The illustrations which first led to a satisfactory elucidation of the
subject, were drawn from the eye. There are many facts in the history of
vision, which show that we may experience sensations and perceptions and
other intellectual operations, and may at the time be conscious of the
same, without giving them any attention, or, at least, without giving
them such a degree of attention as to have the slightest recollection of
them afterwards.
When, for instance, we read a printed book, the eye glances so rapidly
from sentence to sentence, that we can hardly persuade ourselves that we
actually see successively every letter. We certainly have no
recollection of having gone through such an innumerable train of
conscious acts as the theory necessarily implies. That such, however, is
the case, is proved by the fact, that if by accident any letter is
omitted, or transposed, or put upside down, the eye at once detects the
mistake. The fact is familiar to all. It can be accounted for only on
the supposition that, even in the rapid and cursory perusal of a book,
the eye actually passes from letter to letter, and gives to each a
distinct notice. It not only notices each letter, but the position of
each in reference to the other letters in the line, and even those nice
diacritical points by which one letter is distinguished from another, as
_c_ from _e_, _u_ from _n_, _b_ from _d_, _p_ from _q_. This notice,
however, is so slight, the transition is so rapid, that we have no
recollection of it afterwards, and we can hardly persuade ourselves that
such has been the sober and yet most wonderful fact.
Take another instance. If, on the occasion of an evening assemblage, by
a sudden movement of the gas-pipe, any one should instantly extinguish
all the lights in the room and leave the building for a time in total
darkness, and if, by an equally sudden movement, he should then restore
the light to its previous condition, every one present would notice the
change and have a distinct recollection of it afterwards. Yet, every
time we close our eyes in winking, that is, several times in every
minute of our waking hours, we experience precisely this change from
full and perfect vision to total darkness. But no one ever notices or
remembers the fact of his winking, unless he stops to make it the
subject of special attention.
Sight however is not the only means of illustrating this point. We are
drawn to a similar conclusion by observing the workings of the mind
itself, in the act of volition. Whenever we make any single volition an
object of special attention, we are conscious of that volition, and we
have a distinct recollection of it afterwards. Yet probably not one out
of ten thousand, possibly not one out of a million, of our simple
volitions, is ever known to us after the moment of its occurrence. In
voluntary muscular action, every distinct movement requires a distinct
volition. And how innumerable are the movements necessary to the
accomplishment of any one of the ordinary purposes of life! We sit down
for example to write a letter to a friend. The nimble pen dances from
point to point over the darkening page, and when we reach the bottom, we
have not the least recollection of having willed any one of those
countless muscular movements which have been necessary to what, but for
its every-day occurrence, would be accounted the greatest feat of
legerdemain ever performed by man!
Take for example the act of reading aloud. Every letter requires for its
utterance at least one distinct muscular contraction. Some letters
require several. Now it has been found on trial that we are able to
pronounce more than a thousand letters in a minute. That is, during
every minute that we are reading aloud, we perform between one and two
thousand distinct muscular movements, and by necessity a like number of
antecedent acts of the will, to say nothing of those other acts, not
less numerous in the case of a speaker, connected with the general
movement of the body in earnest gesticulation. Yet after the hour's
performance, what does the speaker or the reader remember of all these
countless volitions? Nothing but the one general purpose to please,
instruct, or persuade an audience.
The conclusion, toward which these illustrations point, is objected to
by some writers, on the ground of the incredible rapidity which it
attributes to our intellectual operations. Is it possible, it is asked,
that we can crowd into such a space of time so many acts of the will,
and that we are, at the moment when each happens, conscious of its
presence? Is it not more probable that these rapid muscular actions are
resolvable, in some way, into the law of habit? May they not become in
some sense mechanical and automatic, so as to require no intervention of
the will? Take for example, the case of a person learning to play upon a
musical instrument. The first step is to move the fingers from key to
key with a slow motion, looking at the notes, and exerting an express
act of volition at every note. By degrees, however, the motions somehow
cling to each other, and to the impressions of the notes, in the way of
associations, the acts of volition all the while growing less and less
express, until at last they become quite evanescent and imperceptible.
An expert will play from notes or from memory, and with a rapidity of
motion that is perfectly bewildering, while at the same time he himself
is carrying on quite a different train of thoughts in his mind, or even
perhaps holding a conversation with another. Hence, it is concluded, by
the writers referred to, that in these cases there is really no
intervention of that idea or state of the mind called will.
The authorities for this hypothesis are among the highest that can be
named in the history of intellectual science. Let us see how far the
hypothesis explains the facts of the case. The most rapid performer, it
is obvious, can at any time retard his execution, until his movements
become so slow that each one may be made, as originally it was made, the
subject of special attention, and may be distinctly remembered
afterwards. Now, according to the hypothesis proposed, we will our
actions, and are conscious both of the act, and the antecedent
volition, so long as their rapidity is confined to a certain rate; but,
as soon as the rapidity exceeds that rate, the operation is taken out of
our hands, and is carried on by some unknown power, of which we know no
more than we do of the circulation of the blood, or of the systole and
diastole of the heart! Such a supposition is about as reasonable as it
would be to say that a projectile passes through the intermediate space,
when it is thrown with such a moderate degree of velocity that we can
see it, in its progress; but, when it is thrown with such velocity as to
become invisible, it ceases to pass through the intermediate space, and
reaches the goal only because projectiles have the habit of doing so!
The hypothesis then breaks down, and we are forced back to our original
supposition, namely, that those actions which are voluntary originally,
never cease to be so; that when, as in the cases supposed, we retain no
recollection of particular volitions, it is because of some law of our
nature by which we are capable of recollecting only those acts upon
which the attention has been fixed with a certain degree of intensity
and for some perceptible space of time; that the volition, in other
words, is too feeble and too rapid to leave any impression on the
memory. To argue that there has been no volition, because we do not
recollect it, is as absurd as it would be to say that there has been no
muscular act, because in many cases we have as little recollection of
the muscular act, as we have of the antecedent volition.
Besides, there are many other mental acts, as rapid as those which have
been adduced,--so rapid that not the least recollection of them
remains,--where, yet, this mechanical or automatic hypothesis affords
not the least explanation. Thus the expert accountant in a Bank adds up
a long column of figures with the same rapidity and ease with which
ordinary persons would read a passage from a familiar author, and he
brings out in the end the exact sum, which he can do in no other way
than by taking note in passing of the precise character and value of
each figure. Yet, at the end of such a process, the accountant has no
more recollection of those rapidly succeeding acts of the mind, than has
the musical performer of those countless volitions put forth in the
course of a piece of brilliant musical instrumentation.
As to the objection, that the theory attributes an almost inconceivable
rapidity to some of our mental operations, it may be answered, in the
first place, that there is no reason, surely, why mind should not be
capable of as rapid action as its handmaid, matter; and, in the second
place, that our ideas of time are relative, quite as much as our ideas
of space; and if the microscope has revealed a world of wonders too
minute in point of space to be observed by the naked eye, in whose
existence we yet believe with undoubting confidence, we may without
greater difficulty believe in the existence of mental acts crowded into
so narrow a point of time, so rapid and transitory in their occurrence,
as to leave no impression upon the memory.
The facts which have been adduced, then, teach clearly two things:
first, that by far the greatest part of what we do and experience and
are necessarily conscious of at the time of their occurrence,
immediately fade from the recollection, as shadows pass over a
landscape; and secondly, that in order to the recollection of any act or
object, it is necessary that the mind be fixed upon it for some
perceptible space of time and with some sensible degree of attention. It
is this indissoluble connection of the attention with memory, this
absolute dependence of the latter upon the former, which gives the
subject such far-reaching import in considering the means of
intellectual culture.
How it is that we are able to exclude all subjects but one from the
thoughts, is not very easy of explanation. It is obvious that we cannot
do it by direct volition. The very fact of our willing not to attend to
a particular object, fixes our attention upon it. That we have, however,
some power and agency in fixing our attention on one object and in
withdrawing it from another, is a fact within the knowledge and
experience of every one, whether we can explain the mode by which it is
done or not. We have the power of what the chemists call "elective
affinity;" we make our choice of some one of the various objects
claiming the attention, and fix it upon that; and it seems to be a law
of our nature, that when we thus direct the attention to one object, all
others, of themselves, and by some natural necessity, retire from the
thoughts. This is as near an approach, probably, as we shall ever make,
towards an exact verbal expression of a fact, for an intimate knowledge
of which, after all, every man must refer to his own consciousness.
This power of singling out and fastening upon some one object to the
exclusion of all others,--in other words, this power of
attention--exists in almost infinite degrees in different individuals.
The degree in which it exists is the measure of a man's intellectual
stature. No man can be truly great who does not possess it to a high
degree. To command our attention is to command ourselves, to be truly
master of our own powers and resources.
The subject, then, becomes one of first importance in every kind of
either mental or moral improvement. Its vital connection with the
faculty of memory has been already suggested. Perhaps, however, this
branch of the subject should be set forth with a little more
distinctness. There are many vague, dreamy notions afloat on the subject
of memory, standing comparisons and metaphors, intended to illustrate
its uses and magnify its importance, but not declaring with any degree
of precision what it is. It is called, for instance, the "storehouse of
our ideas." The metaphor conveys undoubtedly a certain amount of truth
in regard to the subject. At the same time, there are some important
particulars, in which the comparison, for it is nothing more, conveys a
wrong impression. Experience teaches us, for instance, that
recollections, unlike other articles of store, are from the time of
their deposit undergoing a continual process of decay, and if they do
not fade entirely from the mind, it is because we occasionally bring
them anew under the review of the mind, and thus restore them to their
original freshness and vigor.
Dismissing, therefore, the metaphor, I shall, I presume, express with
sufficient accuracy the established doctrine on this subject by the
following statements: that of the great multitude of mental operations
which we experience, by far the larger part perish at the moment of
their birth; that others, to which for any reason we give, at the time
of their occurrence, some sufficient degree of attention, afterwards
recur to us, or are in some way present to our thoughts; that this
recurrence of former ideas to our thoughts is sometimes spontaneous,
without any voluntary action on our part, and sometimes the consequence
of a direct effort of the will; and lastly, that the capacity which we
have of being thus revisited by former thoughts is called memory, while
the thoughts themselves, which thus return, are called memories, or more
commonly recollections.
How it is that by an act of volition we can summon again into the mind
an idea which has formerly been present, and which is now absent, we
have the same difficulty in explaining which we had in explaining how,
by an act of volition, we can banish a thought which is now present, or
by the power of attention can detain some one thought to the exclusion
of all others. To think what particular thing it is that we wish to
remember, is in fact to have remembered it already. It is an obstruse
and difficult inquiry, into which it is not necessary now to enter. A
more important inquiry, and one connected directly with our present
theme, relates to the different kinds of memory, and their connection
severally with the faculty of attention.
Quickness of memory is that quality which is most easily developed,
especially in young persons. It is also its most showy quality, and the
temptation to give it an inordinate development is strong. The habit of
getting things by rote, is easily acquired by practice. It is
astonishing what masses of Scripture texts young children will get by
heart, when under some special stimulus of reward or display. I have
often refused to publish marvellous feats of this kind, not because I
thought the accounts incredible, (unfortunately, they were too true,)
but because I thought they were a species of mental excess, and they
should no more be encouraged than bodily excesses. A little girl in my
own Sunday-School once actually committed to memory the whole of the
Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism in three days! Six months
afterwards she hardly knew a word of it. It had been a regular mental
debauch. A few more such atrocities would have made her an idiot.
College records tell us of what are called "crammed men," that is, men
who literally stuff themselves with knowledge in order to pass a
particular examination, or to gain a particular honor, and who
afterwards forget their knowledge, as fast as they have acquired it.
There is a well authenticated instance of a student who actually learned
the six books of Euclid by heart, though he could not tell the
difference between an angle and a triangle. The memory of such men is
quickened like that of the parrot. They learn purely by rote. Real
mental attention, the true digester of knowledge, is never roused. The
knowledge which they gorge, is never truly assimilated and made their
own.
A quality of memory vastly more important than quickness, is tenacity.
To hold on to what we get, is the secret of mental, no less than of
pecuniary accumulations. The mind, too, like other misers, clings most
tenaciously to that which has cost it most labor. Come lightly, go
lightly, the world over. Knowledge which comes into the mind without
toil and effort, without protracted and laborious attention, is apt to
go as easily as it came.
But, by far the most important quality of memory, for the practical
purposes of life, is readiness. Like quickness and tenacity, it is to be
greatly improved, if not acquired by practice. It is in the cultivation
of this quality, that the power of a good teacher shines forth most
conspicuously. Quickness and tenacity may be cultivated by solitary
study. But readiness requires for its development a live teacher, and
the stir of the school-room and the class. Here it is that the art of
questioning shows its wonderful resources. Repeated and continued
interrogatories, judiciously worded, have a sort of talismanic power.
They oblige the scholar to bring out his knowledge from its hidden
recesses, to turn it over and over, and inside out, and upside down, to
look at it and to handle it, so that not only it becomes forever and
indestructibly his own, but he can ever afterwards use it at will with
the same readiness that he uses his hands or his eyes. This is what a
skilful teacher may do for his scholars, by a knowledge and practice of
the art of questioning. Unfortunately, teachers in general find it much
easier passively to hear a lesson, than to muster as much intellectual
energy as is necessary to ask a question.
It was a remark of Bacon's, that, if we wish to commit anything to
memory, we will accomplish more in ten readings, if at each perusal we
make the attempt to repeat it from memory, referring to the book only
when the memory fails, than we would by a hundred readings made in the
ordinary way, and without any intervening trials. The explanation of
this fact is, that each effort to recollect the passage secures to the
subsequent perusal a more intense degree of attention; and it seems to
be a law of our nature, not only that there is no memory without
attention, which I have labored at some length to establish, but that
the degree of memory is in a great measure proportioned to the degree of
the attention.
You will see at once the bearing of this fact upon that species of
intellectual dissipation, called "general reading," in which the mental
voluptuary reads merely for momentary excitement, in the gratification
of an idle curiosity, and which is as enervating and debilitating to the
intellectual faculties, as other kinds of dissipation are to the bodily
functions. One book, well read and thoroughly digested, nay, one single
train of thought, carefully elaborated and attentively considered, is
worth more than any conceivable amount of that indolent, dreamy sort of
reading in which many persons indulge. There is in fact no more unsafe
criterion of knowledge than the number of books a man has read. A young
man once told me he had read the entire list of publications of the
American Sunday-School Union. He was about as wise as the man at the
hotel, who began at the top of the bill of fare with the intention of
eating straight through to the bottom! Depend upon it, this mental
gorging is debilitating and debauching alike to the moral and the
intellectual constitution. There is too much reading even of good books.
No one should ever read a book, without subsequent meditation or
conversation about it, and an attempt to make the thoughts his own, by a
vigorous process of mental assimilation. Any continuous intellectual
occupation, which does not leave us wiser and stronger, most assuredly
will leave us weaker, just as filling the body with food which it does
not digest, only makes it feeble and sickly. We are the worse for
reading any book, if we are not the better for it.
There is an obvious distinction on this subject, of some practical
importance, first suggested, so far as I am aware, by the Scotch
metaphysician, Dr. Reid, between attention as directed to external
objects, and the same faculty directed to what passes within us. When we
attend to what is without us, to what we hear, or see, or smell, or
taste, or touch, the process is called observation. When, on the other
hand, dismissing for the time all notice of the external world, we turn
our thoughts inward, and consider only what is passing in the inner
chambers of the mind,--when, for instance, we analyze our motives, or
notice the workings of passion, or scan the mysterious and subtle agency
of the will, the process is called reflection. This latter species of
attention is one much more difficult of development than the former.
It is developed ordinarily much later in life,--seldom, I
believe, developed to any considerable extent before the age of
manhood,--developed by some professions and pursuits much more than by
others,--and in a very large class of mankind, probably the majority,
never developed at all.
This species of attention, which is thus directed inwards, subjective
attention some would call it,--in other words, the reflective
powers,--are, I doubt not, capable of being cultivated much earlier in
life than the age which I have indicated as the normal period of their
development. I am constrained, however, in opposition to many high
authorities in education, to doubt the wisdom of a precocious
cultivation of this part of our intellectual system. In all our plans of
education, we should closely follow nature, who seems to have reserved
the judgment and the reflective powers for the latest, as they certainly
are the most perfect, of her endowments. We, who are teachers, have
chiefly to do with those whose powers are as yet immature, and whose
attention is to be cultivated primarily in its direction to external
objects. Our business, in other words, is to train our pupils first of
all to habits of observation.
In doing this, it is of some practical importance to bear in mind the
well-known difference, in respect to memory, between the objects of
different senses. Whether it be attributed to the different degrees of
perfection with which the qualities of bodies are perceived, or to some
difference in the qualities themselves, or whatever may be the cause,
the fact is established beyond a question, that the knowledge which
comes to us through the medium of the eye is of all kinds of knowledge
the most easily and the most perfectly remembered. We remember, indeed,
the temperature of one day as distinguished from that of another; we
remember the sound of a voice; we can conceive, in its absence, the odor
or the taste of a particular object; but none of these ideas come to us
with that definiteness and perfection which mark our recollections of
what we have seen. It requires, for instance, but ordinary powers of
attention and perception, for a person who has one good look at a house,
to recall distinctly to his mind the ideas of its height, shape, color,
material, the number of stories, the pitch of the roof, the kind of
shutters to the windows, the position of the door, the fashion of
panels, the bell-handle, the plate, even the little canary-bird with its
cage in the windows above, and the roses, geraniums, and what else may
be fairer still, in the window below. These are all objects of sight. In
their absence, he can bring to mind and describe them, with almost the
same accuracy that he could if they were actually present. Now, it is
impossible to obtain a like precision and fulness in our conceptions of
a quality which we have learned through any other sense. We form in the
one case a mental image or picture of the object, which in the other
case is impossible. We can by no possibility form a mental or any other
image of the song of canary, of the perfume of a rose, or of any other
quality, except those which address us through the eye. Our conceptions
of taste, smell, touch, and even of hearing, in the absence of the
objects of sense, have a certain dimness, vagueness, mistiness,
uncertainty about them. The conceptions of visible objects, on the
contrary, are definite, precise, and most easily recalled. Hence the
knowledge derived through the sight, is, of all kinds of knowledge, the
most accurate, the most easily acquired, and the most lasting.
The practical application of these views to the science of teaching, is
too obvious to require more than a passing notice. Every thing which the
young are to make the subject of their attention, for the purpose of
remembering it, should be represented as far as possible to the eye. If
the object itself, on account of its bulk, or its expensiveness, or for
any other reason, cannot be exhibited for inspection, let there be some
visible delineation of it by brush or pencil. If the thing to be
remembered be something abstract or unreal, having neither form nor
substance, perhaps it may have, or the teacher may make for it, some
concrete, visible symbol, as has been done with the formulas of logic
and the abstractions of arithmetic and algebra. These visible symbols on
the slate and the blackboard give to those sciences all the advantages
in this respect which were supposed to be peculiar to some of the
branches of physical science. A boy who has forgotten every mere verbal
rule both of arithmetic and algebra, will remember the formula,
x^2 + 2xy + y^2, just as perfectly and on the same principle, as he will
remember the face of the man who taught it to him. It is something which
he has seen. Why has geometry in all ages been found to be of such
peculiar value as a means of intellectual training? Because of the
visible delineation of its doctrines by diagrams addressed to the eye.
How much more readily and certainly chemical science can now be acquired,
since the adoption of the present mode of symbolizing its doctrines by
combinations of letters and figures. Arguments, conjectures, theories,
respecting qualities addressed alike to every sense, respecting functions
indeed not cognizable by any sense, are now presented on the board in
visible symbolic formulas, which have the same advantage over the former
mode of presenting the subject, that the sight of a chess-board during
the progress of a game has over a mere verbal description of the
movements.
The truth of this doctrine is strikingly illustrated in the present
mode of teaching geography, as compared with that once in use, when a
child, instead of looking at the map of a country, with its boundaries
and other physical characters painted to the eye, had to grope through a
trackless wilderness of description. The study will be still more
improved, when children shall be universally required to make as well as
to look at maps,--when, to the definiteness of knowledge coming through
the sight, there shall be added that inerasible impression upon the
memory, which comes from fixedness and continuity of attention. It is
impossible for a child to draw a map, without looking intently, and with
continued attention, upon every part of that which is to be delineated.
The two conditions to perfect recollection are combined, and the
knowledge, which is the result, is the very last to fade from the
memory.
Every teacher of small children knows how much more certainly they learn
to spell by seeing than by hearing. You may repeat to a child five times
over the sounds which make up a word, and he will not recollect it with
half the certainty that he would on seeing it once. The same principle
which leads to this result, and which indicates the propriety, not only
of looking at maps but of making them, in order to the more perfect
knowledge of geography, will suggest to the thoughtful teacher the
expediency of children's not only looking at words, but of writing them,
in order to become perfect spellers.
Mental arithmetic has its fascinations. It has, too, I am ready to
admit, solid advantages. Its advantages, however, I apprehend are not
precisely those which are sometimes attributed to it. There can be no
doubt, I think, that it helps to cultivate the reflective powers; that
it requires, and by requiring gives, the ability to confine the
attention to continued mental processes. But for making expert practical
accountants, which is generally quoted as its distinguishing benefit, I
confess I am partial to the slate and pencil, and to that venerable
parallelogram, the old-fashioned Multiplication Table, in the shape it
came down to us from Pythagoras.
The reader will not, of course, understand me as wishing to discard
Mental arithmetic. All that I mean to suggest is the inquiry, whether
its advantages are not looked for in the wrong direction, whether they
are not sometimes over-estimated, and whether this mode of teaching
arithmetic, especially when pursued as a hobby, is not sometimes pushed
too far, and made the means of curious display, rather than of solid and
lasting benefit. In teaching mental arithmetic, too, for I would
certainly teach it to some extent, I would suggest the expediency of
teaching children, in performing these mental operations, to think in
figures, in other words, to form conceptions of the arithmetical figures
and signs, which are visible objects, rather than of quantities and
relations, which are mere abstractions. Multiplication is a mere
metaphysical entity. The sign of multiplication is a simple, visible
symbol, addressed to the eye, and capable of being conceived by the mind
with unmistakable clearness and precision. A child counting its fingers
in the first steps of learning to add and to take away, is a pretty
sight, doubtless. But it is painful to see a person grown to man's
estate, and in other respects well educated, as I have very often seen,
still dependent upon the same infantile contrivance,--still counting
fingers when required to add long columns of figures. Count the fingers,
if necessary, in order to get the child under way. But the sooner the
leading-string can be dropped, and the child can be made to picture in
his mind the pure figures and signs, their combinations and results,
without reference to fingers, or apples, or cakes, or tops, the better
for his arithmetic, and the better for his mental cultivation.
The subject has a painful interest for the Sabbath-School Teacher. The
teacher of the infant school, indeed, has some opportunity for employing
this principle of pictorial representation, in teaching the little ones
of his charge. The infant school-room usually has conveniences for maps
and picture cards and diagrams, and even blackboards; and most infant
school teachers wisely avail themselves of the opportunity afforded. But
go into the main school-room--what can the teacher do? Twenty, thirty,
forty classes huddled together into one room, compact as sheep in a pen,
how can the individual teacher, if disposed, use adequate visible
illustrations for the instruction of his class? Where shall he place his
blackboard? where shall he hang up his maps? where shall he suspend his
models? where shall he exhibit his specimens? The utmost that can be
done in most of our schools, as at present provided for, is to have a
few maps on the distant walls of the room which the superintendent may
refer to, whenever he chooses, and which all the children may see who
can! The time must come, however, when the teaching of religious truth
will be considered of as much importance as the teaching of arithmetic
or of chemistry, and the Sabbath-School will have the same facilities
for imparting instruction as the week-day school. But that time has not
yet come. In the meanwhile, let the teacher carefully avail himself of
whatever subsidiary aids are within his reach. No teacher should ever
present himself before his class without a Bible Atlas and a Bible
Dictionary in his hand. Many of those things with which his class ought
to be made acquainted, are here not only described, but delineated, with
equal accuracy and beauty. Thanks to the booksellers and the religious
publication societies, the scenes of sacred history, and indeed
religious topics generally, have been illustrated in cheap pictorial
cards, both large and small, and with admirable fidelity and skill.
These form a part of the indispensable furniture of the Sunday-School
teacher. They are to him as necessary as are experiments, or a cabinet
of specimens, to the lecturer on the physical sciences. The
Sabbath-School teacher should be continually on the look-out for
publications of this kind, not only for instructing and furnishing his
own mind with definite ideas, but for exhibition to his class. A wise
teacher will not only have something to say to his class, but also
something to show. The ideas which the child gets from looking at really
instructive pictures and maps, never leave him. How much also our
intelligent apprehension of the scriptures is increased, by a knowledge
of topography, and by associating each event in the sacred narration
with the place in which it occurred?
It may be proper to say, too, in this connection, that it is with a view
to the principle now under consideration, that in preparing books and
papers for the young, authors and publishers feel justified in giving so
much labor and space to pictorial illustration. When, indeed, such
illustrations are merely for display, they deserve the contempt which
they often receive. But when these pictorial illustrations have a
definite meaning and design, when they teach something, when they
connect in the child's mind sound religious truth with distinct and
easily remembered visible forms, they are a really valuable aid in the
inculcation of doctrine.
The power of attention, like all the mental powers, is by nature greater
in some than in others. Still, there is no power more susceptible of
improvement. The importance of its cultivation cannot well be
over-stated. It affects not one study only, but all studies; not one
mode of study only, but every mode of study, by text-book or by lecture;
lessons to be recited by memory, or those by question and answer; not
even study only, but conduct and manners, the regulation of the heart
and the formation of the character. The precise measure of a child's
success, in every thing that pertains to his character and standing as a
scholar, will in nine cases out of ten be his power and habit of
attention. There are indeed lamentable cases of wilful and intentional
disorder. Yet every teacher knows that by far the greater portion of the
things which interrupt and disturb a school arise from thoughtlessness
and inattention. There are also equally undoubted cases of ignorance
that is no crime. Yet the great majority of those who fail in their
studies, fail simply because they do not attend. To attend, however,
means something more than merely to be bodily present, more even than
to have the ears open and the eyes fixed in the direction of the
speaker, when a thing is said, or done. An old lady used to sit in the
same aisle with me in church, and unfortunately lived opposite me in the
street, who was neither deaf nor blind, and who was never absent from
church, and yet she sent over invariably on Sunday evenings to know what
it was the minister said about that meeting on Wednesday night, or that
meeting on Friday night,--she did not rightly understand!
But it is not necessary to go to church, to find those who "having eyes
see not, and having ears hear not, neither do they understand," who look
without seeing, and hear without comprehending. Publish a notice in your
school, making some change of hours or lessons, or giving any specific
direction. No matter how simple, or how plainly expressed, the notice
may be, or how particularly attention may be called beforehand to the
announcement about to be made, where is the happy teacher who has been
able on such an occasion to make himself understood by all? Teachers and
preachers and speakers of every name have generally very little idea how
much they are misunderstood. Let me give some instances.
In my own Sunday-School, I had neglected one morning to bring with me
the teacher's class-books. After opening the school, I rang the bell as
a signal for attention. There was a general hush throughout the room.
All eyes were turned to the desk. I said: "Your class-books
unfortunately have been left behind this morning. They have been sent
for, however, and they will soon be here. As soon as they come, I will
bring them round to the several classes. In the meantime, you may go on
with your regular lessons." The bell was then tapped again, and the
routine of the school resumed. In about a minute, a girl came up to the
desk, with, "Sir, teacher says, will you please to send her class-book;
it was not brought round, as usual, this morning, before school opened!"
Here was a class of ten girls, averaging twelve years of age, and not
one of them, nor their teacher, had heard or understood the notice which
I thought I had made so plain!
Here is another instance. At the examination for admission to the
Philadelphia High School, as a means of testing among other things how
far this very faculty of hearing and of attention has been cultivated,
the candidates are required to copy a passage from dictation. These
exercises are always preserved for reference, and in order to show the
fairness of the examination. On one occasion, when I was Principal of
the School, I took the pains to copy out a few of the exercises, in
order to show the singular freaks into which an uncultivated ear may be
led. One or two specimens will serve to illustrate the point. The first
clause with its variations, was as follows:--
Every breach of veracity indicates some latent vice.
" bridge " rascality " " latest vice.
" breech " feracity " " latinet vice.
" preach " eracity " " late device.
" branch " vivacity " " great advice.
" " " veracity " " late advice.
" " " " " " ladovice.
" " " " " " ladened vice.
Every branch of veracity in the next some latent vice.
Every reach of their ascidity indicates some advice.
In another part of the passage occurred the following:
Petty operations.
Petty alterations.
Petty observations.
Patriarchal occupations.
Petty oblations.
Now of what use is it to a boy who mistakes "petty" for "patriarchal,"
"latent vice" for "great advice," "breach of veracity" for "reach of
their ascidity," who is so untrained that he really cannot hear what is
said, or see what is done,--of what use is it to such a boy, merely
because he has gone through a prescribed routine of books and classes,
or perchance because he has attained a certain amount of years and of
pounds avoirdupois, to be pushed forward into a higher department to
attend lectures on chemistry, or anatomy, or morals, or history, or
literature? It is preposterous. It is an insult to the Professor, and an
injury to the boy.
This, then, is the burden of my song. We cannot take too much pains in
early life in rousing this power of attention. Depend upon it, no matter
how much learning, so called, is crammed into a youth, his intellectual
development has not begun until this power is roused. He may have a
vague, dreamy sort of knowledge; he may do sums by rule, and he may
parse by rote, and do many other wondrous things; but his powers are not
invigorated, he does not grow, until he begins really to see and hear,
and feel _terra firma_ under his feet.
The principle which I am illustrating applies with special force to that
part of a child's education which consists in learning the meaning of
words. I have serious doubts whether children ordinarily learn much of
the real meaning of words by committing definitions to memory. What is a
definition? It is only expressing the meaning of one word by the use of
another word as nearly as possible synonymous. Now, in the case of a
child, it is at least an even chance that that other word is just as
unknown as the one it is intended to explain. It is like, in algebra,
solving an equation with two unknown quantities, by giving the value of
one unknown quantity in terms of the other. A child, for instance, is
told that "potent" means "efficacious," that "power" means "ability,"
that "potion" means a "physical draught," that "potential" means
"existing in possibility, not in act." These are definitions taken at
random from a book in common use in our public schools. The definitions
possibly are good enough for the purpose for which they were designed. I
am not quarrelling with the definitions. But, surely, it is not by these
that a child is to learn the meaning of the words. Whether he is told
that "power" means "ability," or "ability" means "power," that "potent"
means "efficacious," or "efficacious" means "potent," in neither case,
nine times out of ten, is any addition made to his stock of knowledge.
It is not until much later in life,--until in fact our knowledge of
words is already very much extended, that we profit much by learning
formal definitions. But in childhood, we must learn the meaning and
power of words, just as the mechanic becomes acquainted with his tools,
by observing their use. A boy, for instance, reads this sentence. "The
drug was very _efficacious_." If the word is quite new to him, and there
is nothing in the clause preceding or following to indicate its meaning,
it is not at all unlikely that he may suppose it to mean "poisonous."
If, however, from the context, he finds that a person who had been sick,
was made suddenly well, and this statement followed by the remark, that
"the drug was very _efficacious_," he will probably get the idea that
the word means "healing," or "curative." He reads again, in another
place, that a certain mode of teaching penmanship was found to be very
"efficacious." Here is a new use of the word, quite different from the
other, and he is obliged to exclude from his idea of its meaning every
thing like "healing." So he goes on, every fresh example cutting off
some extraneous idea which the previous examples had led him to attach
to the word, and every step onward coming nearer to the general idea,
though he may never express it in words, of something which accomplished
its object, whatever that object may be. It is, I believe, chiefly by
observing in this way the manner in which words are used, that children
do and must learn their meaning. It is, in other words, by quickening
and cultivating the habit of attention to the meaning,--by training a
child, when he is reading, to imagine, not that he is reading the words,
but that he is reading the sense, by accustoming him to look through the
word, to the sense, just as he would look at objects out of doors
through the window, and to consider the words, as he would consider the
glass, merely as a medium, through which, and unmindful of it, he looks
at something beyond,--_which something is the meaning_.
Let me not be misunderstood in regard to this matter of definitions. I
believe it to be of the utmost importance that children should be
constantly required to give definitions or explanations of the words
whose meaning they have acquired. All I mean to call in question is,
whether that meaning to any considerable extent is acquired by
committing to memory formal definitions prepared by others. When they
have once learned the meaning of a word, which is to be done mainly, if
not only, by observing its use, then by all means let them be required
to express that meaning by other words which they know. Such an exercise
cannot be too much insisted on. It is one of the best means of securing
that attention to the signification of words, which is so much wanted.
It requires the child, moreover, to bring his knowledge continually to
the test. It cultivates at once accuracy of thought, and accuracy of
language, which is the vehicle of thought. Train a child, therefore, to
the habit of attention, first to the meaning of words as gathered from
observation of their use, and secondly to the expression of that meaning
in language appropriate and intelligible to others.
I have dwelt a little on this subject, because, as in the matter of
hearing, I doubt whether people generally are aware how little children
understand what they read. Nor is this ignorance confined to children.
In our acts of devotion, we are all in the habit of using certain
stereotyped phrases, without attaching to them any definite meaning,
without perhaps so much as having even thought whether they had a
meaning. This same pernicious habit is seen also in our reading of the
Scriptures. We have read the phrases over from childhood, until we have
become so familiar with them, that we are obliged often to stop, and by
a sort of compulsory process to challenge each word as it passes, and
see whether it really conveys any meaning to our mind.
If I were to say to a class, "The Bible tells us of a man who was older
than his father," or some such apparent contradiction in terms, the
sharp antithesis would doubtless arrest their attention, and I would at
least be asked to explain myself. Yet, ten to one, they have read,
hundreds of times, of him who is "the _root_ and the _offspring_ of
David, the bright and morning star," without noticing anything at all
remarkable in the expression. It is to them merely something good and
pious, couched in a very pleasant and sonorous flow of words, and
meaning doubtless something very comforting and edifying.
I was once teaching temporarily a young ladies' Bible Class. The average
age of the members was at least seventeen. They were the pick from a
large city school, and had been selected for their superior educational
advantages and attainments. Most of them were attending expensive
private schools during the week. Wishing to satisfy myself as to the
general knowledge and the intellectual habits of the members, I took the
plan of simply reading verse about, stopping from time to time to talk
familiarly about anything which might happen to suggest itself. This
verse among others was read: it is from the account of the miracle on
the day of Pentecost: "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like
as of fire, and it sat upon each of them." I found, upon inquiring,
that _not one_ in that large class had the remotest idea of what was
meant by the word "cloven." One young lady thought it meant "fiery,"
another "flaming," another "winged," and so on. Most of them, however,
said that they really had never thought of the matter before. Probably
every one of them had read the passage hundreds of times; and when we
began talking about it, no one of them seemed to have an idea that there
was anything in the verse which she did not understand. It was not until
I took it up, word by word, and challenged a peremptory and sharp
scrutiny into the meaning attached to each word, that the remarkable
fact came out which I have stated.
One or two more leaves from my professional experience will be given.
During the greater part of my professional life, it has been a part of
my duty to examine candidates for the office of teacher in the public
schools. Out of ninety-eight candidates for the office of assistant
teacher, whom I examined on one occasion, only one knew the meaning of
the word "sumptuary," although in the public discussion then going on
about the license law, the word was in daily use in the public papers;
in fact, I took it out of the newspaper of that morning. On another
occasion, out of fourteen candidates for the office of Principal teacher
of a boys' Grammar school, four defined "friable" as that which can be
fried; several did not know at all the meaning of "hibernating," and
one, the successful candidate, said it meant "relating to Ireland." By
"successful" candidate, I mean the one who got the vote of the
Directors!
This sober scrutiny into any one's knowledge of the meaning of words in
common use, is one of the most reliable tests of his general
intellectual progress and cultivation. It is one of the means by which
in many city schools it is customary to test a candidate's fitness for
promotion. To show how little people generally, and even teachers, are
aware of the extent to which children misconceive the meaning of words
in common use, I have transcribed a few examples from an examination of
the kind which I once held. The definitions which I am about to quote
were not the work of oral confusion and haste, but were given in
writing, in circumstances of entire quietude and ample deliberation. The
average age of the candidates, on the occasion referred to, was fourteen
years and ten months, and no one of them was by law under thirteen
years.
_Stature_--A picture; "I saw a stature of Washington."
_Fabulous_--Full of threads; "Silk is fabulous."
_Accession_--The act of eating a great deal; "John got very sick
after dinner by accession."
_Atonement_--A small insect; "Queen Mab was pulled by little
atonements." Sound, [orthodox]; "They went to the church of the
Atonement."
_Auxiliary_--To form; "The gardener did auxiliary his garden."
_Ingredient_--A native-born; "Tobacco is an ingredient of this
country."
_Fragment_--Sweetmeats; "It was a fragment."
_Develop_--To swallow up; "God sent a whale to develop Jonah."
_Exotic_--Relating to a government; "Some countries have a very
exotic government." Patriotic; "He was exotic in the cause of
Independence." Absolute; "The government of Turkey is exotic."
Standing out; "The company were exotic."
_Circumference_--Distance through the middle. Distance around the
middle of the outside.
_Callous_--Something which cannot be effected; "That America should
gain her independence was supposed to be callous."
_Mobility_--Belonging to the people; "The mobility of St. Louis has
greatly increased."
_Anomalous_--Powerful; "His speech was considered anomalous."
_Adequate_--A land animal; "An elephant is an adequate."
_Transition_--The act of transcribing; "The transition of that book
was gaining ground in the public mind."
_Gregarious_--Pertaining to idols; "The Sandwich Islands worship
gregarious." Pertaining to an oak; "The Druids were noted for their
gregarious exercises." Consisting of grain. Grass-eating. Full of
talk. Full of color.
_Propensity_--Dislike; "He had a propensity to study."
_Artificially_--Belonging to flowers.
_Fluctuation_--coming in great numbers; "There was a great
fluctuation of emigrants." Setting on fire. Beating.
_Odium_--That you have a great tact at anything; "Your odium is
very great." A poisonous herb. Pertaining to song; "He was an
odium writer." A sweet smell; "The odium of new-mown hay."
_Transverse_--To turn over; "Transverse that bucket and see what is
in it." To change from verse; "Some writers change books from
transverse to verse." To verse again; "He transversed his copy." To
spread abroad; "They transverse the Bible."
_Utility_--Relating to the soil; "The ground it remarkable for its
utility."
_Quadruple_--Relating to birds; "There was a number of quadruple."
_Alternate_--Not ternate.
_Menace_--A tare in the flesh; "The dog caused a menace in John's
arm."
_Vital_--Relating to death; "Vital spark of heavenly flame."
_Intrinsic_--not trinsic. Weak, feeble; "He was a very intrinsic
old man."
_Subservient_--One opposed to the upholding of servants. Stubborn;
"On account of the boy being subservient he was turned out of
school."
_Perfidy_--Trust; not to cheat; "Such a man is perfidy; that is,
everything can be trusted to him." Accessible; "Some persons have a
great deal of perfidy."
_Access_--Intermission; "Joseph had access of his teacher to go
into the room."
_Vicinity_--In the same direction; "Pekin is in the vicinity of
Philadelphia."
_Subsequent_--Preceding; "The subsequent chapter."
_Infectious_--To make fectious.
_Exquisite_--To be in a quisitive manner. To help. To find out.
Talkative. Not required.
_Mingle_--To tear in pieces.
_Deride_--To ride down.
_Manifold_--Made by the hand. Pertaining to man; "Forgive our
manifold sins."
I have failed entirely in the general drift of this chapter, if I have
not made it obvious that the principle which I have been attempting to
illustrate is one of singularly pervading influence, and of most various
and manifold applications. The subject is indeed eminently suggestive.
One single additional line of illustration, however, must suffice. I
refer to the application of this principle to what may be called the
incidentals of teaching and training.
A child, for instance, should not only "spell out of book," as it is
called, but his attention should by some means be directed to the way in
which words are spelled. He should be accustomed to form, as it were, a
mental image of each word, to think of it as having a particular form
and appearance, so that his eye will detect instantly a wanting or an
excrescent letter, just as he sees a wen, a defective limb, or a
distorted feature on the person of an acquaintance. Only fire his young
ambition with the aim to spell well, and quicken his attention to the
way in which words are spelled, and every time he reads a book he
receives incidentally a lesson in spelling.
A child should have stated exercises and systematic instructions in the
art of reading. But quite as much improvement in this important and too
much neglected accomplishment may be gained by not allowing children at
any time to read in an improper manner. Every demonstration at the
blackboard, every text or hymn repeated from memory, every recitation in
arithmetic, grammar, or geography, every exercise of every kind in which
the voice is used and words are uttered, may be made an incidental
lesson in reading. By being never allowed to pronounce words
incorrectly, to utter them in a low or drawling manner, or to crowd and
overlap them, as it were, one upon the other, the ear becomes accustomed
to the correct sounds of the language, and immediately detects any
variation from its accustomed standard. By thus insisting, in every
vocal exercise, upon the full and correct pronunciation of the
elementary sounds of the language, more may be done to make good readers
and speakers than by all the pronouncing dictionaries and elocution
books in print.
Let a child by all means take lessons in writing. Let him learn plain
text, German text, round hand, running hand, back hand, and the
flourishes. But if he is to become rapidly master of that truly
beautiful and most useful accomplishment, let the teacher insist upon
his always attending to his manner of writing, and always writing as
well as he can. Whether he writes a composition, a sketch, a letter,
whenever for any purpose he puts pen to paper, let him be required to
form each letter distinctly, to write it gracefully, and to give to his
exercise a neat and elegant appearance. Teach him to think of a crooked
line or a blotted page as of an untied shoe, or a dirty face. By thus
making every written exercise an exercise in writing, his progress will
be increased beyond your expectations, and you will soon see him looking
with pleasure at the clean and symmetrical forms which flow so
gracefully from his pen, as he goes from line to line over the virgin
page, no half-formed or misshapen letters to embarrass, but all in every
part as elegantly written as it is easily read.
Grammar should no doubt be taught by text-book and in stated lessons.
The parts of speech, the conjugations and declensions, syntax and
parsing, must all be systematically conned, the rules and definitions
committed to memory, and the judgment exercised upon their application.
At the same time every recitation of a child, as well as all his
conversation, ought to be made an incidental and unconscious lesson in
grammar. Only never allow him to use unchallenged an incorrect or
ungrammatical expression, train his ear to detect and revolt at it, as
at a discordant note in music, let him if possible hear nothing but
sterling, honest English, and he will then learn grammar to some
purpose. If, on the contrary, he is allowed to recite and to talk in
whatever language comes uppermost, and to hear continually those around
him reciting and talking in a similar manner, he may parse till he is
blind without learning "to speak and write the English language
correctly." Banish from the nursery, the school-room, and the
play-ground, incorrect and ungrammatical expressions, and you do more
than can be done in all other ways to preserve "the well of English
undefiled."
Young persons need systematic instructions in the principles which
should govern their conduct. They need not indeed be troubled with the
more abstruse questions in the theory of morals. But the great obvious
rules of duty should be taught them, in a systematic manner, by a
competent instructor. But that man would be thought little acquainted
with the influences which go to mould and form the character, who should
suppose the matter ended here. The doctrines inculcated in the lesson,
must be carried out and applied in all the petty incidents of the day.
Not an hour passes in a large family or a school, without an occurrence
involving some principle in morals. A boy of moderate talents,
notwithstanding all his exertions, is eclipsed by one more gifted, and
he is tempted to envy. Imagining himself aggrieved or insulted by his
fellows, he burns for revenge. Overtaken in a fault and threatened with
punishment, he is tempted to lie. Misled by the opinion of others, or
esteeming some rule of his teachers harsh and unnecessary, he is
inclined to disobey. These and a hundred other instances which might be
named, will suggest to the thoughtful parent or teacher so many
opportunities for giving incidentally the most important practical
instruction in morals.
In these and the manifold other illustrations which might be given, the
essential point is to quicken and keep alive the attention. Whatever be
the subject of study, and whether the instructions be direct or
incidental, let children be preserved from attending to it in a
sluggish, listless, indifferent manner. The subject of study, in the
case of young persons, is often of less importance than the manner of
study. I have been led sometimes to doubt the value of many of the
inventions for facilitating the acquisition of knowledge by children.
That knowledge the acquisition of which costs no labor, will not be
likely to make a deep impression, or to remain long upon the memory. It
is by labor that the mind strengthens and grows: and while care should
be taken not to overtask it by exertions beyond its strength, yet let it
never be forgotten that mere occupation of the mind, even with useful
and proper objects, is not the precise aim of education. The educator
aims, not to make learned boys, but able men. To do this, he must tax
their powers. He must rouse them to manly exertion. He must teach them
to think, to discriminate, to digest what they have received, to work.
Every day there must be the glow of hard work,--not the exhaustion and
languor which arise from too protracted confinement to study,--which
have the same debilitating effect upon the mind that a similar process
has upon the body,--but vigorous and hardy labor, such as wakens the
mind from its lethargy, summons up the resolution and the will, and puts
the whole internal man into a state of determined and positive activity.
The boy in such a case feels that he is at work. He feels, too, that he
is gaining something more than knowledge. He is gaining power. He is
growing in strength. He grapples successfully to-day with a difficulty
that would have staggered him yesterday. There is no mistaking this
process; and no matter what the subject of study, the intellectual
development what it gives, is worth infinitely more than all that vague,
floating kind of knowledge sometimes sought after, which seems to be
imbibed somehow from the atmosphere of the school-room, as it certainly
evaporates the moment a boy enters the atmosphere of men and of active
life.