 reading, and many of them involve action. The move- 
 ment-plays are to be carried out by characteristic mo- 
 tions accompanying the text, as may be indicated by the 
 teacher, or suggested by the spontaneous action 01 the 
 pupils, in imitation of the natural movements of the ani- 
 mals represented, and after the manner of the Kinder- 
 garten plays, as prescribed by Frobel. 
 
 HOW SHALL MY CHILD BE TAUGHT? 
 
 A book for mothers and teachers (a year's experi- 
 ment). In press* 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston. 
 
EDUCATIOML PSYOHOLO&i' 
 
 A TREATISE 
 
 PARENTS AND EDUCATOllS 
 
 LOUISA PARSONS HOPKINS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 
 
 1886 
 
CoPYKir.HT, 
 
 1 885, 
 By lee and SHEPARD. 
 
 Educatioftal Psychology, 
 
 gr>l ICATION DEFTv. 
 
 KLECTROTYPKD AND PRINTBD 
 BY 
 
 Alfkkd Mudqb & Son, 
 24 Franklin Street. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page 
 Psychology 3 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Physiological Psychology . . » . .18 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Sense Perception . .... . .33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Memory 44 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Imagination 56 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Judgment and Reason 71 
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 Taste, or the Sense for Beauty ... 84 
 
»•• • • • • s • 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This treatise is the digest of a course of lectures given 
 to the Normal Class of the Swain Free School, New 
 Bedford, and is the result of long and attentive observa- 
 tion of mental phenomena and development, carefully 
 selected reading, and such original thought and organiz- 
 ing power as I could bring to a subject in which, as 
 parent and teacher, I have been deeply interested. 
 
 I acknowledge my indebtedness to modern scientific 
 writers on the mental and nervous activities, and specifi- 
 cally to President Hopkins for the theory of the poten- 
 tiality of the body presented in the first chapter. 
 
 The text, although containing all essential data and 
 principles, is condensed, and admits of much amplification 
 and illustration ; for I conceive it to be an essential feature 
 of a good text-book, that it shall leave the field open for 
 original thought and observation, and give opportunity 
 for free discussion in the class-room, or in the mind of 
 the reader. 
 
 A sequent volume is in course of preparation on the 
 moral nature, with its activities and relations. 
 
 Louisa Parsons Hopkins. 
 June, 1886. 
 
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 " O Callias," said Socrates, ** if your two sons were foals or calves, there 
 would be no difficulty in finding some one to put over them ; we should hire 
 a trainer of horses or a farmer who would improve them in their own proper 
 virtue and excellence ; but as they are human beings, whom do you think of 
 plaaing over them ? " — Plato. 
 
 The teacher must have a knowledge of his mate- 
 rial ; he must understand the nature and laws of the 
 human mind and body, or he is not prepared to train 
 and develop them ; he must be acquainted with all 
 that makes up the unity of the human being, if he 
 would be able to direct its education ; he must 
 have learned the science of the body, which is 
 physiology, and the science of the mind and soul, 
 which is psychology, or he is in no degree fitted to 
 assume the office of teacher. It would be as absurd 
 for one to undertake to educate the young with no 
 knowledge of physiology or psychology, as for one 
 
4 EDI/CATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 to attempt to produce a sonata while ignorant of the 
 phenomena of sound, and the laws of musical com- 
 position and harmony. 
 
 Psychology gives us the knowledge of the nature 
 and order of the faculties of the mind and soul ; it 
 reveals the laws of activity and growth of the mental 
 and moral powers. By many writers it is limited to 
 the mind and its activities. It is the science of the 
 immortal part of man, and with physiology takes the 
 whole man as its subject. It is a descriptive science, 
 taking the mental and moral constitution of man as 
 the field of its observation. It is founded on the 
 introverted subjective observation of the mature 
 mind, the analysis of experience, and upon the ob- 
 jective observation of the activities and growth of 
 childhood. It was studied experimentally in this 
 latter way by Pestalozzi and Froebel, among educa- 
 tors; by metaphysicians it has been studied sub- 
 jectively. 
 
 Psychology is closely related to philosophy, logic, 
 and metaphysics, but differs from each. Philosophy 
 is the science of the forces and laws of the universe, 
 material and immaterial. Socrates created an epoch 
 in philosophy by directing observation upon man 
 himself, making the study of mind its grand object. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY. 5 
 
 " He gave intuition as its method, self-knowledge as 
 its starting point, and moral perfection as its end." 
 
 Metaphysics, so called, as coming naturally after 
 physics or the science of matter, is a department of 
 philosophy which deals with pure reason and the 
 essence of mind, and is most closely allied to psy- 
 chology, but wider, more inclusive, and less purely 
 descriptive. Logic is the science and art of reason- 
 ing, and gives the laws of deduction, teaching us 
 to think, reason, and judge correctly. Successive 
 schools of philosophy have prevailed since the 
 Greeks. Modern philosophy took the place of the 
 fantastic ideas of mediaeval philosophy by a vigorous 
 observation of mental processes. Francis Bacon, the 
 originator of modern methods of scientific research, 
 gave us the method of induction, which by observa- 
 tion and comparison ascertains the essential condi- 
 tions of phenomena, and by experiment discovers 
 their laws. This mode substitutes nature and experi- 
 ment for conceptions and logic, and is now applied 
 to every department of philosophy; by its use a 
 science of psychology has been arrived at which is 
 sufficiently complete to furnish the teacher with a 
 basis for his art. 
 
 The Greeks gave us philosophy, or the love of 
 
6 • EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 wisdom, through all their greatest spirits, Pythagoras, 
 Socrates, and Plato, the world^s educators. They 
 also gave us psychology, endowing it with form and 
 life by the personification of their mythology, and in 
 its very name expressing its symbolic conception. 
 Psyche was the latest and fairest of the gods in the 
 universal mythology which the Greeks gave to 
 humanity ; she embodied an ideal which could spring 
 only from an exalted culture and mature habit of 
 thought. 
 
 In the modern scientific methods of thought w© 
 express the subject more analytically. Psychology \ 
 is our knowledge of mind arranged according to laws ( 
 of science- The essence of mind is perhaps un- 
 fathomable ; its activities and states are the subject 
 of psychology. We assume the existence of mind; 
 its exact scope and nature are investigated by 
 philosophy. 
 
 Mind includes not only intelligence but feeling, — 
 the inner world of man, corresponding to the outer 
 world, — which is matter. We believe in our senses 
 and therefore we believe in matter, which is a fact of 
 variable quantity and quality. It may exist in such 
 extreme attenuation as to be confounded in imagina- 
 tion with spirit or force, as in the molecules which fill 
 
PSTCHOLOGY. 7 
 
 the interstellar spaces and convey movements of 
 electricity, light, and sound. 
 
 We know little of the tenuity possible to matter. 
 The mind is immaterial, but embodied in the material; 
 all mental processes are connected with physical 
 processes ; the most abstract thought is dependent 
 on the activity of the brain. We cannot analyze 
 either so thoroughly as to separate them, but we 
 must not confound them. Mind is one thing and 
 matter another, though, indissolubly connected in the 
 human organism, one cannot even begin to act or 
 begin to be without the other. The germ of the soul 
 must start with and progress with the germ of the 
 body; certainly if one precedes, it should be the soul. 
 When does immortal human life begin ? Not an in- 
 stant later than the human body begins to organize ; 
 and we may reasonably assure ourselves that the 
 immortal part will survive every catastrophe, how- 
 ever premature its occurrence, in the history of a 
 human life. Life is sacred, and human life is divine; 
 there is no period in its progress less sacred and 
 immortal than another. 
 
 All science goes to show that mind and body are 
 as closely connected in time as in organism. Physi- 
 cal activity and psychical activity are simultaneous, 
 
8 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 invariably interacting. Sometimes nervous changes 
 seem to precede and induce mental phenomena, as in 
 impressions by the organs of sense ; in other cases 
 mental states seem to precede and cause physical 
 processes, as volitions which induce muscular activi- 
 ties. There is a great deal of careless and vague 
 expression in regard to the activities of mind and 
 matter. Physiology describes the material part 
 which is necessary to a comprehension of the activi- 
 ties of the immaterial part, but must not be con- 
 founded with it. The brain is not the mind. 
 Thought, is not mechanism. The nervous accom- 
 paniment of a mental phenomenon does not account 
 for that phenomenon, it is only its medium. The 
 difference between the two is one of kind. "No 
 sound psychology," says Sully, "is possible which 
 does not keep in view this fundamental disparity of 
 the physical and psychical, and the consequent limits 
 of the physiological explanation of mental facts." 
 
 We can all study mind for ourselves. Direct your 
 attention to the state of activity of your own mind at 
 present, consider its processes, note its stages of 
 thought, its methods of activity. This is the sub- 
 jective study of mind, and is a necessary preliminary 
 to the objective study, since it is only by comparison 
 
PSYCHOLOGY. 9 
 
 with the consciousness of our own mental phenomena 
 that we can observe that of other minds. The in- 
 trospection necessary to the subjective study of mind 
 presupposes a power of abstraction, and requires a 
 certain maturity of thought and judgment. In pro- 
 portion as our observation and analysis are complete 
 and our discernment clear, so our conclusions are 
 valuable. We must study for ourselves and exercise 
 original investigation. Psychology is still in a for- 
 mative stage as a science ; we can add to its data. 
 Leading thinkers and students in this direction invite 
 the aid of all who have the power, inclination, and 
 opportunity to observe in this realm, and thus con- 
 tribute to the sum of the knowledge of mental 
 phenomena, that the science of psychology may be 
 built up. The teacher has the child-nature constantly 
 before him to observe ; he is bound to observe it 
 carefully, that he may be able to handle it wisely and 
 to meet its needs. It is a great privilege of study as 
 well as of work. Froebel says, " If you want to under- 
 stand clearly the regular working of nature, you must 
 observe the common wild plants, many of which are 
 called weeds ; it is seen more clearly in these than 
 in the complexity of cultivated plants.'' The same 
 is true of the study of human nature. The young 
 
lO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 child's mind and soul in its instinctive stage, without 
 consciousness, concealment, or affectation, shows us 
 the method and order of nature better than the 
 conscious and perhaps perverted, certainly more 
 obscure operations of the more mature mind and 
 soul. The child-nature is a mirror of the universal 
 and essential processes of thought and feeling, and 
 furnishes us with a truer ground-work of knowledge 
 than the exclusive study of our own minds. It is 
 difficult to study our own minds candidly; we must 
 combine the objective with the subjective methods; 
 we may explore biography and history, the drama 
 •and fiction, for a knowledge of mind and soul; we 
 may study the history of different races and different 
 grades of life ; we must compare and deduce, thus 
 arriving at laws and building up science ; we must 
 be exact in our deductions and general in our con- 
 clusions, advancing from a knowledge of the indi- 
 vidual to the universal. Introspection is necessarily 
 retrospection, since we cannot observe a present but 
 only a past process. We use it constantly as a refer- 
 ence for comparison in studying the minds of others, 
 yet we must not project into this study our own 
 modes of mental activity as an invariable standard. 
 It is hard to understand the feeling or order of 
 
PSYCHOLOGY. 1 1 
 
 thought of one quite separated from us by time, by 
 surroundings, by inheritance, and by motive ; the 
 cosmopolitan can do this more easily than the pro- 
 vincial. How imperfectly the Puritans understood 
 the Oriental mind, imagination, and modes of expres- 
 sion ! How inadequately older minds translate the 
 thoughts and motives of childhood ! Love and sym- 
 pathy are strong factors in a right understanding. 
 So nature has supplied mothers before philosophers, 
 instinct before reason. Froebel found his philosophy 
 in the unconscious methods of mothers. The teacher 
 must not forget his youth, but be able to refer to it 
 retrospectively for his standard of comparison in 
 comprehending the minded motives of youth. He 
 must add to this sympathy a knowledge of the condi- 
 tions which govern mental and moral actions; he 
 must study the nervous or physical connections of 
 mind and the physical agencies which affect the ner- 
 vous system, and through it modify and influence 
 mental and moral phenomena. He will then under- 
 stand on what the efficiency of the brain depends ; 
 e. g., bodily health, circumstances of rest or exhaus- 
 tion, pain or pleasure, moral susceptibilities, and sym- 
 pathetic conditions. He must study the psychology 
 of knowing and of feeling, and the physiology of 
 
12 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 nervous activity which is essentially connected with 
 it; for his work is to develop and direct thought, 
 feeling, and action during the formative period of 
 human life. 
 
 The human mind finds itself in the body as its home 
 while on the earth ; this body is its only medium of 
 communication with the outward world, and its only 
 avenue of knowledge or expression, its only organ of 
 activity, and so closely related to it that it is impos- 
 sible to discover precisely where physiology ends and 
 psychology begins. The body is an essential part 
 of the man as we may study him. If we say the 
 body is purely physical and material, we mistake, for 
 it is not the shifting particles of matter which enter 
 into and pass out of its composition from day to day, 
 but rather that permanent invisible power and pat- 
 tern, that organic whole with which the indwelling 
 mind is invested and over which it has more or less 
 perfect ascendency, which begins with its birth and 
 ends with its death, and defies the last efforts of 
 scientific research. Physiology describes its struc- 
 ture, its organs, its laws of growth, but cannot define 
 its essence or trace its finest processes. Does not 
 the mind or spirit peradventure mould the body, 
 directing its transformations until it becomes the 
 
PSY1CHOLOGY. I3 
 
 image and copy of the immaterial mind and soul ? 
 
 At least is there not a constant tendency to perfect 
 
 adaptation of the material to the immaterial in man ? 
 
 Man is a unity of heterogeneous elemcHts arranged 
 
 in an ascending scale, — body, mind, and soul ; each 
 
 new power introduced includes and dominates all 
 
 others ; his organic life is built upon the material 
 
 forces of cohesion, gravitation, and chemical affinity, 
 
 ahd controls them ; his animal life is an addition of 
 
 new and inclusive force which dominates his physical 
 
 life, and his rational and spiritual life in turn gives 
 
 him dominion over both his physical and animal life. 
 
 'T'Each of these elements subjects all below it, and 
 
 \ could not have been developed, but must have been 
 
 I created, or the fundamental law of cause and effect 
 
 I would be violated. /; 
 
 At every point of transition in nature great care 
 is taken to soften the gradation, to merge impercep- 
 tibly one form into another and one function into 
 another, so that we are often unable to perceive 
 the limit on either side, and cannot closely define 
 the separation of kind. This misleads many into the 
 notion that no new element is introduced as one form 
 gives place to a higher, and they are led to think 
 that the higher is evolved from the lower without a 
 
14 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 direct step of transition or creative act ; this would 
 be contrary to reason, as the lesser cannot contain 
 the greater, nor the imperfect the perfect. Also, the 
 phenomena of mind are incompatible with the laws 
 of matter, being originative, directive, and self-active, 
 while matter has none of these powers ; and although 
 some of the physical processes closely resemble the 
 mental, as, for example, the automatic and reflex 
 action of the nervous system, the adjustment of 
 means to ends in all the organs and processes of 
 the body, so that it is difficult to say where reflex 
 and automatic action end and intelligent volition 
 begins, — and although many of the bodily processes 
 are inscrutable, as, for example, the assimilation of 
 food, the building up of the bodily tissues, the con- 
 nections of the mind with the brain and nerves of 
 sensation, and of the will with the nerves of motion, 
 — yet we are ^r^ that the mind is wholly different 
 and superior to the body, and presents a radically 
 new element and type, since it is only through the 
 mind that we know the phenomena of matter. Many 
 have thought the mind identical with the brain and 
 nervous system, which involves the absurdity of giv- 
 ing to matter and mechanism thought and conscious- 
 ness. The brain is a part of the body and dies with 
 
PSYCHOLOGY. 1 5 
 
 it; and although the functions of the mind are af- 
 fected by the condition of the brain, yet a study of 
 the phenomena of mind teaches us that the brain, as 
 well as other parts of the body, is but the tool and 
 the servant of the mind, and not an essential part 
 of it; the brain is the medium of communication be- 
 tween the mind and other parts of the body, and the 
 mind's only organ of activity in this life. The busi- 
 ness of the mind is to knoiv^ and this is pursued by 
 consciousness and by the senses. The certainty of 
 knowledge obtained by these avenues is assumed 
 by reason of our belief in the integrity of the 
 Creator, who could not deceive or mislead his 
 creatures by the faculties which he has given them, 
 or play them false through the only means with 
 which they have been endowed for learning the 
 truth. We must regard the senses and conscious- 
 ness in a sane man as trustworthy ; if they do not 
 give us certainty of knowledge, then is there no hope 
 of it in this life. The mind has the capacity to know, 
 and is provided with the means of knowing; these 
 means of knowledge are the occasions for all ihe 
 activities of the mind. The revelations of the senses 
 and of internal consciousness cannot be denied; all 
 men treat each other as if the belief in them were 
 
l6 EDUCATIONAL l^YCHOLOGY. 
 
 inherent and universal, and any man professing to 
 doubt tliem is said to have lost his reason. The 
 revelations of the senses are gradual, and lead us 
 to a knowledge of the outward world and of the 
 material universe ; those of the consciousness are 
 fundamental conceptions, innate ideas, or intuitions 
 (a structural part of the mind), necessary to appre- 
 hension and thought and to the reception of all 
 other knowledge.* The idea of personal identity, of 
 beingy of space, of time, and of number, are among the 
 intuitions of the mind ; we cannot conceive their nega- 
 tion. Belief in actuality of being is a condition neces- 
 sary to every process of thought, although being in 
 its essence is an unsolved mystery ; we do not ap- 
 proach its solution by any process of simplification 
 through evolution, for its origin and elements are 
 beyond our powers of investigation. 
 
 The activities or faculties of the mind may be 
 classed, according to their natural order of develop- 
 
 * The intuitions of the mind are regarded by modern psy- 
 chology as that thoroughly organized knowledge obtained 
 through the experience of many generations, like instinct in 
 animals. However they may have become constituent ele- 
 ments of the mind, they are now so to the extent of uncon- 
 scious and automatic activity, and must be accepted as the 
 foundation of all conscious and voluntary mental activity. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY. 1 7 
 
 ment, into sense perception, memory, imagination, 
 judgment and reason, and taste. These lead man to 
 a knowledge of all science, literature, and art. As 
 a step to the consideration of these activities, we 
 should study the nervous processes which express 
 them, or physiological psychology, which underlies 
 all mental phenomena. 
 
CHAPTER ir. 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Physiological psychology starts from the stand- 
 point of physiology and investigates the bodily func- 
 tions which accompany mental phenomena, seeking 
 to discover the correspondence between mental and 
 nervous activities. It attempts to explain psychical 
 phenomena by those bodily or nervous activities 
 which arouse or express them, and which connect the 
 mind with the external world through the senses and 
 their appropriate sensory nerves, or through the 
 motor nerves and their appropriate muscular activ- 
 ities. In studying this branch of psychology we 
 observe the changes in the nervous organism, and 
 notice especially what movements or states of the 
 brain accompany the several processes of thought. 
 
 The nervous system is the immediate organ of the 
 mind. It consists of the brain, the spinal cord, and 
 cerebro-spinal nerves ; also the sympathetic system 
 of nerves which maintains the automatic action of 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. I9 
 
 the organs of respiration, circulation, and digestion. 
 All these form parts of a whole, the unity of the sys- 
 tem being complete. The nerves and spinal cord 
 are merely extensions of the brain tissue. 
 
 Nerve tissue is soft and marrow-like. In the brain 
 it appears like a gray, pulpy, undulating coil, with 
 silvery white fibres inside the gray ; and in the spinal 
 cord, white and silvery outside and gray within. The 
 nerves, which extend to every part of the body, appear 
 like silvery white threads branching and ramifying 
 from the roots, which are sent from the spinal cord 
 through lateral holes in the spine, and from the brain 
 to the organs of sense through holes in the skull. 
 Each nerve has two roots, the motor and the sen- 
 sory ; these run side by side and form one silvery 
 thread, which also is made of many twisted fibres. 
 The two cords are distinct in each nerve and distinct 
 in their offices, — one carrying sensations or sensory 
 impressions to the brain or spinal cord ; the other 
 carrying motor impressions from the brain or spinal 
 cord to every part of the body, — so that each nerve 
 includes the sensory and motor fibre, which act inde- 
 pendently of each other except as they meet in the 
 brain or spinal cord. The nerve fibres conduct the 
 nervous energy to and from the nerve centres, and 
 
20 EDUCATIONAL PSVCHOLCKIY. 
 
 connect and unite all parts of the brain in a net- 
 work of fibrous tissue. The sensory nerves from all 
 parts of the body convey impressions of sensation to 
 the brain and spinal cord, which send back by the 
 motor nerves the impressions of the will or intellect 
 to the muscles. This fibrous tissue connects the 
 whole nervous system, and serves at the same time 
 to carry nutrition to the nerve centres. The gray 
 matter of the nervous system is the seat of intellect- 
 ual activities. In the brain it is coiled and convo- 
 luted in such a way as to obtain all the surface pos- 
 sible within the limits of space. It is so managed as 
 ^ to furnish the greatest opportunity for vibrating or 
 undulatory motion and complexity of structure. The 
 ^r- , volume of tie brain and the number of convolutions 
 ^ f are in proportion to the degree of intellectual power. 
 !;? In animals the brain is smaller and less convoluted 
 than in man ; in men of feeble intellects less than in 
 men of great mental power. The degree of intellect- 
 ual power seems to depend not alone on the volume 
 or size of the brain, but quite as much on the degree 
 of complexity of structure. 
 
 The brain is divided into two hemispheres or lobes, 
 associated with each other by fibres which unite 
 them so intimately that their molecules vibrate in 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. ^ 21 
 
 unison. The front and upper portion of the brain, 
 which is seven eighths of the whole mass, is called 
 the cerebrum, and is^the centre of all purely intel- 
 lectual activities ; its two lobes have each three 
 divisions; the folds or convolutions are separated 
 by clefts, sometimes nearly an inch deep. The 
 cerebellum is a smaller portion of the brain similar 
 in appearance and structure to the cerebrum, lying 
 between the spinal cord and the cerebrum ; it seems 
 to be the medium of communication between the 
 intellectual activities of the cerebrum and the motor 
 nerves ; it stores up and condenses the impressions 
 received by the sensory nerves, and is the seat of 
 the sensory and motor influences ; it furnishes a 
 reservoir of energy to every department of the brain, 
 incessantly distributing through all its fibrous con- 
 nections a continuous current of electric force 
 through the nervous system, showing itself in every 
 conscious or unconscious nervous act. Some of the 
 nerve fibres from the cerebellum pass into the spinal 
 cord, connecting the nerve cells of the brain with 
 the ganglia of the motor nerves of the spinal cord, 
 pursuing a descending and oblique course from 
 the brain into opposite regions of the spinal axis. 
 This explains the fact that paralysis of one side of 
 
2 2 KDUCATIONAL rSVCHOLOGY. 
 
 the brain affects the muscles of the opposite side of 
 the body. The medulla oblongata is the thick upper 
 part of the spinal cord which it connects with the 
 cerebellum ; it contains the nerve centres of the 
 physical functions necessary to life ; if injured, death 
 follows instantly. The gray substance of the brain 
 is one eighth of an inch thick in the cerebrum and 
 irregularly distributed outside the white or fibrous 
 portion. The coiled gray pulp, on being examined 
 by a microscope, exhibits a conglomeration of nerve 
 cells, each a unit with nerve fibres, connective tissue, 
 and capillaries. The brain cells are pyramidal in 
 form but unequal in size, parallel to each other in a 
 series of layers, with their summits all pointing out- 
 ward and upward to the surface of the brain, the 
 smaller cells nearer the surface, the larger ones 
 deeper within, all united by a net-work of nerve 
 fibres into which the cells spread out on all sides in 
 a delicate radiating fringe which forms the fibrous 
 tissue ; the transition from the smaller to the larger 
 cells is brought about by insensible gradations. The 
 color of the brain cells is an amber yellow, with a 
 bright nucleus and white nucleolus of nerve fibre, 
 which is plainly seen through the transparent cell, 
 and is the unit of the cell, but divisible itself into 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 23 
 
 filainenls. Nervous action is propagated in vibratory 
 undulations from one cell and one point of contact 
 to another. The small cells are the seat of the 
 phenomena of sensation, the large ones of motor 
 influences. 
 
 In the very centre of the brain is an ovoid body of 
 reddish color, called the optic thalamus, composed of 
 four ganglia of gray matter and two bands of grayish 
 substance continuous with the gray matter of the 
 spinal cord ; it contains the foci of concentration for 
 the activities of the special senses, smell, sight, 
 hearing, and touch. The distinct ganglia vary in 
 size, according to the development of the separate 
 senses ; each ganglion is directly connected with its 
 appropriate sense organ by the nerve which conveys 
 the sense impression, vibrations being communicated 
 from the outward world to the nerve and nerve 
 centres by the nice mechanical contrivances of the 
 organs of sense. This localization of sensorial 
 impressions has been abundantly proved by experi- 
 ment on living animals ; also the fact that the size 
 and degree of sensibility of these ganglia may deter- 
 mine in a great measure the native predisposition of 
 any organization. If a certain sense be destroyed, 
 its appropriate local brain centre will become in- 
 
24 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 active and shrivel. These ganglia, either excited or 
 deadened, affect correspondingly and immediately 
 the sense activity with which they connect. The 
 special connection of certain fibres and zones of the 
 brain is proved by experiment of a galvanic current 
 applied to those portions, producing appropriate 
 activities in the extremities of the nerves ; e. g., 
 electric excitement applied to the optic ganglion will 
 cause the eyes to move, and the tongue or neck may 
 be made to turn by artificial excitation when there is 
 no actual sense impression or volition. Those who 
 have lost any of the senses gradually suffer the wast- 
 ing of the corresponding ganglia of nerves; those 
 who have had a limb amputated eventually lose the 
 activity of the motor nerve centres which connected 
 with the lost limb ; the disused parts of the brain 
 becorae inactive. 
 
 The spinal cord is a cylinder of soft nerve tissue 
 of white and gray matter ; the. gray matter is en- 
 veloped by the white or fibrous tissue. The sen- 
 sory nerves from all parts of the body carry im- 
 pressions to the spinal cord, which carries them 
 to the brain, and the brain sends back by the motor 
 nerves the impressions of the will and intellect to 
 the muscles. The different groups of motor nerves 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 25 
 
 radiate from different segments of the spinal cord, 
 and are regularly laid one above another like a 
 series of electric batteries, always ready to start 
 into action at the call of the appropriate stimu- 
 lus. All nerve activity reacts upon the particular 
 structure engaged, modifying it so as to bring about 
 a disposition to and facility for that kind of agtion, 
 leaving traces or channels of activity in the structure 
 of the nerve substance so as to produce organic 
 tendency and automatic activity of sets of associated 
 cells. The brain and spinal cord are constantly 
 storing up associated sensory impressions, and ac- 
 quiring habits of motor impressions which result in 
 unconscious movements. The spinal cord is, by 
 habit and training, enabled to receive and put forth 
 impressions which become automatic motor actions, 
 carried on without connection with the brain itself ; 
 the spinal cord thus acquires a power of its own ; 
 this power is called the reflex action of the spinal 
 cord, and is shown in walking, dancing,* playing the 
 piano, and any physical movements at first requiring 
 intellectual direction, but which have become uncon- 
 scious through habit, being performed without refer- 
 ence to the brain. If the spine is broken so that 
 the pressure on the spinal cord cuts off the connec- 
 
26 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 tion between the brain and lower motor nerves, the 
 irritation or tickling of the feet will cause the legs 
 to kick out without consciousness or volition ; if the 
 feet slip, the body immediately tends to recover 
 Itself ; the fingers involuntarily draw away from heat, 
 and many other actions are performed by the reflex 
 activity of the spinal cord, this reflex power being 
 the result of inheritance or training and a kind of 
 memory of the spinal cord. 
 
 The sympathetic nervous system is a double chain 
 of nerve knots or ganglia connected by nervous cords 
 in front and on each side of the spine; these cords 
 are connected with each other and the sensory roots 
 of the spinal nerves by a net-work of gray tissue ; 
 from these knots of nervous substance fibres branch 
 to all the internal organs, and so distant organs act 
 in sympathy with each other, as the head and the 
 stomach ; thus, disorder of one function may be 
 symptomatic of disease of another organ. The sym- 
 pathetic system acts more slowly than the other 
 system ; it causes the blush, the contraction and ex- 
 pansion of the pupil of the eye, and the accommo- 
 dation of specific muscles to the nervous demand. 
 
 The nerves of touch ex:tend to every part of the 
 body and receive impressions at their extremities : 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 27 
 
 in the fingers they terminate in a fold or plexus which 
 is especially sensitive to vibrations. The gustatory 
 nerve terminates in the mouth, and has its most sen- 
 sitive point in a row of folds or ganglia near the 
 base of the tongue. The olfactory nerve is spread 
 out on the lining membrane of the nostrils, and re- 
 sponds to vibrations caused by odors. The auditory 
 nerve reaches the inner ear, v/here it is acted upon 
 by the movements of tiny granules in a liquid, which 
 undulates at the touch of the several little bones, 
 conveying the vibrations of the drum of the ear 
 caused by the percussion of the waves of sound. 
 The optic nerve is spread out upon the inside of the 
 retina, where it is brought in contact with light. We 
 may therefore resolve all the nerv^ous sense activities 
 into that of touch. 
 
 When a sensory impression reaches the cerebrum, 
 it is intellectualized and changed into a volition, 
 which is first developed in the psycho-motor centres 
 of the cerebrum, then received in cells of the cere- 
 bellum, where it enters into a more intimate relation 
 with the organic material which is to express it, 
 changing at last from an intellectual to a physical 
 activity. We can only say of these processes that 
 they are inscrutable. The four central ganglia which 
 
28 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 convey the sensations to the brain, where they are 
 met by the mental activity which perceives them, 
 and the cells of the cerebellum which transmit the 
 intellectual volition to the motor nerves and produce 
 physical activity, are the organs which transform 
 outward and material impressions to mental and 
 immaterial impressions, and again transform the in- 
 tellectual volition consequent upon these impressions 
 to organic force and material activity. One process 
 is the reverse of the other. 
 
 The brain grows in bulk and develops changes of 
 structure. Structural development is an increase of 
 unlikeness of the several parts or a higher degree 
 of differentiation, also a greater intricacy of arrange- 
 ment and more complicated special connections. 
 The higher structure of the brain, the cerebral 
 hemispheres, seem to develop later than the lower 
 and have greater complexity. The brain, as an organ 
 of the body, would tend to grow with the growth of 
 the whole body, and like all the organs, grows and 
 develops by exercise. Nerve cells, like all other 
 cells of physical organization, live and act by the 
 nutrition furnished by the bloo:l, and are subject to 
 alternate rest and activity. Sustained intellectual 
 work is accompanied by a loss of phosphorized sub- 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 29 
 
 Stance on the part of the brain cells in vibration. 
 All activity of the nerve tissue as of the muscular 
 tissue oxidizes or burns up its substance, so that 
 every thought, sensation, and volition destroys a part 
 of the substance of the brain ; its essential constit- 
 uents are used up ; all moral emotion becomes also 
 the occasion of local heat, and wastes its specific 
 cell substance. Therefore it is absolutely essential 
 to the preservation of the brain that it should be 
 sustained by the circulation of nutritious blood, which 
 is the result of a proper supply of food. It is by 
 the blood that the nerve cells supply their losses ; 
 the blood which cornes to the brain red, returns 
 black, because the needed elements are extracted. 
 Every cerebral cell expends phosphorus in acting, 
 therefore phosphorized food should be abundantly 
 furnished. When the brain is weary, the blood 
 which flows to it is less, and the exhausted cerebral 
 cells fall into the collapse of sleep, in which condi- 
 tion the temperature is reduced. The exposed brain 
 of a man showed it to be quiet and smaller in volume 
 during sleep, but in dreams swollen and agitated. 
 If the blood circulation is suspended in the brain, 
 the whole nervous activity is interrupted ; if supplied, 
 the activity is renewed. The injection of blood into 
 
30 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 the severed head of a dog made the signs of life 
 come back, so that the eyes turned momentarily at 
 the voice of the master. 
 
 The cerebral substance is subject to an increase 
 of temperature under sensorial impression. An 
 animal has been made to hear, see, smell, or taste 
 by applying -heat or electric excitation to the ganglia 
 of sense nerves. 
 
 Everything that excites the brain causes an in- 
 crease of temperature, the degree of which can be 
 measured. This heat is a dynamic force, the direct 
 result of the psychic element on the arrival to the 
 brain of the sensorial excitation ; even the difference 
 of degree of the psychic heat and the sensorial 
 heat can be ascertained. Too energetic or prolonged 
 work of one set of cerebral cells induces chronic 
 congestion and brings on mental maladies ; for every 
 brain activity hastens the blood current and develops 
 heat, a local habit of which may leave incurable 
 brain disorders. 
 
 While the development of the nervous structures 
 of the psychical activities related to them may thus 
 seem to depend on organic processes and tendencies, 
 we are not to suppose that the cause or effect is 
 purely mechanical. The mind is developed out of 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 3 1 
 
 its inherited nature and out of its surroundings, 
 built upon the basis of its original tendencies and 
 in response to the stimulus of its environment, yet 
 it lies within the formative power of moral and intel- 
 lectual choice and volition in self-activity. The 
 brain structure of each individual will naturally 
 progress according to the law of the race develop- 
 ment ; yet training is an important factor in that 
 development, and may determine, to a great exleiu, 
 its conformity or non-conformity to heredity, and 
 create individual independence of growth and 
 structure. 
 
 In a progressive race each new generation starts 
 with an advance on the structural nervous status 
 and the organic mental and moral power of the 
 preceding generation, or in case of any special 
 development, with an advance of corresponding 
 nervous structure. 
 
 From a physiological point of view, the voluntary 
 motor act which emanates from the brain is only the 
 repercussion more or less immediate of a sensory 
 impression. It may not be a simple and purely 
 reflex phemomenon, but a complex one, that lays 
 various zones of the brain under contribution and 
 resumes in itself the different elements, so that the 
 
32 
 
 KUUUAIIUNAL P.SYCHULOGV. 
 
 unity at last represents personality; it is sensibility 
 multiplied by all the cerebral activities in agita- 
 tion, and becomes the conscious human personality 
 which reveals itself in this co-ordinated series of 
 activities. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SENSE PERCEPTION. 
 
 The most simple, most obvious, most universal, 
 and earliest developed activity of the mind is sense 
 perception. It is the fundamental source of objec- 
 tive knowledge. In childhood it is the only source 
 of knowledge, and the senses are the only avenue to 
 the intelligence. They furnish the contact of the 
 mind with the external world, revealirg its existence 
 and properties, and giving the mind material for self- 
 activity. Material things are apprehended by the 
 mind through the organs of sense which connect the 
 mind with its object. These organs of sense are a 
 part of our bodily organization, and their exercise 
 produces sensation. 1 he thing to be recognized and 
 the organ of sensation must meet ; all the functions 
 of the senses may be reduced to touch, through im- 
 pressions of the vibrating medium, if not directly by 
 the sense of touch. When this contact of the organ 
 of sense with its object is produced either directly or 
 3 
 
34 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 indirectly, sensation is caused; perception follows, 
 which is the primal activity of the mind through sen- 
 sation, the recognition by the mind of nerve sensa- 
 tion produced by the exercise of the senses upon 
 the objects of sense; this mental recognition we 
 call sense perception ; it is the link which connects 
 the material with the immaterial world. Many things 
 in it are unaccountable, and an attentive considera- 
 tion shows us that a perfect comprehension of our 
 mental powers and their mode of operation is beyond 
 our reach. 
 
 In perception there are impressions first upon the 
 organs of sense, then upon the nerves, and finally 
 upon the brain, which are followed by certain move- 
 ments of the mind. We can study the organs of 
 sense physiologically, and observe their wonderful 
 adaptation to their uses ; we can follow the action of 
 the appropriate nerves which serve the several 
 senses. We find the organs of sense to be instru- 
 ments, mechanical contrivances to assist the mind, 
 furnishing the medium of nerve impressions ; the 
 nerve, also, we find to be only a more subtle instru- 
 ment or. medium for brain impression, and the brain 
 itself but an instrument or medium for the operations 
 of the mind, so fine as to be often mistaken for the 
 
^ 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 SENSE PERCEPTION. 35 J \^ 
 
 u 
 
 mind itself; but no material investigation can show Kf' 
 us the entire secret of sense perception ; its every ^', 
 
 • point of transition, from matter to mind, defies \ 
 
 microscopic or chemical analysis ; we cannot under- ^ , vi 
 stand the intellectual part of an act of knowledge^J^ 
 If the organ of sense is perfectly sound, but the nerve -"^ 
 defective, or vice versa, the act of perception is defec- "^ 
 tive ; and if the nerve and organ are both sound, but 
 
 - the mind disordered or absorbed, so that attention is 
 imperfect, then perception is defective. Sound or- 
 gan, nerve, and mind, as well as mental attention, 
 are all necessary to an act of perception. 
 
 Every exercise of the mind is dependent on atten- 
 tion. This is a concentration of nervous energy 
 upon one group of brain cells. As it is more or less 
 complete, so the mental exercise is more or less 
 productive of knowledge and mental growth. Atten- 
 tion requires as conditions calmness of mind, healthy 
 organs of sense and thought, nervous vigor, and 
 healthy functions. All faculties grow by exercise. 
 Simpler exercise builds up the power for higher. 
 There is a gieat difference in individual capacity for 
 attention. The most effectual exercise of attention 
 is absorbed, concentrated, inclusive, and active. The 
 best minds have not only great grasp of attention, 
 
;^6 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 but great facility for transition from one subject to 
 another. In minds of unusual power the readiness 
 of transition is so perfect as to enable them to attend 
 to several subjects at once, keeping different groups 
 of brain cells at work and accomplishing various 
 kinds of mental operations simultaneously. 
 
 The organs of sense are the eye, the ear, the nos- 
 tril, the tongue, and the skin. These give us sight, 
 hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Our means of out- 
 ward knowledge is limited to the scope of activity of 
 these senses. We know by experience what we can 
 learn from them. It might have been possible to 
 provide man with other means of knowledge of the 
 outward universe ; it is possible that in other stages 
 or spheres of existence we may be provided with 
 greater capabilities of perception and means of ap- 
 plying them. We may suppose the existence of 
 created beings in the universe endowed with other 
 or more extended powers of perception, with organs 
 of larger scope of activity than ours. We have rea- 
 son to think that some animals have a different 
 compass of sense perception from man, less in some 
 directions, greater in others, — perhaps with some 
 powers not conceivable to us because not within our 
 experience. The sense of smell in the dog, and the 
 
SENSE PERCEPTION, 37 
 
 sense of touch in the elephant's trunk and in the 
 antennae of insects, the sense of sight in many birds 
 and insects, seem to be finer and more perfect than 
 ours. The bee and many other creatures seem to 
 have means of mutual communication of ideas and 
 discovery of knowledge of which we can form no 
 conception ; they are provided with instruments to 
 this end, of different kind or degree from those of 
 man. 
 
 The organs of sense do not at once act in their 
 full measure in the child ; they do not possess at 
 birth their full power or precision as means of 
 knowledge, as in the lower order of creatures ; 
 they are subject to improvement in accuracy and 
 growth toward completeness. The natural exercise 
 they have in their spontaneous activity, in the in- 
 stinctive search of the mind for knowledge, provides 
 the development they require. The result of their 
 first application to objects of investigation needs to 
 be corrected by experience, and each sense assists 
 the others and gives approximate perfection to sense 
 perception. Knowledge is best attained by the 
 combined exercise of all the organs of sense. 
 
 It is the duty of the teacher to exercise and 
 strengthen the organs of sense, and to make the 
 
38 EDUCATIONAI^ PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 sense perception as accurate and complicated as pos- 
 sible ; to train the mind to perfect attention to the 
 impressions made on the brain through the senses, 
 so that knowledge of the outward world shall be 
 faithfully and thoroughly received. The eye, which 
 at first perceives only surface and color, is trained 
 by experience with the aid of the other senses to 
 perceive texture, figure, size, number, and distance ; 
 the ear, which at first is quite inactive and very 
 gradually discriminates sound, may be taught to per- 
 ceive every shade of tone, and many tones at once, 
 until the knowledge to be obtained by it is as nice 
 and exhaustive as possible. The training of the 
 f sense of touch, to give a large measure and variety 
 I of knowledge to the mind, is finely illustrated in the 
 , case of the education, by Dr. Howe, of Laura Bridg- 
 man, who, at the age of six, could neither see, hear, 
 ,' smell, nor taste, and whose mind could become cog- 
 j nizant of impressions only through the sense of 
 ' touch. 
 
 The teacher must understand the structure and 
 functions of the organs of sense and their laws 
 of health, in order to strengthen and develop them 
 rightly, guard them from injury, and train them to 
 the perfection of their activity. Nature attends to 
 
SENSE PERCEPTION. 39 
 
 the exercise of the senses in a great measure ; the 
 teacher should supplement nature in every depart- 
 ment of sense activity. We can enlarge the scope 
 of knowledge to be obtained by the eye and the ear 
 by artificial aids ; the microscope and telescope 
 assist the sight, and other scientific inventions tlie 
 hearing. We can improve and intensify the powers 
 of sense by special practice ; nature gives this train- 
 ing through the very exercise that demands it. The 
 forester makes his sight keen by living in the forest, 
 and accustoming himself to the demands of his sur- 
 roundings until he sees the slightest changes of land- 
 scape ; the turning of a leaf ; the impalpable haze 
 amid the foliage, — all reveal to him knowledge which 
 the untrained eye would not observe ; the Indian 
 trail, the path of the bee or snake, are shown by 
 indications that escape the ordinary eye ; the mariner 
 acquires his power of distant vision by watching the 
 stars and the horizon ; the astronomer discerns the 
 faintest nebula by absorbed attention to the heavens 
 above him, and by steadily gazing through his lenses; 
 the artist makes his eye sensitive to contour, to 
 every delicate tint, to every flicker of light and shade, 
 to every hint of beauty, by a constant appeal to 
 nature to show him these secrets. 
 
40 EDLCAllUxNAL PSVCHULUGY. 
 
 j^^_Professor Agassiz gave to a fresh student the task 
 ) of gazing with steady attention upon two objects of 
 S microscopic investigation, exactly similar at first 
 /glance, until he should perceive their distinctions, 
 (jhus developing the scientist's power of sight. The 
 musician strikes one note on his instrument again 
 and again, concentrating upon it all his listening 
 power, until he hears in it all its harmonic tones ; the 
 pioneer listens to the ascending sap to know when 
 spring is near ; and the lover of nature hears every 
 bird note in its individual quality, and distinguishes 
 in the multitudinous hum of summer life the charac- 
 teristic note of every insect. The touch is capable 
 of such cultivation as to convey knowledge which 
 we should not have supposed possible through it 
 alone, as in case of the blind and deaf. This sense 
 ^ education forms a large part of Frcebers educational 
 plan, and the plays and occupations of the kinder- 
 garten are designed especially to provide it and to 
 ^ cultivate the thorough attention of the mind to its 
 1 object. 
 
 The senses are the tools, the instruments, the 
 servants of the mind; we must learn to guard and 
 use them rightly in the best service of which they 
 are capable. We can follow them in their activity 
 
 > 
 
SENSE PERCEPTION. 4I 
 
 and structure as far as physiology can lead us, but 
 just at the point where the mind receives their com- 
 munications we fail to trace the process. 
 
 There have been many theories regarding the 
 mode of sense perception ; that of a rare elastic 
 medium, which transmits vibrations caused by ma- 
 terial substances to the surface of the organs, as 
 light, color, sound, odor, etc., which cause corre- 
 sponding motions of the nerves and brain substance, 
 thus producing sensation, has been most generally 
 accepted. 
 
 Sensations have duration and continuance ; curi- 
 ous experiments illustrate the fact that the impres- 
 sions of sight remain upon the brain after the object 
 of sight is removed, so that we project upon any 
 surface the picture which was made upon the retina 
 and seem to see it still. Vibrations of sound remain 
 upon the brain so clearly as to be counted after the 
 sound has ceased. The scope of the senses is lim- 
 ited ; as, for example, the eye sees objects only within 
 a given distance or of given dimensions, and sees 
 only the prismatic colors. We discover by the dark 
 lines of the solar spectrum that light contains colors 
 w'hich are not appreciable by the eye, and are there- 
 fore dark ; the ear hears a very limited scale of tone, 
 
42 KUUCAltONAL I'.S VCllUlAX ) Y. 
 
 and perceives a comparatively small part of the realm 
 of sound. 
 
 The activity of the organs of sense gives us pleas- 
 ure and produces or stimulates desire of knowledge, 
 if kept within the bounds of health ; and although 
 the evidence of one sense has often to be corrected 
 by another, and all by experience, yet on the whole 
 they give us certainty and accuracy of knowledge. 
 This knowledge becomes more and more complex 
 as we multiply the material and combine the activity 
 of the senses ; thus we continually enlarge our domain 
 of knowledge and supply the mind with ideas which 
 reveal in their connections not only the properties 
 of matter, but the causes and order as well as the 
 significance of the phenomena of the universe, thus 
 training and developing the mind itself. Aristotle 
 ^defines perception as judgment. In the act of 
 sense perception we constantly exercise the faculties 
 of apprehension, of comparison, and of judgment, 
 thereby developing the reasoning powers ; by the 
 accumulation of facts we exercise the memory, and 
 by their orderly arrangement, the powers of analysis 
 and generalization ; also, by the perception of the 
 beauty and harmony of the universe we develop the 
 taste and the soul. It is by this great function of 
 
'iORCKPTION. 
 
 43 
 
 sense perception that we make all our connections* 
 with nature and our fellow-men, and through the 
 mental activity to which they give rise we reach 
 the development of our whole mind and spirit, and 
 the establishment of our relations with the universe 
 and its Creator. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 In the natural order of mental development mem- 
 ory follows sense perception. The memory is the 
 faculty of retention. We cannot be said to get 
 knowledge if unable to retain it. The senses in- 
 form us of things at the instant of observation. 
 Apprehension belongs to the present, and is the 
 mind's recognition at the instant of sensation or 
 perception ; memory belongs to the past ; yet these 
 faculties are so closely related in their operations 
 that we cannot entirely separate them in our consid- 
 eration. We have the power of mental acquisition 
 and the power of mental conservation, which to- 
 gether give us knowledge. We have also a power 
 of calling this knowledge into consciousness, or rec- 
 ollecting the information or experience, which com- 
 pletes the function of the mind called memory. The 
 word memory primarily means the retentive power of 
 the mind, but popular use makes it include recollec- 
 
MEMORY. 45 
 
 tion. The faculty of sense perception would be as 
 useless without the faculty of memory, as either would 
 be without the faculty of recollection, yet they are 
 each distinct faculties. The terms mental reproduc- 
 tion or r eviv ability of ideas ^ recognition ox conscious mem- 
 ory^ are equivalents of recollection. 
 
 The knowledge which is retained in the mind by 
 memory is not always present to consciousness ; it 
 continues to endure unconsciously, and becomes con- \ 
 scious on demand of the will or on some recurrence 
 of associated ideas, or, after a longer or shorter 
 period, spontaneously. It is probable that all the 
 impressions received by the mind are indelible ; 
 many are unconsciously received, many more un- 
 consciously retained, and a large share are never 
 revived by association or will, and therefore never 
 appear to the consciousness. There are multitudes 
 of illustrative experiences on record which demon- 
 strate these conclusions. We can hardly escape the 
 inference, from many such demonstrations, that the 
 power of memory is eternal, and that the impressions 
 of the mind will forever be subject to revivability. 
 Dreams, somnambulism, insanity, delirum, and dis- 
 ease offer many marvellous phenomena which attest 
 the undying power of memory and recollection. 
 
46 EDUCAIIONAL PSYCHOI.OGY. 
 
 Memory does not apply alone to the intellectual 
 acquirements, but extends to feeling, desires, and vo- 
 litions, and is an essential element in moral account- 
 ability. It is closely connected in its activity with 
 conscience. We could experience neither the pen- 
 alties of moral transgression, nor the peace of a sat- 
 isfied conscience, without memory. The chance of 
 the resuscitation of memory in a future existence is 
 one of the strongest arguments for eternal retribution. 
 The oft-repeated phenomenon of the sudden revela- 
 tion of the whole course of life, as well as its every 
 scene and incident, during the instant preceding 
 drowning, as though a sudden illumination were 
 thrown upon all the recesses of the memory, is an il- 
 lustration of the possibilities of awakened memory 
 and its effect upon awakened conscience ; so indis- 
 solubly are. the mind and soul linked in their nature 
 and destiny. 
 
 The memory is an essential element in the con- 
 sciousness of personal identity. I am the same to- 
 day as yesterday, because I find recorded in my 
 memory my consciousness of yesterday. The power 
 fo memory and of recollection varies greatly in de- 
 gree in different individuals and periods of life. 
 Some men can easily commit facts to memory, but 
 
MEMORY. 47 
 
 only during a short period are able to revive them 
 in the mind ; others require more repetition and effort 
 in retaining, but can more easily and for a longer 
 period revive the knowledge. In early life the mem- 
 ory is very impressible, but the impressions are ap- 
 parently easily effaced ; nevertheless many which are 
 not for a time revivable become so later in life, and 
 the scenes and events of childhood, as well as the 
 facts then stored up in the mind and lost sight of 
 during the main period of life, are spontaneously re- 
 vived in old age, while the later impressions of the 
 mind are forgotten.* Children seem to forget very 
 soon those facts of knowledge which are obtained 
 before the age of seven or eight ; yet the facts of 
 
 1 unconscious memory are mostly accumulated before 
 that time, and enter into the mind as organic ele- 
 
 Unents of its activity. Frcebel regards the uncon-f 
 scious knowledge gained before the age of eight as^ 
 the most important knowledge of life ; on this con-\ 
 elusion as a principle he bases his methods of educa- 
 tion. But if you give the child a large list of facts i^ 
 
 * It may be that the earliest and deepest impressions on the 
 brain-cells, being afterward overlaid by the more active but less 
 permanent impressions of middle life, are at last brought again 
 into prominence by the disappearance of the secondary im- 
 pressions. ^ 
 
48 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 to be stored in the memory, it will be necessary 
 either to keep them in constant use or to renew 
 them later in life. It seems desirable that the 
 knowledge gained in early life and soon forgotten 
 should be revived by the study of the first stage of 
 maturit}^ so that all that has dropped into uncon- 
 scious memory may be made once more conscious 
 and therefore more enduring. 
 
 Some minds have a stronger hold upon facts, others 
 upon thoughts or feelings ; some have g»-eat difficulty 
 in recalling names and dates, and ease in recalling 
 analogies, ideas, sequences of thought, and vice versa. 
 The quality of the mind has been thought by many 
 to depend on this difference ; so that a mind has 
 been judged to be of small capacity when the mem- 
 ory is strong and precise, and of large capacity in 
 proportion as the memory of particulars is vague and 
 uncertain. But the best quality of mind will com- 
 bine a strong and particular memory and recollection 
 with the ability to reason well, or with a vivid imagi- 
 nation. Seneca could repeat two thousand names in 
 the order given on once hearing. A young man at 
 Padua, it is recorded, could recite thirty-six thousand 
 words in any required order on first hearing them or 
 after a year's interval. Macaulay, Dr. Arnold of 
 
MEMORY. 49 
 
 Rugby, and the celebrated Person are instances of 
 persons of . remarkable power of recalling what had 
 been read or heard. Cyrus, Mithridates, Napoleon, 
 the Duke of Wellington, and Washington, all had 
 phenomenal power of recalling names and faces of 
 individuals in their armies. 
 
 The memory may be strengthened and trained. 
 Habits of concentrated attention to objects of 
 memory, of association of ideas, of analyzing trains 
 of thought, improve and develop the power of the 
 memory and recollection. Certain ideas naturally 
 excite each other. Simultaneous ideas, contiguous 
 ideas, dependent ideas, ideas of cause and effect, of 
 means and ends, of whole and part, of like and un- 
 like, of contrasted and similar, of object and subject, 
 of symbol and reality, of words and ideas which they 
 represent, of form, sound, color, odor, etc., etc , 
 respond to each other in the recollection. All these 
 can be reduced to the inclusive associations of total- 
 ity of impression ; those thoughts suggest each other 
 which have constituted parts of the same act of 
 cognition ; by this solution the whole phenomena of 
 association may be explained. 
 
 Therefore, in developing the power of memory, we 
 must habituate the mind to a vivid and complete 
 4 
 
50 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 cognition, involving strongly all associated ideas. It 
 will be easier to commit words to memory if repeated 
 aloud or frequently copied or said in concert, thus 
 multiplying the means of mental impression. Ii will 
 be easier to retain ideas acquired under pleasurable 
 excitement in varied and striking connections than 
 without these stimulating accompaniments. The 
 memory will be quickened by a complicated associa- 
 tion of ideas and strengthened by. constant exercise ; 
 if memory is trusted it will grow responsive ; if the 
 mind does not at once recall a fact, keep it in a 
 waiting posture and allow nature time to work ; the 
 forgotten name or date or other fact will seem to 
 arise spontaneously in answer to the expectation. 
 If we seek something which has been stored up in 
 the mind, we declare by that act that we have not al- 
 together forgotten it ; we still hold it by a part, and 
 when this detached part at length presents itself, it 
 reunites itself spontaneously to that with which it 
 was originally connected. 
 
 It is probable that the thought of an object sug- 
 gested by desire is always accompanied by accessory 
 thoughts more or less numerous, present in the 
 mind consciously or unconsciously, which lead to the 
 recovery of the desired thought ; this direction of 
 
MEMORY. 51 
 
 the mind by the associations of unconscious memory 
 becomes fixed and constant, and results in automatic 
 mental operations, like the act of walking or speak- 
 ing or r jading. In the process of acquiring these 
 acts of knowledge, each step is an object of conscious 
 recollection ; the first movements of the muscles, the 
 first memory of the words is conscious and an act of 
 recollection, but at length it becomes a habit, and we 
 are no longer conscious of its operation ; we read the 
 page without the conscious recognition of the letters 
 or even the words, .but yet eachw^ord and letter must 
 have produced its effect on the mind which may at 
 any moment be called into consciousness by atten- 
 tion. In like manner, as we are surrounded by a 
 complication of relations, only a small part of which 
 enter consciously into the mind, the mind becomes 
 filled unconsciously with impressions and elements of 
 knowledge which are subject to our attention and 
 may be recognized at the call of the will, but even 
 when unrecognized enter into the operations of the 
 mind, and even into its very structure, so as to become 
 elements of automatic mental and moral activity, and 
 build up the intellect and character. Every activity 
 of the brain cells leaves its traces in the structure of 
 those cells which become a channel of revivable activ- 
 
52 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 ity. This is the physiological explanation of memory 
 fwhich applies to all parts of the nervous system, so 
 \ that we may speak of a memory of the spinal cord or 
 fof any nerve centre resulting in automatic activity. 
 
 All automatic activity being incapable of correc- 
 tion, is a part of the consolidated mind and soul, 
 acting with constant energy in its own direction. 
 The unconscious memory is such an agent, and 
 therefore more powerful and important in its function 
 than any succession of conscious memories or recol- 
 lected facts. It seems to reach a permanent and 
 transmissible structural influence which is unalterable 
 by any act of will. It is in view of this result that 
 all the earliest education is of radical importance, 
 and cannot be overestimated or be begun too soon. 
 Memory is disturbed by any disturbance of the 
 functions of the brain, sometimes acting more highly 
 under such disturbance. Mental fatigue affects the 
 memory. A tired child will seem to have forgotten 
 his lesson, which will be restored to his recollection 
 by rest of the nervous system or physical refresh- 
 ment ; often by a renewal of fresh air alone. 
 
 Many curious instances are related of the effect of 
 disordered brain on the memory. The Rev. Wm. 
 Tennant, while conversing with his bi other in Latin, 
 
MEMORY. 53 
 
 apparently died ; he was resuscitated and found to 
 be ignorant of every event of his past life. He was 
 slowly taught to read and write, and afterward began 
 to study Latin. One day, while reciting a lesson 
 from Cornelius Nepos, he felt a sudden shock in his 
 head and found himself able to speak the Latin as 
 fluently as before his illness, and his memory was 
 suddenly completely restored. An ignorant servant- 
 girl (a celebrated case mentioned by Coleridge) , dur- 
 ing the delirium of fever, repeated with perfect cor- 
 rectness passages from a number of theological 
 works in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; these were 
 found to be quotations from authors whose works 
 she had heard, without comprehending, at some past 
 period of her life, read aloud by a clergyman in 
 whose employ she was. Dr. Willis relates the case 
 of a man who looked forward to attacks of insanity 
 to which he was subject with impatience, because of 
 the power they seemed to bring of increased mem- 
 ory. He said every mental operation then appeared 
 easy to him ; his memory acquired a singular degree 
 of perfection. There are a vast number of such 
 illustrations on record which accumulate evidence 
 that thought is imperishable. Coleridge says : *' It 
 may be more possible that heaven and earth pass 
 
54 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 away than that a single thought should be loosened 
 or lost." 
 
 Spencer says : *' Instinct may be regarded as a 
 kind of organized memory; on the other hand, 
 memory may be regarded as a kind of incipient 
 instinct. The automatic action of a bee build- 
 ing one of its wax cells answers to outer relations 
 so constantly experienced that they are, as it were, 
 organically remembered. Conversely, an ordinary 
 recollection implies a cohesion of psychical states 
 which becomes stronger by repetition, and so approx- 
 imates more and more to the indissoluble, the 
 automatic, or instinctive cohesions." And again : 
 " Memory necessarily comes into existence when- 
 ever automatic action is imperfect." "We do not 
 speak of ourselves as recollecting relations which 
 have become organically registered." " The clear- 
 est instance of the gradual lapse of memory into 
 automatic coherence is yielded by the musician. . . . 
 By long-continued practice the series of psychical 
 changes between seeing the notation and striking the 
 key have been reduced into one almost automatic 
 change, — all these mental states which were at first 
 so many separate recollections ultimately constitute 
 a succession so rapid that the whole of them pass in 
 
MEMORY. 55 
 
 an instant.'^ " Memory, then, belongs," says Spen^ 
 cer, " to that class of psychical states which are in 
 process of being organized. Conscious memory 
 passes into unconscious or organic memory." -^ 
 
 In view of all this testimony, how important is the 
 training and nourishment of the memory. That such 
 facts and images shall be put within its grasp as are 
 worthy never to be forgotten, such as may enter into 
 the very organic structure of the mind and build up 
 the immortal intellect and character ; that no habits 
 of thought shall be begun and consummated by the 
 teacher which cannot be woven into the very tissue 
 of the understanding, — this is the great aim of the 
 education of the memory. If sense perception takes 
 in the mind's nourishment and food, the memory di- 
 gests and assimilates it and thus builds up the indi- 
 vidual and race characteristics. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 IMAGINATION. 
 
 In observing the child's mental activities, we dis- 
 cover very early not only the faculty of memory, but 
 a very strong and active faculty of reproducing the 
 impressions made on the memory. This faculty car- 
 ries with it an impulse of expression, so that we 
 see the child acting out in his plays the facts of his 
 observation ; these facts have left an image of them- 
 selves so complete as to be easily and instinctively 
 revived in all their associations of place, time, mo- 
 tion, and relation to other facts. It is this power of 
 complete and active revivability and reproduction to 
 which we give the name of imagination, 
 
 I see a child playing upon the street. He is ab- 
 sorbed in the idea which he is occupied in express- 
 ing. Every movement and posture shows me that 
 the image of a proud and prancing horse fills his 
 mind and demands expression through as complete 
 imitation as he can produce. His imagination is at 
 
IMAGINATION. 57 
 
 work and masters all his faculties. Or, perhaps, he 
 imitates the steam-engine, or some other mechanical 
 object, to his mental conception of which he seeks 
 to conform every expression of his body. This men- 
 tal conception, or image, is a pattern which memory 
 gives him for imitation. To produce this pattern a 
 very complete cognition is necessary -; the more com- 
 plete, the more perfect the imitation or reproduction. 
 If we have observed a material object in its totality 
 of impression on the sense perception ; if we have 
 so retained it in the mind, in all its surroundings and 
 qualities, that we are able to reproduce it in its en- 
 tirety, so that it stands before the mind's eye as dis- 
 tinctively as if th® senses again perceived it, — then 
 we produce it, not merely by memory, but by imagi- 
 nation. In other words, we have an image in the 
 mind which may serve as well as the reality for actual 
 representation through expression. 
 
 This kind of imagination is very fully developed in 
 the child, as is illustrated by his constant representa- 
 tion in his plays of all that he has observed, — things 
 animate and inanimate ; nothing seems so foreign to 
 his nature as that he cannot imagine himself to be it 
 and assume all its qualities, as well ^s attempt their 
 expression by every faculty he can command. His 
 
58 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 instinct to invest any material form with the most 
 unnatural and inappropriate qualities, and convert it 
 into a representation of the image in his mind, enters 
 into all his plays and occupations and gives them 
 life and interest. For example, a clothes-pin serves 
 for a baby, a"d a chair for a horse ; every form is 
 converted by the power of imagination into a vivid 
 likeness of the conception of the mind based upon 
 the recollection of some observed fact. One qual- 
 ity of the child's imagination is its power of absorb- 
 ing the child's consciousness ; the thing he imagines 
 appears real to him ; he loses for the time the distinc- 
 tion between what is actually present to his senses 
 and that memory of the past which is actively em- 
 ployed in presenting the image of which alone he is 
 conscious. This absorbing quality of imagination is 
 apparent also in the mature mind, but the discrim- 
 inating quality becomes stronger and clearer, and 
 there is less confusion of the real with the unreal. 
 This absorption and realization of imaginary ideas 
 leads sometimes to an apparent want of truthful- 
 ness, which should be corrected by showing more 
 clearly the distinction between the image and the 
 fact, and not by thrusting on the child's conscience 
 the responsibility of untruthfulness. 
 
IMAGINATION. 59 
 
 The exercise of the imagination in the vivid and 
 thorough recollection of what has been presented to 
 sense perception gives power to description in writ- 
 ing, talking, or acting ; and when the faculties of ex- 
 pression are equal to the presentation of this vivid 
 imagination, the same image is produced in the mind 
 of the witness. The writer, the speaker, the actor, 
 the painter, in this way reproduces for others what 
 was in his memory. Close observation is an es- 
 sential element of power. The landscape which is 
 faithfully reproduced from menaory must have been 
 closely and skilfully observed ; the face, the gesture, 
 the voice, natural to the utterance of emotions of 
 various kinds, must be inseparably associated in the 
 mind of the actor with those emotions in order to be 
 faithfully reproduced as an apparent act of nature. 
 In order to develop the imagination of the child, we 
 must, therefore, cultivate the faculty of complete ob- 
 servation and the acuteness of sense perception in 
 storing the mind with facts which are to serve as a 
 basis for reproduction. We must do all in our power 
 to encourage in a child the instinct for expression, 
 as effort toward expression gives distinctness to the 
 image and thus develops the power of imagination. 
 To this end, give the child all the opportunity it 
 
6o EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 demands by drawing, moulding, building, singing, 
 acting, and coloring; give it necessary material and 
 necessary tools ; train the faculties to the use of 
 tools, and give the mind a knowledge of the qual- 
 ities of its materials ; inculcate the idea of truthful- 
 ness and thoroughness, or completeness, in every 
 expression. This connects the working out of the 
 imagination with the sense for conduct and the love 
 of truth. 
 
 The plays of the child are nature's methods of 
 development for the imagination ; multiply forms 
 and methods in the same direction ; follow the 
 individual proclivity as to means ; if one child enjoys 
 moulding, another building, another drawing, give 
 each its desired medium of expression, and draw out 
 its native aptness, taste, or genius. Feed the imagi- 
 nation through well-chosen stories or fancies, by 
 poetry, by pictures, by demanding of the child 
 original effort of idea and expression in talking and 
 writing, so as to awaken the responsive enjoyment of 
 others ; yet stop short of that excitement of the 
 faculties which disturbs a healthful balance of the 
 physical and mental activity, and especially of that 
 uncontrol of the imagination which tends to confuse 
 the moral ideas. Introduce the exercise of the im- 
 
IMAGINATION. 6 1 
 
 agination into every branch of study, as it gives 
 vividness to facts and zest and freshness to the 
 intellectual effort of study, adding enthusiastic enjoy- 
 ment to the act of learning. Reading, language,] 
 geography, and history are most dependent upon the! 
 exercise of this faculty, and cannot be profitably or I 
 pleasantly pursued without it. Numbers depend 
 much on the imagination for effective study, their 
 processes being invested with interest by presenta- 
 tion through the imagination as connected with real 
 transactions and the business of life. 
 
 Imagination is not only the power of complete 
 cognition and representation, but the power also of 
 reconstruction. When various facts of memory have 
 become so habituated to thought as to be uncon- 
 sciously disintegrated, their elements enter spontane- 
 ously into new relations and connections, so as to 
 gather around a new focus of thought and build a 
 new ideal of imagination ; this is an original combi- 
 nation or organization of revived facts of memory 
 and a higher effort of imagination than simple re- 
 production ; it is called the productive or creative 
 imagination, or by some writers, ideality. In its\ 
 
 u. 
 
 most advanced development, combined with unu- 
 sual facility of expression, it constitutes genius. For 
 
62 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 example, an artist may bring together into a new 
 unity fragments of other unities of landscape, 
 reconstructed according to a new harmony, until he 
 produces a composition or image of his own creation 
 which, although not a copy of any real landscape, may 
 be said to be true to nature because faithful in its 
 parts and in its unity to the plan or harmony of 
 nature. Even a copy of a landscape must be true to 
 this harmony ; if it be true only to the details of the 
 landscape, it does not reproduce in the mind the 
 feelings excited by the real landscape, and is, there- 
 fore, not true to nature ; it is only the artist who 
 sees and embodies even in a copy the key to nature's 
 beauty. The productive imagination makes for its 
 expression a new harmony out of the revived facts of 
 memory. Some philosophers assert that no exercise 
 of the imagination can be called creative, inasmuch 
 as it furnishes no material which has not been stored 
 up by the memory, because the mind cannot form a 
 conception whose elements have not been provided 
 by experience or observation. But is not this new 
 harmony, this new unity, this act of reorganiza- 
 tion, a creative act ? It furnishes a new ideal of 
 thought or feeling which is essentially original, 
 although made up of parts of remembered things. 
 
IMAGINATION. 63 
 
 So the act of the magnet in grouping the iron filings 
 into a symmetrical order, so the process of crystal- 
 lization and polarization, readjusting atoms into 
 harmonious relations, so the assimilative function of 
 the body, which converts to its own uses the changing 
 material of the body, is a creative act, and a fair 
 illustration of the creative power of the imagination. 
 An ideal landscape, an original grouping, so harmo- 
 nized as to present clearly to the mind a new image or 
 focus of feeling or thought which calls forth respon- 
 sive emotion, an historical scene conceived by the 
 artist, a personification of some impersonal idea, a 
 symbolic painting or statue, a monument of archi- 
 tecture, a musical composition, a poetic expression 
 of fancy, a character or scene of fiction, a fairy, a 
 faun, a Pegasus, a god, — all these are results of 
 this higher effort of the imagination, which is 
 essentially creative. Poetry, painting, sculpture, 
 architecture, musical composition, dramatic acting, 
 mechanical invention, and even the higher mathe- 
 matics and the sciences, are all fields for the exercise 
 of this power. 
 
 The imagination has its limitations ; it can never 
 produce elements which have been altogether outside 
 of its experience, any more than a blind man can 
 
64 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 conceive of color. Even when it forms a new com- 
 
 ! bination which it invests with a new individuality, yet 
 
 /all parts of that combination are furnished by the 
 
 Vmemory, either conscious or unconscious. The 
 
 character of a drama or story which is presented so 
 
 clearly as to become a person in the mind of the 
 
 reader as well as the writer, like Puck or Ariel, 
 
 Portia or Shylock, is yet made up of qualities which 
 
 have been the object of such complete observation 
 
 as has made them a constituent part of the mind's 
 
 furniture, and ready to reunite in new forms and 
 
 processes of unification. 
 
 The memory and imagination, so closely related 
 and merging into each other almost imperceptibly, 
 are yet perfectly distinct in their activity; this dis- 
 tinction is invariably perceived by a sane mind. 
 The degree of activity of imagination possessed by a 
 man need not confuse his recollection ; he can 
 always tell with certainty what he remembers and 
 what he merely imagines ; his veracity is not affected 
 by his power of imagination. It is essential that we 
 should preserve this clearness of discrimination, and 
 never lose the ability to subordinate the imagination 
 to conscience or to perceive the precise outlines of 
 truth. 
 
IMAGINATION. 65 
 
 The imagination easily yields to the law of habit 
 or automatic tendency ; it grows by exercise ; it sub- 
 mits to control; and is more effective under the 
 influence of systematic training. The cultivated 
 imagination is superior to the uncultivated ; the one 
 is finished, the other crude ; the one moulds men and 
 things, the other is wasted ; the one bears fruit, the 
 other is comparatively fruitless. Constant effort and 
 labor, training and study, are essential to the best 
 exercise of even the productive imagination. No 
 .one achieves distinction in art without persevering 
 work and constant progress in education. The 
 greatest genius imposes the greatest arnount of 
 arduous labor on its possessor, and requires persist- 
 ent practice and intense efforts of will for its accom- 
 plishments. 
 
 Imagination connects itself thoroughly with the 
 moral faculties ; if allowed to construct ideals of 
 degradation, or revel in visions of vice or horror, it 
 becomes unable to rise to purer and more spiritual 
 ideas, and vice versa, so that it acts with ever accel- 
 erating force to drag down or lift up the soul ; it 
 adds wings to simple belief, and brings the unseen 
 vividly to the soul's apprehension ; it presents " the 
 substance of things hoped for," and ir, therefore, 
 5 
 
66 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 equivalent to faith when applied to the sours activi- 
 ties ; it is as direct a source of inspiration to high 
 thought and conduct as nature has provided, and 
 leads us to the verge of life with joyous expectation. 
 It assists the soul in grouping about the moral ideals 
 the highest conceivable qualities, and makes them 
 facts of consciousness. These ideals of beauty, of 
 harmony, of goodness, of truth, of purity, nourish the 
 soul. The impulse for expression which always 
 accompanies a vivid and active imagination, exercises 
 and strengthens the habit of truthfulness through 
 faithfulness of its expression to its ideal. It involves 
 the attempt at utter conformity of the expression to 
 the conception, which is the essence of truthfulness. 
 This conformity must be seen in the details and in 
 the spirit of the product of the imagination, and is 
 the lesson of nature to the soul through art, which is 
 the point of communication between the active 
 imagination of the worker and the receptive imagi- 
 nation of the observer. Imagination is an active 
 faculty, and must work itself out in forms which shall 
 reach other minds and reproduce in them images. 
 The stronger the faculty of imagination, the more 
 determined its impulse for expression, and the 
 greater its instinctive desire for response. It must 
 
IMAGINATION. 67 
 
 reproduce itself not only in forms, but in effects ; it 
 must bear fruit, or it will not yield happiness or sat- 
 isfaction. It therefore educates the soul to activity 
 for others, to reciprocal human relations, to sympathy 
 of thought and feeling. This phase of its develop- 
 ment should be encouraged in children. It intensi- 
 fies our perception of our relations with our fellow- 
 beings by deepening and multiplying our points of 
 contact and sympathy, by enabling us to place our- 
 selves in their position and appreciate their mo- 
 tives ; it gives us more varied sources of joy and 
 sorrow, makes us capable of stronger and more 
 varied emotions, and more susceptible of impres- 
 sions ; it furnishes a pattern or ideal for both con- 
 duct and art which either may copy by skilled 
 methods and mastery of its material. The mind and 
 soul should be trained to this mastery, that they may 
 serve that great automatic power of imagination 
 which is called inspiration when the imagination be- 
 comes an unconscious agent of the soul. In such 
 an absorbed and automatic process of the soul, where 
 it connects itself vitally with the highest sources of 
 thought and feeling, great ideals, or patterns, are 
 revealed to man, which subordinate all the faculties 
 of the mind and soul and command their activities. 
 
68 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 This is the highest development of the human spirit, 
 and authoritative in its expression. So far as it is 
 approximated in any individual life, it compels obe- 
 dience. " See that thou do all things according to 
 the pattern which I shewed thee in the mount," were 
 the words which defined the obligation of Moses in 
 building the tabernacle, and are pertinent to every 
 one who receives such a pattern for art or conduct. 
 
 Dreams are an effect of the uncontrolled imagina- 
 tion, and may be inconsistent with nature and fact. 
 They sometimes rearrange the facts of memory logi- 
 cally, at other times they are without sequence or 
 reason ; while they occupy the mind they seem real. 
 A man dreaming of the same scenes every night 
 in continuous order might find the visions of the 
 night to present as real a phase of life to his con- 
 sciousness as the experiences of his waking life. 
 Somnambulism is the unconscious action of the 
 dream, when the absorbed mind directs the will 
 spontaneously ; in such a state memory and reason 
 are preternaturally active, the dreamer speaks flu- 
 ently, executes feats impossible to his conscious activ- 
 ity, and seems to have perceptions through other 
 means than the senses ; at such times it is dangerous 
 to awaken the sleeper. Revery is similar to dreams ; 
 
IMAGINATION. 69 
 
 the working of the imagination is spontaneous, but 
 accompanied by consciousness. Insanity is a state in 
 which the imagination under great excitement carries 
 with it determined conviction of the reality of its 
 apparition, and tyrannizes the mind and body as well 
 as the soul, driving the faculties to excessive activity 
 in entire uncontrol of the will. 
 
 The bodily functions are powerfully affected by 
 the imagination; diseases are induc«d by it, and 
 cures performed. Men have been killed by working 
 upon their imagination, exciting expectation of death. 
 The magination causes sensations which are gener 
 ally attributed only to activity of the senses them- 
 selves. Optical illusions are produced, sounds in- 
 audible are heard, taste and smell operate, and 
 sensations of heat and cold are felt, although no 
 outward cause exists ; but the imagination acts so 
 powerfully on the nerves which perceived those sen- 
 sations as to originate the appropriate activity of 
 the nerves and produce the result of actuality. Even 
 the muscles are affected to express these sensations 
 and emotions as if called into activity by the natural 
 causes. The mouth waters in thinking of a palata- 
 ble food, as it does in preparation for mastication ; 
 the face is moved to smile or frown, or the body to 
 
70 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 conform its gesture and posture, or even to talk and 
 act, from the stimulus of imagination alone. It is 
 said, however, that if the optic nerve is destroyed, 
 images of sight are not thereafter reproduced by the 
 imagination ; and so of sound, — the want of the ap- 
 propriate nerve prevents the formation of the image 
 produced by its activity.* 
 
 Let me once more call attention to the insensible 
 gradation of the faculties of body, mind, a»d soul, 
 and their indissoluble connection and order of pre- 
 cedence, passing through incomprehensible steps of 
 transition from lower to higher, each serving its su- 
 perior, and feeding and nourishing the higher func- 
 tions of the complex unity of man. Sense percep- 
 tion supplies memory with forms which feed the 
 imagination and conscience, and through all these 
 faculties, in successive degrees of power and more 
 and more immediate connection, the soul is nourished 
 and the human being is educated in symmetry. 
 
 *The response of the muscles and organs of the body to an 
 imaginary sensation may be spoken of as an hallucination of 
 the motor-nerves through the unreal image in the brain, which 
 excites the roots of those nerves as actually, though perhaps 
 more feebly, as if it originated with the sensory nerves, and 
 was the result of a sense impression. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 JUDGMENT AND REASON. 
 
 In the processes of mind involved in sense percep- 
 tion, memory, and imagination, we find evidence of 
 a pervading faculty essential to them all, which. we 
 call judgment. The function of this faculty is to 
 analyze and compare the facts of apprehension, and 
 draw a conclusion from this analysis and comparison. 
 Every act of sense perception is to some extent a 
 judgment, and involves comparison and generaliza- 
 tion, a balancing of associated sensations, and a 
 determining apprehension of their relations. Aris- 
 totle called perception an act of judgment. 
 
 This faculty of judgment is exercised by the child 
 in gaining his ground facts. He observes qualities, 
 then compares them as to degree, as to kind, as to 
 effect; and on this comparison as a basis he forms 
 a judgment ; by this judgment he analyzes, compares, 
 generalizes, and arranges the results of observation 
 which he holds before his mind for this purpose. 
 
72 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Judgment, therefore, includes apprehension, abstrac- 
 tion, analysis, comparison, generalization. It lays a 
 foundation for memory and imagination by grouping 
 or classifying facts in the mind according to every 
 variety of association, so that these faculties may 
 have their material assorted and ready for use. 
 
 Watch the child in his play; you see that after 
 observing qualities he naturally compares them. 
 This jDlock is higher, that is straighter ; this is 
 smoother, that is rounder; this is brightest, that is 
 darkest, etc. According to this comparison, he goes 
 on to arrangement : these are like, those are unlike ; 
 this belongs with the hard things, that belongs with 
 the soft things ; this is a living thing, that is a thing 
 without life ; this is a mineral, that is a plant, etc. 
 He classifies things either consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, according to their common properties, and 
 assigns each new fact of knowledge its place in this 
 classification by the law of resemblances. This act 
 of classification is complex ; it rests on sense percep- 
 tion and memory, but includes the power of holding 
 a property or quality, that is, an abstract idea, before 
 the mind for analysis or comparison. This power 
 is by some psychologists called abstraction, or the 
 power of mental conception. In all complex opera- 
 
JUDGMENT AND REASON. 73 
 
 tions there is a series of judgments or decisions 
 founded on a comparison of qualities, and following 
 a natural sequence of cause and effect, or evidence 
 and conclusion. This series of judgments constitutes 
 reasoning. 
 
 Concentrated attention of the mind is necessary 
 to the correct exercise of judgment ; /. ^., a power of 
 reflection, of considering the facts of apprehension 
 as they lie in the mind, and a power of decision 
 when the attention and reflection are complete. The 
 faculty of judgment is susceptible of constant and 
 careful culture. It should be called into exercise at 
 every step of education. It will lead the child to 
 intellectual and moral results which shall be final, 
 to decisions which he need never again question. 
 This result is especially pronounced in the appli- 
 cation of judgment to conscience ; inductive con- 
 science, or conscience in its applications to courses 
 of conduct, is in many cases purely an act of judg- 
 ment. In the education of the faculty of judgment 
 and reason, the part of the teacher is to see that no 
 mistake is made in the process ; that there is clear 
 apprehension, just comparison, thorough analysis, 
 and orderly generalization. Through this process 
 of judgment the child is to classify all his knowl- 
 
74 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 edge, and learn the relations, the uses, and the laws 
 of material things; this is the pursuit of science. 
 By the same faculty, also, he forms a standard of 
 moral action, and discovers the direction of duty. 
 
 Judgment becomes more and more complicated as 
 the mtelleclual and moral faculties advance to their 
 development. A larger field for comparison, a 
 greater number of relations and associations, enter 
 into an act of judgment as facts accumulate in the 
 mind and knowledge increases ; but this complexity 
 is met by the accumulation of definite judgments 
 already made. These form a fund of experience 
 which need not be worked out afresh, but contains 
 already elements of knowledge to be relied upon as 
 decisive in further judgments. As fundamental ex- 
 perience and accumulated judgments are fixed in the 
 mind they become unconscious, consolidated, and 
 organic, and are automatic or intuitive in their 
 action ; they furnish the innate ideas of the mind 
 and soul and enter into the structure of both, to be 
 transmitted from one generation to another. Thus 
 they are the most important and enduring acquisi- 
 tions to mankind. 
 
 The operations of judgment are common to all 
 men, but the faculty of generalization is very un- 
 
JUDGMENT AND REASON. 75 
 
 equally distributed, and is one of the highest exer- 
 cises of the human intellect. Sense perception and 
 memory are common to man and brute animals, but 
 analysis, comparison, and generalization are distinc- 
 tively human attributes ; yet we see some approach 
 to these operations in the more intelligent and saga- 
 cious animals. The instinct of the bee, the ant, the 
 spider , the intelligence of the dog, the horse, the ele- 
 phant ; the adaptation of means to ends to a greater 
 or less extent by all animals, — indicate the presence 
 of organic if not conscious judgment. 
 
 A word alone expresses sense perception, as roughs 
 blue, wood; but a sentence or affirmation is necessary to 
 express a judgment, as this wood is smooth ; this vessel 
 is a brig. The act of judgment is not expressed by 
 the name of a thing or quality, but requires a predica-^ 
 tion or assertion. As sense perception involves a 
 judgment, so all consciousness also includes a judg- 
 ment or discrimination. We cannot have an appre- 
 hension of the relation of things v.ithout judgment. 
 We cannot decide upon the moral quality of actions 
 without judgment ; when we have thus decided, then 
 conscience directs us to do the right and omit the 
 wrong, to abhor the evil and cleave to the good, and 
 the will determines our obedience to conscience ; 
 
76 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 therefore, judgment, conscience, and will are neces- 
 sary to conduct. 
 
 Anything which disturbs our deliberate attention 
 to the object of judgment, as any passion or emo- 
 tion or imagination, hinders the correct result of 
 judgment ; it may confuse even sense perception, 
 and prevent that just comparison which gives us the 
 true result of observation. This disturbing element 
 operates in the direction of both intellectual and 
 moral judgments to pervert or to blur them. We 
 cannot trust to the justness of our judgment where 
 we are influenced by a strong feeling in one direc- 
 tion or another. We should divest ourselves of a 
 preference before we conclude a judgment. This 
 principle is acknowledged in legal trials by jury ; no 
 one is allowed to make one of a jury who has a pre- 
 conceived opinion respecting the matter to be judged, 
 or who may have any selfish interest in the decision. 
 
 Judgment extends to all knowledge and all opin- 
 ion, to every kind of evidence, certain or uncertain ; 
 if the evidence is certain, demonstration and proof 
 result ; if uncertain, the judgment is uncertain, the 
 result probable or possible. Good judgment is the 
 result of good sense ; nonsense is contrary to right 
 judgment. Common- sense is that degree of judg- 
 
JUDGMENT AND REASON. 77 
 
 ment common to men of experience in all ages, or 
 that result of common experience which is organic 
 or intuitive judgment. It is that degree of sense 
 which is necessary to our relations with our fellows 
 and our surroundings. Common-sense is a rectifier 
 of individual peculiarities of judgment ; it gives a 
 standard by which men can correct their judgments ; 
 it is a tribunal of great authority, and its conclusions 
 are according to right reason. It entitles men to be 
 called reasonable beings. Principles of common- 
 sense are axioms, self-evident truths, upon which 
 all men agree, and which are the foundation of all 
 further judgments and all knowledge. 
 
 It is not in our power to judge as we wish, but our 
 judgment is made necessary by our evidence and our 
 intuitions. Judgment follows apprehension inevita- 
 bly , it cannot go back of self-evident propositions. 
 Every conclusion reached by reasoning must go 
 back to axioms. The science of mathematics is 
 established incontrovertibly on the foundation of a 
 few axioms or truths which are apparent to common- ' 
 sense or natural judgment, although to some minds 
 some principles which require demonstration for 
 most men are axioms also. All sciences are built 
 up in the same way on facts of intuitive knowledge. 
 
78 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 In reflecting upon the processes of the mind itself, 
 the mind works in a natural order of reasoning from 
 cause to effect, according to an inherent sequence of 
 judgment which may be analyzed and arranged, and 
 this analysis or arrangement of the order of reason- 
 ing constitutes the science of logic and furnishes the 
 rules for correct reasoning. 
 
 Axioms, or intuitive truths, are a part of the con- 
 sciousness, and must be treated, as are the senses, 
 perception, and memory, as the necessary means 
 given us by God for discovering the truth. Our 
 ordinary conduct in life is built up on these intuitive 
 truths and first principles of reason. Any man who 
 fails to recognize them and act upon them is adjudged 
 insane. The axioms of any science are the first 
 things to be settled in the mind in the study of that 
 science, and are at once perceived to be according to 
 the nature of things. There are axioms of taste 
 which are perhaps less universally recognized, but, 
 being perceived by those whose development of 
 taste is most marked, are accepted, on their recogni" 
 tion or revelation, by all mankind. There is a 
 standard of beauty \vhich, though not discoverable 
 by all men, is by all men acknowledged, on the 
 revelation of genius, to be supreme. There are 
 
JUDGMENT AND REASON. 79 
 
 axioms in morals and in philosophy, on which are 
 built up the moral code and the spiritual development 
 of mankind. 
 
 Every code of morals, as well as every form of 
 religious belief, is the. result of the application of the 
 judgment, — either the instinctive judgment of com- 
 mon-sense, based on intuitive truths, or the active 
 and conscious judgment of each individual man 
 applied to the moral and religious ideas which have 
 come to his mind originally or through other minds. 
 Each man must decide by a process of reasoning 
 from intellectual evidence what he shall regard as 
 truth, and therefore authoritative. If he makes such 
 decision without such process of reasoning, he has 
 superstition, but not belief. Yet the process of 
 reasoning may lead him to the conclusion that the 
 limitations of his intellect prevent his forming a 
 judgment by such reasoning, and that an authorita- 
 tive revelation of truth has been made to him which 
 he must accept as he would accept his intuitive 
 truths ; e, g,, a man may, by evidence and a course 
 of reasoning from historical and philosophical facts, 
 adopt the Bible as a moral and religious authority, 
 and the Christian religion as a revelation of truth 
 which could not have been a result of human judg- 
 
So EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 ment, and then accept its statements as truth, even 
 where they extend beyond the domain of reason. 
 
 Reason is, therefore, the guide to conviction 
 directly by its own processes within its limitations, 
 and indirectly, or initiatively beyond its limitations, 
 through the revelations of higher agents of percep- 
 » tion ; it is not infallible, because so often affected by 
 imperfect apprehension, incomplete evidence, a 
 biassing emotion or affection or desire, or by pre- 
 occupation of the mind and judgment ; yet we are 
 compelled to follow it in the search for truth ; but 
 we should regard with suspicion conclusions which 
 -do not accord with the common-sense of the race. 
 On the other hand, we should never accept the 
 judgment of others, where common evidence exists, 
 without applying our individual judgment, and draw- 
 ing the conclusion of our own reason. We should 
 also teach the child to draw its own intellectual and 
 moral inferences, where it can safely be led to form 
 them correctly and reach true conclusions ; we should 
 appeal to his reason at every step, that he may 
 acquire the mental habit of perceiving the connec- 
 tions of cause and effect, and the motive and result 
 of his actions. 
 
 The child naturally proceeds from fact to opinion 
 
JUDGMENT AND REASON. 8 1 
 
 from experiments to principles ; his method is that 
 first laid down as the method of nature by Francis 
 Bacon, and is called inductive reasoning. Deductive 
 reasoning begins with the rule or principle, and is 
 founded on the axiom that what is part of the part is 
 also part of the whole ; it gives the class distinctions, 
 and then draws a conclusion respecting the individ- 
 ual. Inductive reasoning is founded on the axiom 
 that what is true of every constituent part must be 
 true of the whole. It examines a number of 
 individuals to discover a general resemblance or 
 ground of classification, and reaches the law, or 
 principle, by detail. The first begins with a theory, 
 and deduces its facts; the second begins with facts, 
 and deduces the theory. Modern education pro- 
 ceeds by the methods of inductive reasoning, which 
 are the natural methods of the developing mind. 
 
 The highest development of the inductive reason- 
 ing is exhibited by the discoverer of nature's lawr. 
 Newton, who from the fall of an apple discovered tl e 
 law of gravitation for the universe ; Franklin, who 
 discovered by experiment the laws of electricity; 
 Galileo, who came to conclusions regarding the 
 shape and motions of the earth ; Leverrier, who dis- 
 covered by inductive reasoning an invisible planet ; 
 6 
 
82 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Columbus, who found an unknown world by sailing 
 according to the directions of his inductive reason- 
 ing, etc., — all these illustrate the power of convic- 
 tion reached by reason, which is the most thorough 
 and effective use of the intellectual faculties. 
 
 In a train of reasoning, every step will be intui- 
 tively perceived as a result of comparison and the 
 relation between cause and effect. To comprehend 
 and follow a series of steps in reasoning requires 
 ability and training, but to originate a true sequence 
 and reach a legitimate conclusion which gives cer- 
 tainty of conviction where there is no other authority 
 or knowledge, requires a superior understanding, and 
 combined with imagination, leads to the highest 
 results of genius. 
 
 Spencer says : " The actions we call rational are, 
 by long-continued repetition, rendered automatic or 
 instinctive. Whatever the microscopist places under 
 the object-glass is seen inverted and with its right 
 and left sides interchanged. All adjustments of the 
 stage and all motions of his dissecting instruments 
 have to be made in directions opposite to those 
 which the uninitiated eye would dictate. Yet habit 
 renders this reversed manipulation as easy as ordi- 
 nary manipulation ; it becomes as unnecessary for the 
 
JUDGMENT AND REASON. 83 
 
 microscopist to take thought how he shall move his 
 hands in the one case as in the other. ... In short, 
 many, if not most, of our common daily actions 
 (actions every step of which was originally pre- 
 ceded by a consciousness of consequences, and was 
 therefore rational) have, by perpetual repetition, 
 been rendered more or less automatic. The requi- 
 site impressions being made on us, the appropriate 
 movements follow, without memory, reason, or voli- 
 tion coming into play. . . . Beginning with reason- 
 ing from particulars to particulars, — familiarly ex- 
 hibited by children and domestic animals, — the 
 progress to inductive and deductive reasoning is 
 similarly unbroken, as well as similarly determined. 
 And by the accumulations of experience is also 
 determined the advance from narrow generalizations 
 to generalizations successively wider and wider. . . . 
 Thus it happens that out of savages unable to count 
 up to the number of their fingers, and speaking a 
 language containing only nouns and verbs, arise at 
 length our Newtons and Shakespeares." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 
 
 The natural activities of the mind bring pleasur- 
 able sensations ; every act of sense perception in a 
 healthy condition of body and mind brings a feeling 
 of gladness. In the manifestations of the young 
 child this connection is very apparent. The babe in 
 its mother's arms expresses delight at every new act 
 of observation, and it is only when the mind or body 
 is too much fatigued and needs rest that its activity 
 ceases to produce happiness. A pleasurable excite- 
 ment attends every successful effort of apprehension, 
 of comparison, and of judgment, and the happiness 
 is more permanent and satisfying as the mental ac- 
 tivity is more complex and complete. This pleasur- 
 able excitement is nature's accompanying stimulus 
 to the desire for knowledge, and to the activity of 
 the mental powers. It may be regarded as a neces- 
 sary condition of attention and study at every period 
 of life, and facility in arousing and sustaining it 
 a criterion of the power of the teacher; so the 
 
TASTE, OR THE SENSE^Ii;b^\BEA\vl:Y. \}^ 
 
 teacher should regard it, aYid'*ft>afcQ 'i§'ah''''t*i>^qd4?c^l,- 
 accompaniment of his effort to instruct. 
 
 In the perception of color alone we find in a young 
 child great enjoyment. The colored ball, which is 
 Frcebel's *' first gift," ministers to his development. 
 In the perception of sound alone the child takes in- 
 tense pleasure ; light alone gives joy, and noise alone 
 arouses delight. We can judge of the beneficial de- 
 sign of these accompanying sensations of pleasure 
 by contemplating the pain that the same causes pro- 
 duce upon a diseased brain or nerves, when every 
 ray of light distresses and every sound distracts the 
 sensitive nerves. If we allow ourselves to be con- 
 fined in utter darkness, we may, on being released, 
 have some idea of the joy of seeing light, as the in- 
 habitants of the Arctic region make that day a festi- 
 val on which the sun reappears after the long night ; 
 and if we could be utterly withdrawn from sound, 
 which would be more difficult, as sound is more con- 
 stant and multifarious than we are at all conscious of 
 without careful attention, we should have some idea, 
 on being released from such silence, of the delight 
 of hearing the faintest vibrations of sound. As the 
 mind develops it experiences equal pleasure perhaps 
 in motion and form ; and when light color, form, and 
 
86 EDUCATIOxVAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 motteri ^re combined and accompanied by music, 
 as in the dance, we have the greatest excitement 
 of sense delight ; for when the mind is able to re- 
 ceive a number of ideas severally and unitedly, the 
 pleasure is greatly enhanced. So, when the sus- 
 ceptibility to sound has reached a stage at which it 
 perceives gradations in tone and in degree of loud- 
 ness and rapidity of succession, it can appreciate the 
 most pleasurable excitement of the senses, — that 
 produced by music. Finally, when to the eye and 
 ear appear not only more complex ideas, but a 
 symmetry or harmony of those ideas, the delight is 
 vastly accumulated, the perception of beauty or har- 
 mony is complete, and the faculty of taste is actively 
 engaged. 
 
 This sense for beauty is inherent in the mind, but 
 varies greatly in its degree of development in indi- 
 viduals and races. The Greeks furnish the type of 
 the highest development in the realm of taste ; their 
 ideas of form, of grace, and of harmony have be- 
 come the ideals of humanity. The Greek mind 
 seems to have been peculiarly constituted to per- 
 ceive beauty. The soft airs, the hues of land and 
 sea, all the natural surroundings of the people, cul- 
 tivated this sense ; the unfettered, flowing garments, 
 
TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 87 
 
 undistorted figures of the human body, free athletic 
 development, uncovered forms of children, and bare 
 feet and arms of all the people, were constant 
 models set before them of beauty and grace ; move- 
 ment in all graceful, natural play at the games and 
 in the palestra was constantly exhibited to their 
 artistic sense. Their motive for art-expression, — 
 working for the gods as an act of worship, offering 
 their very best in the temples, not for their own 
 glory nor for selfish gain, but out of love for divine 
 beauty, purity, and truth, and for which they must 
 conform their own characters and art to divine ideals, 
 — this consecration of art was its great inspiration. 
 Ruskin insists that the fountain of growth for taste 
 is character, and that art will keep pace in its devel- 
 opment with purity and virtue of life. The nation 
 which has the purest and simplest ideals of truth, 
 which is least corrupt in life and motive, will pro- 
 duce the highest models of art ; and as principles of 
 rectitude are lost sight of, the sense for beauty and 
 its artistic expression deteriorates. 
 
 It is certain that Greek art decayed as the state 
 became corrupt ; the feeling and ideal conception 
 must first be clean and beautiful, and art be de- 
 veloped from the truest moral principle. A few in- 
 
88 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 dividuals in the history of the race have excelled all 
 others in this sense for beauty, and became the re- 
 vealers, or law-givers, the standard-makers for the 
 world. In almost every activity of the mind, taste 
 perhaps more than others, some one race or some 
 few individuals develop a phenomenal excellence, 
 and give ideas which are accepted by all, because 
 they appeal to the common-sense of mankind in that 
 direction as the highest reach of the human mind, 
 the best interpretation of nature, and worthy of gen- 
 eral acceptance as authoritative. Such superiority 
 seems to be radically a gift of nature, and makes a 
 man a prophet, a master, a discoverer in his realm. 
 In such ways the divine truths in science, art, and 
 religion come to the mind and soul of mankind, and 
 we learn the absolute meaning of grace, beauty, law, 
 harmony, and goodness. The faculty for perceiving 
 these truths may be developed and strengthened 
 from earliest childhood by familiarity with types of 
 grace and beauty, and by attention to the form, color, 
 and harmory of objects ; also i)y giving full oppor- 
 tunity to the instinct for copying nature, satisfying 
 the imitative propensity which is so natural and 
 spontaneous in childhood. All of Frcebel's plays 
 lead to this, as well as his occupations. Associa- 
 
TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 89 
 
 tion of ideas of wonder, sublimity, grandeur, and 
 fitness is a strong element in the evolution of the 
 sense for beauty. Reflection upon the truths sug- 
 gested by forms and combinations brings out the 
 harmony and unity of their relations ; the perception 
 of the symbolism and analogies of nature in all their 
 points of correspondence with the things of the spirit, 
 brings one to a higher appreciation of their beauty. 
 That man enjoys a form of beauty who understands 
 most thoroughly its significance as well as the sym- 
 metry of its lines ; he discovers most beauty in na- 
 ture who perceives all its associated ideas of use, of 
 design, of cause and effect, af creative power and 
 love, of providence and holiness ; the flower is most 
 attractive to one who sees all its symmetry, its mathe- 
 matical arrangements of parts, its adaptations to a cen- 
 tral purpose, its evidence of divine immanency and 
 its fulfilment of divine law, although its color, form, 
 texture, and arrangement may at once delight the 
 eye. After studying Darwin's exposition of mechan- 
 ical contrivance in the orchids to perfect their growth, 
 and of the habits of the tendrilled plants to secure 
 their necessary conditions, the pleasure we before 
 took in their exquisite beauty and grace is increased 
 a hundred-fold ; for science ever enlarges our sense 
 
90 EDUCATIOxVAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 of beauty. The starry firmament gives deepest satis- 
 faction to the sense for harmony when we understand 
 somewhat of its immensity, of its complexity, of its 
 order and harmony, of its laws and processes, and all 
 its sublime suggestions of eternal power and love. 
 
 So our ideal of beauty is constantly corrected and 
 uplifted by education ; we learn to perceive new and 
 dominating elements of beauty which lead us to 
 truer standards, and to read more truly and fully the 
 language of the material universe as an expression 
 of the absolute beauty of God. 
 
 Adaptation of any work to its uses or purposes 
 ministers to the sense for beauty and gratifies the 
 taste. For example, the great Corliss engine, 
 which was the motive-power of all the mechanical 
 operations in the Centennial Exposition, produced 
 the effect on the mind of some great and sublime 
 work of nature ; the observer stood awe-struck 
 before its power and grace of motion. All in- 
 ventions of genius arouse the sense for the sub- 
 lime. There is a beauty of moral power and use 
 which is seen in noble and harmonious character ; 
 we admire a symmetrical life. Novelty and fresh- 
 ness of form or combination pleases the taste, 
 especially a crude taste ; a more mature sense for 
 
TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 9 1 
 
 beauty emphasizes harmony and proportion, — the 
 general tone or structure, the proper subordination 
 of parts to the whole, the proportion, right order, 
 sequence, and unity in every direction of art, sculp- 
 ture, architecture, music, poetry, etc. The revela- 
 tions of science, of the microscope and telescope, 
 — every means by which we are led to deeper and 
 purer emotions and ideals, — are helps in the growth 
 of taste. 
 
 The sense for beauty is as distinctively a human 
 faculty as any of the intellectual faculties. It is shown 
 in every grade of social advancement. In the bar- 
 barian it is displayed in the love of color, of orna- 
 ment, of gay apparel for his own person, and for his 
 possessions, his tent, his tool, his horse, and in his 
 love and sympathy with nature. The ideal of beauty 
 may be very imperfect, yet the sense for it is shown 
 in the crudest attempts to produce it. In its fullest 
 development of ideal and production it makes the 
 artist, and through the expression of his skill the 
 immortal works of art, in painting, sculpture, archi- 
 tecture, music, and poetry. 
 
 The possession by man of this sense for beauty 
 discloses to our minds the existence in the universe 
 of the good, the true, the beautiful, and the harmoni- 
 
92 EDUCAI'IUNAL J'SVCHOLOr.Y. 
 
 ous. Art is but a nearer and nearer approximation 
 of the human mind to the beauty and harmony of 
 nature, the law and order of the material universe, 
 and the juster and fuller interpretation of the mind 
 of God ; for nature is but the expression of these 
 attributes of the Creator, the eternal types of thought, 
 the final standards of beauty. In this view taste is 
 the effort of man after the beauty of God, the sym- 
 pathetic germ of likeness to the divine harmony. 
 A genius for art signifies a discernment of the 
 natural elements and laws of beauty, and constitutes 
 a man a universal teacher in the principles of art. 
 Michael Angelo, in painting, sculpture, and archi- 
 tecture, was a universal artist ; others have been as 
 great in but one department, as Raphael in painting, 
 Phidias in sculpture, Beethoven in music, Shake- 
 speare in the drama, Dante in poetry. They each 
 discovered and copied the divine pattern of beauty 
 in one direction, as Newton discovered the law of 
 gravitation. So, even in the direction of lines, there 
 has been found a natural pattern of grace called 
 the Hue of beauty. 
 
 The most ignorant, even a child, may admire a 
 work of art, though he knows not why. It appeals 
 to his instinctive taste. But when he learns the 
 
TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 93 
 
 secret of its beauty, he comprehends more perfectly 
 and analyzes its effects upon him. 
 
 The cultivation of the taste adds to our sensibility 
 to both pleasure and pain ; as we are more greatly 
 delighted with beauty, so are we more greatly dis- 
 turbed by the want of it ; yet we should not, on this 
 account, withstand the culture which leads to the 
 finer appreciation of perfection. 
 
 We must enter into all the suggestions of the beauty 
 which we see or hear if we would enjoy it fully. 
 For example, one of Beethoven's sonatas must be 
 comprehended in all its design and scope, in all its 
 technique and detail, in its balance and proportion, 
 in its composition and harmony, and in the true 
 interpretation of its unity, if adequately appreciated 
 and responded to. Its melody, its harmony, its sig- 
 nificance, its wholeness, its contrasts and correspond- 
 ences, its order and arrangement, and its sugges- 
 tions of feeling and thought, must be studied that 
 its entire beauty may be perceived and the taste 
 brought up to its demands. Beauty is a very 
 powerful influence in the world. Beauty of per- 
 son and face has swayed the greatest minds and 
 fixed the fate of nations. When the old men of 
 Ilium had begun to question the necessity for keep- 
 
94 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 ing up such a war merely on the issue of a woman's 
 beauty, Helen appeared among them in her enchant- 
 ing loveliness of face and form, and they were 
 at once set to carry on the war, so uncontrollable 
 was the influence of her personal beauty. " There 
 is nothing," says Addison, " which makes its way 
 more directly to the soul than beauty." In every 
 operation of taste there is occasion for the exercise 
 of judgment. If it be said that the perception of 
 beauty is merely a feeling in the mind that perceives, 
 we may show that when analyzed it is a judgment 
 regarding the conformity of the quality or object we 
 observe to our standard of beauty in art or nature. 
 The sense for beauty involves an opinion concerning 
 some quality in the object that appeals to i^ 
 
 The development of taste or evolution of the 
 sense for beauty is apparent within the limits of 
 type, but there is a chasm between the sensations of 
 the brute and those of the human soul that no bridge 
 can span, and that involves a new act of creation, a 
 superinduced and dominant power that could not 
 have sprung into existence except in obedience to 
 a divine force of organization, however nearly the 
 limits of type approach, and however gradually they 
 seem to merge. The point of connection between 
 
TASTE, OR THE SENSE FOR BEAUTY. 95 
 
 brute sensation and the soul's sense for beauty can 
 no more be traced by physiology than the connection 
 between body and mind, spirit and matter, can be 
 followed by the microscope or the analysis of the 
 chemist. Spencer says : — 
 
 " By compounding groups of sensations and ideas, 
 there are at length formed those vast aggregations 
 which a grand landscape excites and suggests. An 
 infant taken into the midst of mountains is totally 
 unaffected, but is delighted with the small group of 
 attributes and relations presented in a toy. Chil- 
 dren can appreciate and be pleased with the more 
 complicated relations of household objects and 
 localities, — of the garden, field, and street. But it 
 is only in youth and mature age, when individual 
 things and small assemblages of them have become 
 familiar and are automatically cognizable, that those 
 immense assemblages which landscapes present can 
 be adequately grasped, and the highly integrated 
 states of consciousness produced by them experi- 
 enced. Then, however, the various minor groups 
 of states that have been in earlier days severally pro- 
 duced by trees and flowers, by fields and moors and 
 rocky wastes, by streams and cascades, by ravines 
 and precipices, by blue skies and clouds and storms. 
 
96 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 are aroused together. Along with the immediate 
 sensation there are partially excited the myriads of 
 sensations that in times past have been received 
 from objects such as those presented. Further, 
 there are partially excited the multitudinous inci- 
 dental feelings that were experienced on these many 
 past occasions ; and there are also excited certain 
 deeper, but now vague, combinations of states which 
 were organized in the race during barbarous times, 
 when its pleasurable activities were chiefly among 
 the woods and waters. And out of all these excita- 
 tions, some of them actual, but most of them nas- 
 cent, is composed the emotion which a fine landscape 
 produces in us.'* 
 
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