INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.--THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTIES.
The young mind is very well entertained for a time by the exercise of
its reasoning powers,--if, instead of being baffled, they are encouraged
and trained. But, there is a higher set of faculties still which begin
to work ere long; and usually in such proportion to the reasoning powers
as would seem to indicate some connexion between them. Or it may be that
the moral fervour which gives great advantage to the reasoning powers is
exactly that which is essential to the development of the highest of
human faculties,--the Imagination. Certain it is that the children who
most patiently and earnestly search out the reasons of things,--either
looking deep into causes, or following them high up to consequences, are
those who most strongly manifest the first stirrings of the heavenly
power which raises them highest in the ranks of being known to exist.
They may, or they may not, have shown a power of Fancy before this time.
They may, or they may not, have manifested a strong conceptive faculty;
a power of forming images of objects already well known or clearly
described; but, if they can so think of unseen things, so compare them
and connect them, as to bring truth out at last,--if, in short, they
reflect and reason well, the probability is that they will prove to have
a good portion of the higher faculty of Imagination. At least, we may be
sure that a child of high imaginative faculty has good reasoning powers.
During the first exercise of the reasoning powers a child may, and
probably will, become thoughtful. He will look grave at times, and be
buried in reflection for awhile: but this gravity does not make him less
cheerful; and when he has done thinking about the particular thing his
head was full of, he is as merry as ever. But a little later, and his
thoughtfulness becomes something quite different from this. If there is
some mingling of melancholy with it, the parents must not be uneasy. It
is all natural, and therefore right. He is beginning to see and to feel
his position in the universe; to see and to feel that by the powers
within him he is connected with all that exists, and can conceive of all
that may exist: and his new consciousness gives a light to his eye and a
meaning to his countenance that were never seen there before. While he
was an infant, he was much like any other young animal for his
thoughtless and unconscious enjoyment of all the good things that were
strewed in his daily path. Then, he began to see deeper,--into the
reasons of things, and their connexions; and now he had become higher
than other young animals,--for they cannot perceive the truths of
numbers, or discover by thought anything not before known in any
science. But now, he has become conscious of himself; he can contemplate
himself as he can contemplate any other object of thought; and he is
occupied in connecting his own thoughts,--his own mind--with every
object of thought. It is upon his consciousness and his thoughts united
that his imaginative power has to act. By it, he sees everything in a
new light, and feels everything with a new depth: and though he often
finds this a glorious pleasure, he is sometimes much oppressed by it:
and then comes the kind of gentle melancholy before referred to.
See the difference, to the child of dull imagination, or of an age too
young for it, and the child superior in years or in faculty,--when they
contemplate Nature, or Human Life, or anything whatever;--when they read
the History of England, or Conversations on Chemistry, or Shakspere's
Plays, or anything you please. Show them the sky as you are coming home
at night. The one will learn to know the constellations as easily
perhaps as the other, and will show somebody else the next night which
is the Great Bear, and which is Orion: but the duller or younger child
sees nothing more than what is before its eyes; or, if told that all
those stars are worlds, believes it without seeing or feeling anything
beyond the mere fact as conveyed in the words. But at the same moment
the faculty of Imagination in the other child is kindling up within
him,--and kindling all his other powers. He sees, by his mind, far far
beyond the bounds of human measurement and the human sight;--sees the
universe full of rolling suns; worlds for ever moving in their circles,
and never clashing; worlds of which there are myriads vaster than our
own globe. All this he sees, not by gazing at the sky; for he sees it
better when his head is on his pillow,--or when his hands are busy with
some mechanical employment, the next day. If he feels how, with all his
busy mind and swelling heart, and whole world of ideas, he is yet but an
atom in this great universe, almost too small for notice, is not this
enough to make him thoughtful? and if there is a tinge of melancholy in
his seriousness, may it not be allowed for? Again, in reading the
History of England,--the duller or younger child may remember the kings,
and the great men, and the great battles, and the great famine and
plague; and perhaps almost all the events told: and, if he has some
considerable conceptive faculty, he may have pictures in his mind of the
ancient Britons, and then of King Alfred and his people; and then of the
Normans coming over and landing, and establishing themselves in our
island. But the superior child sees all this, and very much more. The
minds of all the people he reads of are as manifest to him as the
events of their lives. He feels the wild valour of the old Britons while
he reads of them; and his soul melts in reverence, and grief, and pity
for King Alfred; and then it glows with courage; and then it grows calm
with faith as he sees the courage and faith that were in King Alfred.
And so on, through the whole history. And even more than this. He sees
more than the individuals of whom he reads could see of themselves. The
kingdom and the nation are ideas in his mind, as vivid as his idea of
the personages he reads of. He feels when the nation is rising or
falling; rejoices when a great and good man,--a sage, or a patriot, or a
martyr--arises to bless his race, and burns with indignation and grief
when the wicked have their own way. Is there not something here to make
him thoughtful? and if there is a tinge of melancholy in his
seriousness, may it not be allowed for? Suppose these two to read
"Conversations on Chemistry," or "Scientific Dialogues,"--they will see
and feel as differently as in the former cases. The inferior child will
find some entertainment, and particularly if allowed to try chemical
experiments: but these experiments will be to him a sort of cookery;--a
putting things together, in order to succeed in producing some
result,--amusing or pretty. His smattering of Chemistry is to him now a
plaything, whatever it may become when he is wiser. But how different is
it with the elder one, whose awakened imagination now silently enters
with him into every chamber of his own mind and every scene of
nature--opening his vision with a divine touch, and showing him
everything in its vastness and its inner truth! He does not want to try
chemical experiments. He would rather think quietly of the great agents
of Nature, and see them, with the eye of his mind, for ever at their
work;--Heat, spreading through all things, and even hiding in the polar
ice;--Electricity, darting and streaming through all substances, and
being the life of all that lives; and the flowing together and mixing of
three airs to make air that we can breathe,--this flowing together and
mixing having gone on ever since there were breathing creatures on the
globe;--these great images, and those of the forces of the waters, the
pressure of the atmosphere, the velocities of motion,--the mechanical
action, in short, of the great forces of Nature, occupy and move him
more than any outward methods of proof of what has been laid open to
him. Or, if he tries experiments, the thing that impresses him is
something far higher than amusement:--it is wonder and awe, and perhaps
delight that he can put his hand in among the forces of Nature, and take
his share, and set Nature to work for him. Is it any wonder that his
heart throbs, and his eyes swim or kindle, and that he had rather think
than speak? And may he not be left undisturbed at such a moment, till
his mind takes a lower tone?
It is this faculty which has produced the highest benefits to the human
race that it has ever enjoyed. The highest order of men who have lived
are those in whom the power of Imagination has been the strongest, the
most disciplined, and the most elevated. The noblest gifts that have
been given to men are the ideas which have proceeded from such minds. It
is this order of mind alone that creates. Others may discover, and
adapt, and improve, and establish: but it is the imaginative order of
mankind that creates,--whether it be the majestic steam-engine, or the
immortal picture, or the divine poem. It should be a joyful thing to
parents,--though it must be a very serious one,--to see clear tokens in
any child of the development of this faculty,--the faculty of seeing
things invisible,--of "seeing things that are not as though they were."
If it is only of average strength, it is a true blessing, inasmuch as it
ennobles the views and the life of the individual, if its benefit
extends no further in a direct manner. If it appears in any marked
degree, the parents' hearts cannot but be elated, though they may be
anxious. It is a sign of natural nobility,--of a privilege higher than
hereditary or acquired honour: and greater than a monarch can bestow.
Through it, if it be rightly trained, its possessor must enjoy the
blessings of largeness of heart and wealth of mind, and probably of
being a benefactor, more or less, to his race.
Now,--what are the tokens of this endowment? and how should it be
treated?
When a young person's views extend beyond the objects immediately
presented to him, it is naturally seen in his countenance, manner,
speech and habits. The questions he asks, the books he reads, his
remarks on what he reads or hears, all show whether his mind is deeply
employed. He is probably a great reader; and if he has been religiously
brought up, he probably becomes intensely religious about the time of
the development of his higher faculties.--He must be treated with great
consideration and tenderness. If he is of an open disposition, apt to
tell of his day dreams and aspirations, there must be no ridicule,--no
disrespect from any part of the household. There ought to be none; for
it is pretty certain that any day dreams and aspirations of his are more
worthy of respect than any ridicule with which they can be visited. The
way to strengthen and discipline his mind is not, as we have often said
already, to repress any of its faculties, but to employ them well. In no
case is this management more important than in the present.
Now, in this important period of youthful life, it is the greatest
possible blessing if the son or daughter be on terms of perfect
confidence with the mother. It is a kind of new life to a mother who
has kept her mind and heart active and warm amidst her trials and cares,
to enter into sympathy with the aspirations and imaginations of her
ripening children. She has a keen enjoyment in the revival of her own
young feelings and ideas;--some of the noblest she has known: and things
which might appear extravagant at another time or from other persons,
will be noble and animating as coming from those whose minds,--minds
which she has watched from their first movements,--are now rapidly
opening into comparative maturity. To her, then, the son or daughter
need not fear to speak freely and openly. To her they may pour out their
admiration of Nature, their wonder at the sublimities of science; their
speculations upon character; their soundings in the abysses of life and
death; their glorious dreams of what they will be and do. The more she
sympathises with them in their intellectual pleasures and tendencies,
the more will her example tell upon them as a conscientious doer of the
small duties of life: and thus she may silently and unconsciously
obviate one of the chief dangers of this period of her children's lives.
If they see that the mother who glows with the warmth of their emotions,
and goes abroad through the universe hand in hand, as we may say, with
them, to note and enjoy all that is mighty and beautiful, all that is
heroic and sweet,--is yet as punctual in her everyday duty as the
merest plodder and worldling, they will take shame to themselves for any
reluctance that they feel to commonplace ideas and what seems to them
drudgery. Full confidence and sympathy are the first requisites of the
treatment of this period.
But the wise parent will have laid up material for the employment of the
imaginative faculty, long before it can appear in any strength. The
child will have been familiarised with a high and noble order of ideas;
and especially of moral ideas: for the picturesque or scientific will be
pretty sure to make themselves duly appreciated by the awakened ideal
faculties. Whatever the parent can tell of heroic conduct, of lofty
character, of the grave crises and affecting changes of human life, will
be so much material laid in for the virtuous and salutary use of those
awakening faculties which might otherwise be occupied in selfishness and
other mischief. Let the mind be abundantly ministered to. This may be
done in the most homely households where there is any nobility of mind.
Every parent has known some person who is noble and worthy of
contemplation for character and conduct. Every parent can tell some
moving or striking tale of a human lot. To all, the heavens and the
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, are open for contemplation. In
every household, there is the Bible: and in the houses of all who read
this, there is, no doubt, Milton, on the shelf beside the Bible. With
these parents have means enough for the education of their children's
highest faculties. In these they hold a greater treasure than any other
that can be found in royal abodes: and the kingdom of Nature is a field
which their children have free license to rove with the highest. Let
them have and enjoy these treasures abundantly. Let them read all tales
of noble adventure that can be obtained for them;--of the heroes that
have struggled through Polar ice and burning African sands; that have
sailed on past the horizon of hope in the discovery of new continents,
and have succeeded through faith, courage and patience. Let the reading
of good fiction be permitted, where the desire is strong. Some of the
highest interests of English history have been opened to the present
generation by the novels of Scott, as to many a preceding one by the
Plays of Shakspere. My own opinion is that no harm is done, but much
good, by an early reading of fiction of a high order: and no one can
question its being better than leaving the craving mind to feed upon
itself,--its own dreams of vanity or other selfishness,--or to seek an
insufficient nourishment from books of a lower order. The imagination,
once awakened, must and will work, and ought to work. Let its working be
ennobled, and not debased, by the material afforded to it.
In the parents' sympathy must be included forbearance; forbearance with
the uncertainty of temper and spirits, the extravagance of ideas, the
absurd ambition, or fanaticism or, (as it is generally called) "romance"
which show themselves more or less, on the opening of a strong
imaginative faculty. It should be remembered that the young creature is
half-living in a new world; and that the difficulty of reconciling this
beloved new world with the familiar old one is naturally very trying to
one who is just entering upon the struggles of the mind and of life. He
cannot reconcile the world and its ways and its people with the ideals
which are presenting themselves to him; and he becomes, for a time,
irritable, or scornful, or depressed. One will be fanatical, for a time,
and sleep on the boards, and make and keep a vow never to smile. Another
will be discontented, and apparently ungrateful, for a time, in the idea
that he might be a hero if he had certain advantages which are not given
him. Another looks down already on all his neighbours on account of the
great deeds he is to do by and by: and all are convinced,--every youth
and maiden of them all,--that nobody can enter into their
feelings,--nobody understand their minds,--nobody conceive of emotions
and aspirations like theirs. At the moment, this is likely to be true;
for their ideas and emotions are vast and stirring, beyond their own
power to express; and it can scarcely happen that any one is at hand,
just at the right season, to receive their out-pourings, and give them
credit for more than they can tell.--With all the consequences of these
new movements of the mind, the parents must have forbearance,--even to
the point (if it must be) of witnessing an intimacy with some young
companion, not very wise, who is the depository of more confidence than
is offered to those who should be nearest and dearest. These
waywardnesses and follies may have their day, and prove after all to
have been, in their way, wholesome discipline. Every waywardness brings
its smart; and every folly leaves its sting of shame in the mind that is
high enough to manifest any considerable power of imagination. They will
punish and cure themselves; and probably in a short time. Nature may be
trusted here, as everywhere. If we have patience to let her work,
without hindrance and without degradation, she will justify our
confidence at last. Give her free scope,--remove out of her way
everything that is low and sordid, and needlessly irritating, and
minister to her everything that is pure and gentle, and noble and true,
and she will produce a glorious work. In the wildest flights of haughty
and undisciplined imagination, the young aspirant will take heed enough
to the beauty and dignity of a lowly, and dutiful and benignant walk in
life, to come down and worship it when cruder visions have passed away.
It is only to wait, in gentleness and cheerfulness, and the wild
rhapsodist, or insolent fanatic will work his way through his snares
into a new world of filial, as well as other duty, and, without being
less of a poet, but because he is more of one, will be a better son and
brother and neighbour,--making his life his highest poem.
It will be said that we have here, in treating of the training of the
Intellectual faculties, recurred to the department of morals. And this
is true. No part of human nature can work in isolation; and when we
treat of any function by itself, it is for the convenience of our
understandings, and not as a following of nature. No intellectual
faculty can act independently of the moral; and the higher the
faculties, the closer we find their interaction; till we arrive at the
fact that Veneration, Benevolence, Hope, Conscientiousness and Firmness
cannot act to perfection except in company with a vigorous faculty of
Imagination, and strong Reflective powers: and again, that the Reasoning
and Imaginative powers can never work to their fullest capacity unless
the highest of the moral powers are as active as themselves. In all true
poetry, there is a tacit appeal to the sanction of Conscience, and
Veneration and Benevolence are the heavenly lights which rise upon the
scene: while, on the other hand, no Reverence is so deep, Benevolence so
pure, as those which are enriched by the profoundest Thought, and
refined and exalted by the noblest Idealism.
These truths bring us to a practical consideration as serious as any
which our minds can receive and dwell upon. My own sense of it is so
strong, and so confirmed by the experience of a life, that I feel that
if I had the utmost power of thought and language that were ever
possessed by the human being, I could do no justice to it:--that the
only means of improving the _morale_ to the utmost is by elevating the
ideal of the individual. It is well to improve the conduct, and satisfy
the conscience of the child by calling upon its resolution to amend its
faults in detail,--to control its evil tempers, and overcome its
indolence and laxity: but this is a temporary method, insufficient for
its ultimate needs. The strength of resolution fails when the season of
youth is past, or is employed on other objects; and it is rare, as we
all know, to see faults amended, and bad habits overcome in mature
years: and then, if improvement proceeds, radically and continuously, it
is by the mind being placed under good influences, operating both
powerfully and continuously. Of good influences, the most powerful and
continuous is the presence in the mind of a lofty ideal. This is the
great central fire which is always fed by the material it draws to
itself, and which can hardly be extinguished. When the whole mind is
possessed with the image of the godlike, ever growing with the expansion
of the intelligence, and ever kindling with the glow of the affections,
every passion is consumed, every weakness grows into the opposite
strength; and the entire force of the moral life, set free from the
exclusive care of the details of conduct, and from the incessant anxiety
of self-regards, is at liberty to actuate the whole harmonious being in
its now necessary pursuit of the highest moral beauty it can conceive
of. To this godlike inspiration, strong and lofty powers of Thought and
Imagination are essential: and if parents desire that their children
should be what they are made to be,--"but a little lower than the
angels,"--they must cherish these powers as the highest sources of moral
inspiration.