would see how they convert a stick into a horse, the play-house into a
home, and mimic the drama of life in their games and contests. Their life
is largely make-believe and thinking in images. This tendency to think in
images can be utilized in the lessons in arithmetic, geometry, geography,
and history. Without the combination of images into new forms and
products, the pupil cannot think the thoughts peculiar to these branches.
For instance, the lesson in geography starts with what the child has seen
or can see at home, and proceeds to that which is away from home, using
pictures, drawings, lantern-slides, and vivid descriptions to aid the
imagination in picturing scenery, cities, countries, and forms of life in
other parts of the globe. It may be a question what the mind should think
in connection with the symbols and truths of that science. The form of
a continent is without doubt best conceived as given on a map. For many
practical purposes, cities may be thought as mere starting-points and
halting-places in a journey. Many a river is for mature minds a winding
black line on colored surfaces called maps. Nevertheless, if geography
means for a pupil no more than this, it will be dry and uninteresting
indeed. Out of the images of things observed the mind should be led to
construct images of what it has not seen. These images are never an
adequate picture of the foreign city or country, even after they have
been supplemented or modified by visits to museums, conservatories, and
zoological gardens, by excursions to the field, the forest, and the
factory, or even by travel at home and abroad. The thoughts of a country
that one has journeyed through, or lived in for a time, consist partly
of images and partly of symbolic representations. Since thinking in
images is easier for beginners than thinking in symbols, the instruction
in geography should begin with child-life at home, with the things on the
breakfast-table, with the garments worn and the means of transportation
used, and proceed from these to the life, the home, the dress, and the
sports of children living in other lands and other climes. The lessons in
geography make constant appeals to the imagination, and call for thinking
in images or mental-pictures in connection with map-symbols and the
discussions of causes and laws.
[Sidenote: History.]
Not less valuable is the power of imaging in the study of history. Many
details are worthless and meaningless until the imagination weaves them
into a fabric in which their relations and significance become apparent.
So far as the trend of history is concerned, it would have mattered
very little if the name of the ship in which the Pilgrim fathers sailed
had been Aprilshower instead of Mayflower, if the number of passengers
had been one hundred and one instead of exactly one hundred, if they
had landed at some place other than Plymouth Rock. Their coming, their
compact, their religious life and purposes were of chief importance.
Details help to fill out the mental picture of their voyage, landing,
and settlement. They throw a halo of interest around the central event,
or germinal idea. Or, to change the figure, they furnish the scaffolding
by means of which the teacher gradually raises the edifice of historical
knowledge. After the edifice has been completed the scaffolding may be
removed. After the essential or central idea has been grasped and fixed,
details like the name of the ship, the number of emigrants, and the exact
day of their arrival may be forgotten. The mind can often unload the
luggage that is not absolutely needed, and move with more ease and speed
into new fields of thought and investigation.
[Sidenote: Geometry.]
[Sidenote: Arithmetic.]
Geometry has been aptly styled eine Augenwissenschaft, “a science of the
eye” (the last word being used not as the object with which the science
deals, but as the means by which its ideas are acquired). The line drawn
upon the black-board has breadth, and is not at all a mathematical
line. Through the eye it serves to suggest the line which has length
without breadth or thickness. Progress in solid geometry is impossible
if the mind does not image or conceive the volumes of three dimensions
indicated by the drawings on a surface which has but two dimensions. In
arithmetic many of the business transactions upon which the problems
are based have not come into the experience of the child, but must be
evolved by appeals to the imagination if the solutions are to be brought
within easy reach of the understanding. The power of combining images
into new forms aids greatly in the construction of apparatus and in the
making of experiments. It helps the scientist to evolve his theories and
hypotheses. It is the faculty by which man becomes a creator in science,
art, literature, and philosophy.
[Sidenote: Creative imagination.]
[Sidenote: Productive thinking.]
[Sidenote: Knowledge uncommunicated.]
Few suggestions for the exercise of the creative imagination can be
given. Here rules are more of a hinderance than a help. The imagination
is not creative in the sense of evolving something out of nothing,—this
notion has misled many in their estimate of genius,—but in the sense
of producing that which never existed, at least for the individual
himself. Its activity has been denominated plastic from the fact that
it moulds and fashions the materials or images into the forms which the
new product is to assume. The influence of judgment is needed to keep
the imagination from violating the laws and principles inherent in the
things from which its materials are drawn. The understanding aids and
is aided by this creative, plastic function of the imagination. The
two should have free play in productive thinking. Let the student of
science or art saturate himself with the theme on which he is working;
let him keep health and energy of body and mind at their highest point;
let him concentrate his best powers on what is to be accomplished,
keeping clearly in mind the end to be reached and the materials to be
used; the product for which he is working will spring into being in
ways that he cannot explain. Like an unfathomable well which has been
gathering its waters through hidden channels from mysterious sources,
the stream of thought comes welling up from the depth of the soul into
the conscious life of the thinker, giving him the living waters by
which he can satisfy the thirst for knowledge felt by other souls. In
expressing, formulating, and communicating the thoughts which thus come
to him he cannot help feeling the “joy of creating.” “The history of
literature,” says Shedd, “furnishes many examples of men whose knowledge
only increased their sorrow, because it never found an efflux from their
own minds into the world. Knowledge uncommunicated is something like
remorse unconfessed. The mind, not being allowed to go out of itself, and
to direct its energies towards an object and end greater and worthier
than itself, turns back upon itself, and becomes morbidly self-reflecting
and self-conscious. A studious and reflecting man of this class is
characterized by excessive fastidiousness, which makes him dissatisfied
with all that he does himself or sees done by others; which represses
and finally suppresses all the buoyant and spirited activity of the
intellect, leaving it sluggish as ‘the dull weed that rots by Lethe’s
wharf.’”
[Sidenote: Forms of creative effort.]
No teacher and no system of training can furnish both brains and culture.
It is not the mission of any person to create in every line of effort.
Some find their joy in evolving and expressing thought with tongue or
pen, others through the brush or the chisel, and still others through
machinery and the handicrafts. In every occupation man may experience
the joy of creating if his powers of imaging are allowed to play and
interplay with other activities of thought. Each in normal conditions
helps the others, and the activity of all combined is essential to
complete living.
XIII
THE STREAM OF THOUGHT
At Learning’s fountain it is sweet to drink,
But ’tis a nobler privilege to think;
And oft, from books apart, the thirsting mind
May make the nectar which it cannot find.
’Tis well to borrow from the good and great;
’Tis wise to learn; ’tis godlike to create!
J. G. SAXE.
Madame Swetchine says that to have ideas is to gather flowers:
to think is to weave them into garlands. There could be no
happier synonym for thinking than the word weaving,—a putting
together of the best products of observation, reading,
experience, and travel so as to represent a patterned whole,
receiving its design from the weaver’s own mind. We have plenty
of flowers; we want more garlands. We have libraries, books,
and newspapers; we want more thinkers.
T. SHARPER KNOWLSON.
XIII
THE STREAM OF THOUGHT
In speaking of our inner life we employ language that abounds in
metaphors drawn from the external world. Some are faded metaphors; others
are still fresh and new enough to suggest what was in the minds of those
first using them. Many of these metaphorical expressions draw attention
to one side or phase of the truth. If pressed with the design of making
them embody the whole truth, they become untruths.
[Sidenote: The flow of thought.]
One fact of our waking consciousness is that thought goes on without
stopping so long as we remain awake. Indeed, some philosophers have drawn
the inference that the soul always thinks, that during the hours of deep
sleep the brain-centres may be at rest, but that thought nevertheless
flows on in the unconscious depths of our being. Locke combats this idea
at length and with more than usual warmth. During sleep on a railway
train we sometimes seem to be awake, the ends of our conscious thinking
apparently fitting into each other without gaps; and yet the calling
out of the stations convinces us that we must have been wrapped in
unconscious slumber when we passed certain stations without noticing that
the train stopped and the stations were announced. On the other hand, it
is the experience of earnest students that the striking of a clock may
escape notice because the mind has been deeply absorbed in a difficult
problem.
[Sidenote: Teacher’s duty.]
The question need not concern us beyond the fact that the thinking of
our most wakeful moments perpetually plays into our subconscious life.
In order that the flow of thought welling up from the deepest depths of
the soul may be clear, copious, and full, it is the duty of the teacher
to keep himself and his pupils wide awake during the hours of study and
recitation. He should not worry them by excessive tasks or unreasonable
examinations so that the hours of sleep are disturbed by dreams, followed
during the day by weariness and fatigue. The folly of burning the
midnight oil and of spending too many hours each day in mental toil is
fraught with evil consequences in the domain of thought. In the main
Harbaugh was right when he undertook to change Franklin’s maxim about
early rising into the following form: “Go to bed early, and get up late;
but then keep awake all day.”
[Sidenote: Thought like a stream.]
So far as we are aware, thought is going forward continuously while we
are awake. This phase of consciousness has been likened to a stream, and
has given rise to the expression, _The stream of thought_. The metaphor
can be pressed very far without conveying untruths. A stream does not
always flow with the same velocity. It is at times deep, at other times
shallow, now moving forward like a swollen torrent, now flowing placidly
with scarcely a wave or a ripple perceptible on its surface. Here its
smooth course is disturbed by wind and storm and rain; there its even
flow is influenced by rocks and irregularities in the bed of the stream.
Again and again its current is modified by affluents which empty their
waters into the main stream, perhaps changing the appearance from clear
to cloudy or muddy, or, it may be, exerting the opposite effect. To all
these peculiarities in the flow of the stream there are likenesses in
the stream of thought. At times it is deep and at other times shallow,
now violent and disturbed, now calm and placid, sometimes clear to the
bottom, sometimes cloudy, yea, muddy, always modified more or less by
influences from without, which are taken up into the main current of
thought and alter the stream like the tributaries of a great river.
[Sidenote: Early life.]
[Sidenote: Other metaphors.]
On reaching the level country a river may spread out into a lake,
resulting in a clearing up of the water and resembling the periods
of calm meditation during which the soul clarifies its thinking. The
lifelike behavior of rivers and the carving of land forms from their
youth through maturity to old age have furnished many a figure of speech
for our poetic literature. The change from the active upper waters to the
sedate lower current may typify the change in the stream of thought as we
pass from youth to age. While the volume of the stream is small and the
channel lacks depth, it is easy to change the direction of the current,
as sometimes happens when a straight channel is dug to take the place of
its windings. In early life the stream of thought is apt to wander in
meandering courses; the teacher may very frequently find it necessary to
keep the mind from wandering, to direct the stream of thought towards the
destined goal, and to make it groove for itself channels in harmony with
logical habits. In teaching pupils to think it is quite as essential to
give direction to thought as it is to furnish either thought-stimulus
or thought-material. In one respect the metaphor, stream of thought,
fails utterly to express the truth. The constituents of thought are not
related to each other like the molecules of a liquid which move freely
among themselves. Thoughts have a connection with those that precede and
those that follow. An inner nexus binds the successive portions of a
demonstration. Hence other figures of speech have been employed to denote
the connection between the successive elements of a logical proof, such
as the train of thought, the line of argument, the chain of reasoning.
[Sidenote: Cognitive function.]
It will be readily admitted that often our thinking is so loose and
disjointed that its component parts resemble the liquid more than the
chain, whereas our best thinking—namely, that which leads to a goal in
the shape of a trustworthy conclusion—resembles a train of cars in which
motive power is derived not from steam, but from a conscious expenditure
of will-power. The teacher may perform the triple function of fireman,
engineer, and switch-tender, supplying the fuel for the process,
regulating the speed, and directing it along the lines of track which
lead to the desired goal. It is as natural for a pupil to think as it
is for a stream to flow towards the ocean. The stream may run shallow
if no supply of water is received from the outside. It is the mission
of the teacher to keep up the supply, to remove as far as possible the
obstructions which are likely to throw the current of thought into
unexpected channels. It is a peculiarity of this current of thinking that
it is cognitive, or possesses the function of knowing. Human thought
resembles the stream in seemingly taking up and carrying what was not a
part of itself. Just as the stream of water carries minerals in solution
as well as silt, sand, pebbles, and even heavier objects, so the stream
of thought appears to lay hold of objects and to carry them as part of
itself. Here, however, the strings of the analogy break. The stream of
thought is in the mind; the objects with which it deals are outside of
the mind. Mental pictures of these objects float in the stream of thought
as objects on the bank of a river are mirrored in its waters; yet the
parallel is not complete, because the mind may turn the eye upon itself
and make what is thus seen the object of thought. This turning upon
itself may be likened to eddies in the stream. But even when the mind
thus turns back upon itself and views its own states and activities,
these are regarded as objective, as related to the thinking process very
much like the objects of knowledge in the external world.
Another important phase of thinking finds no likeness in any of the
figures of speech above referred to. The mind meets certain objects of
thought on which it seems to tarry or fasten itself. This has led some
writers to deny that the stream of thought is a continuous current.
This view causes undue stress to be laid upon the material of thought,
and leads the teacher to undervalue his function as directing guide in
teaching pupils to think. Even Professor Bain claims that,—
[Sidenote: Bain’s view.]
“The stream of thought is not a continuous current, but a series of
distinct ideas, more or less rapid in their succession, the rapidity
being measurable by the number that pass through the mind in a given
time. Mental excitement is constantly judged of by this test; and if we
choose to count and time the thoughts as they succeed one another, we
could give so much more precision to the estimate.”[32]
[Sidenote: Transitions.]
[Sidenote: Two phases.]
These transitions should not be confounded with the relations between
objects of thought or between objects in the external world. The
relations may be part of the thought of that which is perceived or known,
or they may be made distinct ideas or thoughts. The important phase
under consideration is the passage of the mind from one idea or thought
to another. Such transitions are quite as important and quite as much a
part of the current of thought as the premises and conclusions on which
the mind seems to rest. These two phases of the thought-process may be
likened to the perching and the flight of a bird. This figure of speech
is used by Professor James, among whose services to the profession
of teaching it is not the least that he has called attention to the
importance of these transitions in the stream of consciousness. His
account is so lucid and satisfactory that one cannot forbear to quote his
words at some length. Referring to the stream of thought, he says,—
[Sidenote: View of Professor James.]
“Like a bird’s life, it seems to be made up of an alternation of flights
and perchings. The rhythm of language expresses this, where every thought
is expressed in a sentence and every sentence closed by a period. The
resting-places are usually occupied by sensorial imaginations of some
sort, whose peculiarity is that they can be held before the mind for an
indefinite time and contemplated without changing; the places of flight
are filled with thoughts of relations, static or dynamic, that for the
most part obtain between the matters contemplated in the periods of
comparative rest. _Let us call the halting-places_ the ‘substantive’
parts and the places of flight the ‘transitive’ parts of the stream of
thought. It then appears that the main need of our thinking is at all
times the attainment of some other substantive part than the one from
which we have just been dislodged. And we may say that the main use of
the transitive parts is to lead us from one substantive conclusion to
another. Now it is very difficult, introspectively, to see the transitive
parts for what they really are. If they are but flights to a conclusion,
stopping them to look at them before a conclusion is reached is really
annihilating them. Whilst if we wait until the conclusion be reached,
it so exceeds them in vigor and stability that it quite eclipses and
swallows them up in its glare. Let any one try to cut a thought in the
middle and get a look at its section, and he will see how difficult
the introspective observation of the transitive tract is. The rush of
the thought is so headlong that it almost always brings us up at the
conclusion before we can arrest it. Or if our purpose is nimble enough
and we do arrest it, it ceases forthwith to be itself. As a snow-flake
crystal caught in the warm hand is no longer a crystal, but a drop,
so, instead of catching the feeling of relation moving to its term, we
find we have caught some substantive thing, usually the last word we
were pronouncing, statistically taken, and with its function, tendency,
and particular meaning in the sentence quite evaporated. The attempt
at introspective analysis in these cases is, in fact, like seizing a
spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to turn up the gas quickly
enough to see the darkness. And the challenge to _produce_ these
psychoses, which is sure to be thrown by doubting psychologists at any
one who contends for their existence, is as unfair as Zeno’s treatment
of the advocates of motion, when, asking them to point out in what place
an arrow _is_ when it moves, he argues the falsity of their thesis from
their inability to make to so preposterous a question an immediate
reply.”[33]
[Sidenote: Nouns, verbs, etc.]
[Sidenote: Connectives.]
The science of logic deals almost altogether with the halting-places,
with the substantive parts, with the ideas, notions, concepts that
are to be compared, and with the resulting judgments, inferences, and
conclusions. Whether the teacher has studied the science of logic or not,
it is to these he devotes his chief attention; they can be analyzed,
defined, and clearly fixed as thought-products or knowledge. Defects in
the thinking-process are apt to show themselves here; at least, they
furnish tangible data for criticism, corrections, and reviews. These
thought-products on which the mind loves to linger are denoted by nouns,
verbs, adjectives, and adverbs,—the parts of speech which constitute the
bulk of the vocabulary of every language. The movements of the mind from
one object of thought to another are indicated by conjunctions and other
connectives. Thinkers are often known by their favorite connective words
and phrases. Pupils catch these from the phraseology of their teachers,
or pick them up unconsciously from the books they read. Some languages
are richer in such connective words and phrases than others; the mind
carries away some influence in the way of making these transitions in
thought from every language which it studies; its thinking is moulded
by the language which it masters. Logic has very little to say about
these transitions for which one language sometimes supplies words and
expressions altogether wanting in another. Frequently we grow conscious
of them through the feeling of a gap to be filled, or of a chasm to be
leaped over, or of an obstacle to be cleared away, or of something that
obstructs our thinking and hinders it from reaching the goal. Here again
one cannot refrain from quoting Professor James, although his words do
not indicate that he fully realizes the value for elementary instruction
of what he has written. Here are his words:
“The truth is that large tracts of human speech are nothing but _signs
of direction_ in thought, of which direction we, nevertheless, have an
acutely discriminative sense, though no definite sensorial image plays
any part in it whatsoever. Sensorial images are stable psychic facts;
we can hold them still, and look at them as long as we like. These bare
images of logical movements, on the contrary, are psychic transitions,
always on the wing, so to speak, and not to be glimpsed except in
flight. Their function is to lead from one set of images to another. As
they pass, we feel both the waxing and the waning images in a way quite
different from the way of their full presence. If we try to hold fast
the feeling of direction, the full presence comes, and the feeling of
direction is lost. The blank verbal scheme of logical movement gives us
the fleeting sense of the movement as we read it, quite as well as does a
rational sentence awakening definite imaginations by its words.”[34]
[Sidenote: Directing the youthful mind.]
Right here the teacher who is an artist finds the opportunity for the
display of his highest skill. It is his privilege to direct the flights
and the perchings of the youthful mind. He can shape the thoughts and
their sequence. He can cause the intellect to move from the reason to
its consequence, or in the reverse direction if that be more natural or
more appropriate. He can guide the thought from cause to effect, from
the whole to the parts, from the general to the particular, from the
end to the means, from the design to its execution; or a movement the
other way is possible in each of these categories. While thus choosing
the direction which thought shall take, he can select the objects upon
which it shall tarry. This directing influence he will often exert when
he is not aware of it. His own habits of mind will be reflected in the
mental life of his pupils. There was profound philosophy in the reply of
a gifted author who, when asked by his daughter what she should study,
said, “I am more concerned about the teachers under whom you study than
about the branches of study which you may select.” Habits of thought
depend far more upon the teacher than upon the text-book, upon the
quality of the instruction than upon its general content. There is, of
course, a difference in the culture value of different branches of study;
but a study as valuable as geometry may be pursued in a loose way, whilst
branches of much inferior value for developing power to think may be
taught and studied by the methods of rigid and exact thought.
[Sidenote: The artist-teacher.]
[Sidenote: Forms of speech.]