Fortunately, many of the best opportunities for sensory and motor training do not depend on schools or courses of study. The world is full of stimuli to our senses and to our socia...
The development of a good memory depends in no small degree on the closeness with which we follow certain well-demonstrated laws. THE LAW OF ASSOCIATION.--The law of association, a...
It follows from the importance of habit in our lives that no small part of education should be concerned with the development of serviceable habits. Says James, Could the young but...
THE PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CONSCIOUSNESS.--Mind can be observed and known. But each one can know directly only his own mind, and not another's. You and I may look into each other's...
We have seen that our mental life may be likened to a stream flowing now faster, now slower, ever shifting, never ceasing. We have yet to inquire what constitutes the material of t...
Many devices have been invented for training or using the memory, and not a few worthless systems have been imposed by conscienceless fakers upon uninformed people. All memorizing...
But can we first see how in a general way the brain and nervous system are primarily related to our thinking? Let us go back to the beginning and consider the babe when it first op...
It is by attention that we gather and mass our mental energy upon the critical and important points in our thinking. In the last chapter we saw that consciousness is not distribute...
In the physical world as in the spiritual there are many people who, having eyes, see not and ears, hear not. For the ability to perceive accurately and richly in the world of phys...
DIVISION OF LABOR.--Division of labor is the law in the organic world as in the industrial. Animals of the lowest type, such as the amoeba, do not have separate organs for respirat...
DEVELOPMENT AND NUTRITION.--Ignoring the native differences in nervous systems through the influence of heredity, the efficiency of a nervous system is largely dependent on two fac...
1. Observe a reading class and try to determine whether the pupils picture the scenes and events they read about. How can you tell? 2. Similarly observe a history class. Do the pup...
1. Do you find that you understand better some difficult point or problem after you have succeeded in stating it? Do you remember better what you have expressed? 2. In which partic...
Now that you come to think of it, you can recall perfectly well that Columbus discovered America in 1492; that your house is painted white; that it rained a week ago today. But whe...
I--the conscious self--dwell somewhere in this body, but where? When my finger tips touch the object I wish to examine, I seem to be in them. When the brain grows weary from overst...
We have seen in this discussion that will is a mode of control--control of our thoughts and, through our thoughts, of our actions. Will may be looked upon, then, as the culmination...
But in the building up of percepts and concepts, as well as in making use of them after they are formed, another process of thinking enters; namely, the process of judging. NATURE...
IMPORTANCE OF STIMULUS AND RESPONSE.--Like all other tissues of the body, the nerve cells and fibers are developed by judicious use. The sensory and association centers require the...
The will is to be trained as we train the other powers of the mind--through the exercise of its normal function. The function of the will is to direct or control in the actual affa...
IMAGES TO BE VIEWED BY INTROSPECTION.--The remainder of the description of images will be easier to understand, for each of you can know just what is meant in every case by appeali...
JAMES'S THREE MAXIMS FOR HABIT-FORMING.--On the forming of new habits and the leaving off of old ones, I know of no better statement than that of James, based on Bain's chapter on...
All true thinking is for the purpose of discovering relations between the things we think about. Imagine a world in which nothing is related to anything else; in which every object...
It is evident from the foregoing discussion that we may include under the term thinking all sorts of mental processes by which relations are apprehended between different objects o...
All are familiar with the five senses of our elementary physiologies, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. A more complete study of sensation reveals nearly three times this nu...
Since association is at bottom nothing but habit at work in the mental processes, it follows that it, like other forms of habit, can be encouraged or suppressed by training. Certai...
The educational significance of the truths illustrated in the diagram and the discussion has been somewhat slow in taking hold in our schools. This has been due not alone to the sl...
Parallel with opportunities for proper stimuli and response the nervous system must possess good tonicity, or vigor. This depends in large degree on general health and nutrition, w...
There is a marvel about our coming to know the external world which we shall never be able fully to understand. We have come by this knowledge so gradually and unconsciously that i...
Many have been the philosophical controversies over the nature of space and our perception of it. The psychologists have even quarreled concerning whether we possess an innate sens...
Imagination is highly susceptible of cultivation, and its training should constitute one of the most important aims of education. Every school subject, but especially such subjects...