I
Those who are actively engaged in educational pursuits are called
upon from time to time to consider the nature of the difficulties in
the imparting of knowledge, the psychological impediments that stand
in the way of successful instruction. These are many and various; and
pertain as well to the givers as to the receivers of learning. This
large and well threshed field I have no intention of gleaning once
more; I desire simply to draw attention to one form of difficulty
on the part of the learner, which has been brought home to me so
frequently and at times so forcibly, that I should be inclined to
select it as the most salient stumbling-block in the successful
acquisition of those branches of study which it falls to my lot to
expound.
This characteristic, which may be called mental prepossession, is
well illustrated in the following narrative, the truth of which,
however, is not guaranteed. The story dates from the exciting days
when the American public was completely fascinated by the mental
gymnastics of the "spelling bee;" and relates that towards the close
of a very fierce contest with the alphabet, when only a few stalwart
champions remained to encounter the erratic eccentricities of English
orthography, the conductor of the "bee" announced with an air of
grave importance a word that he felt quite certain would retire
not a few of the spelling virtuosi. He then asked their closest
attention to his precise pronunciation, and solemnly gave utterance
to what for all the world sounded like _cat_. Each hearer attempted
to spell this extraordinarily difficult word with a suitably unusual
rearrangement of the letters suggested by the sound, and when each
effort had in turn been pronounced a failure, the information was
given that the correct spelling was _c-a-t_. _Hæc fabula docet_ that
when one expects a difficulty he is apt to find it or to make it.
Believing the problem to be unusual, he applies unusual methods to
its solution; believing it to be complex, he overlooks the simple
means by which its mysteries may be unlocked. It matters little how
this reputation has come about, whether as the result of personal
prejudice or of inherited tradition, whether suggested by the
technicality of the subject or the awkwardness of the treatment,
whether by the use of a few unusual terms or operations, or by any
one of the countless methods, conscious and unconscious, by which
such impressions are formed,--the result will be much the same.
Many a student approaches a study such as psychology or logic with
an unshakable conviction that he is about to consider matters
abstruse and difficult; things totally unrelated to what he has
studied elsewhere or experienced before, and accordingly requiring
an exercise of the mental faculties as different as possible from
that to which he has been accustomed. It is not altogether strange
that such notions should be current, because the tradition to that
effect is ancient and strong, and originated in times when scholars
generally, and philosophers perhaps more than others, took pride in
exclusive erudition, in the possession of a more or less esoteric
wisdom quite unrelated to the knowing and the thinking of οἱ πολλοί
[Greek: hoi polloi]. It requires the combined operation of long
periods of time and of persistent effort to weaken such beliefs; and
it is only within recent times that the notion has been successfully
disseminated that the processes considered in psychology and logic
derive their validity from our daily experience, and require for
their comprehension no mental gymnastics or intellectual contortions;
that in brief these sciences simply aim to systematize and improve,
to interpret and explain the every-day processes by which knowledge
is gained. This, at all events, is one of their functions, and one
profitably emphasized in the introductory study of their scope and
content.
When one has once formed the impression, or has had it produced or
suggested for him, that the study or the task he is about to attack
is a difficult one, his mental powers are at once sufficiently
reduced to make it really difficult; the signal is given of an
approaching intricate turn in the road, the brakes are turned on,
and the train of thought creeps along slowly. Mental prepossession
leads to mental inertia. The same question which the student would
answer readily and fully when asked by a friend as an item of general
information, becomes utterly beyond his comprehension when it appears
in the text-book, the title-page of which bears the ominous name
of one or other of the studies reputed as difficult. The mind is
not properly set; there is little receptiveness, little alertness.
When we are asked in a conundrum-like tone, why one thing is
like another, we ignore obvious and simple resemblances, and look
about for obscure ones. The student who labors under the illusion
that psychology is a maze of conundrums, employs mental processes
appropriate to such a pursuit. The schoolboy finds it impossible to
answer a question in arithmetic during the geography lesson, and the
same lack of adaptability is shown by his older counterpart when
he greets the answer to a very simple question (which, however, he
himself failed to answer) with the all too familiar, "Oh, of course
I knew _that_." Perhaps the most extreme instance of the many that
I could cite is that of a student so irresponsive and apparently at
sea regarding the topic under discussion--the senses--as to force me
to ask him, "With what do you hear?" and who answered with perfect
sincerity, "I don't know." This was a psychological question, and as
such became as difficult as the spelling of _cat_ at the end of a
"spelling bee."
When the student has been made to feel that the questions he is
asked can be answered from his everyday experience, and that common
sense is often quite as serviceable a guide as special knowledge,
a progress ensues in every way satisfactory. Such a conviction,
however, is not a matter of verbal acknowledgment; it yields slowly
to explanation and proceeds somewhat unconsciously and inwardly.
Moreover, it is a trait very sensitive to the power of contagion, so
that a comparatively small proportion of the class may successfully
spread this mental attitude to the whole number. A question which
two or three have failed to answer becomes invested with a spurious
difficulty which makes it a deep mystery to all the others.
This mental prepossession may at times have quite different and
curious results. When, for instance, the goal to be reached is
given, when the answer may be looked up in the back of the book, it
is surprising what peculiar and irrational steps will be taken to
secure and justify the answer so given. This is all the more striking
when the answer happens to be wrong; however simply such error may
be discovered, the prepossessed mind will work away until by a more
or less roundabout procedure the desired answer is reached. A noted
professor of chemistry has an apt illustration of such a case. In
a chemical test his assistant by mistake referred the class to the
wrong bottle, so that the substance which the correct liquid would
have dissolved could not be at all dissolved in the liquid actually
used. However, on the professor's next round in his laboratory nearly
every student assured him that the substance had dissolved, and a few
went so far as to describe the precise manner of its dissolution.
It is quite clear that illustrations of mental prepossession, as also
of inertia, may be found in many of the industries and occupations
of life. The bicycle has added a very characteristic one. At a
certain stage in the acquisition of the art of cycling, there comes
a time when every obstacle and irregularity in the road absorbs the
attention of the rider with a fascination that is quite irresistible.
The rider is so possessed with the idea that he or she is going to
run into the post or the curb or a rut or another vehicle, that
the dreaded calamity may actually ensue. When the attention can be
directed to the clear pathway, and the obstacles driven out from the
focus of attention, the difficulty is surmounted. So in jumping
or running and in other athletic trials, the entertainment of the
notion of a possible failure to reach the mark lessens the intensity
of one's effort, and prevents the accomplishment of one's best. He
who hesitates is lost, because the hesitation makes possible the
suggestion of a failure, the prepossession by a sense of difficulty.