The Mind and Its Education

G >> George Herbert Betts >> The Mind and Its Education

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

CONSCIOUSNESS AS A PROCESS OR STREAM.--In looking in upon the mind we
must expect to discover, then, not a _thing_, but a _process_. The
_thing_ forever eludes us, but the process is always present.
Consciousness is like a stream, which, so far as we are concerned with
it in a psychological discussion, has its rise at the cradle and its end
at the grave. It begins with the babe's first faint gropings after light
in his new world as he enters it, and ends with the man's last blind
gropings after light in his old world as he leaves it. The stream is
very narrow at first, only as wide as the few sensations which come to
the babe when it sees the light or hears the sound; it grows wider as
the mind develops, and is at last measured by the grand sum total of
life's experience.

This mental stream is irresistible. No power outside of us can stop it
while life lasts. We cannot stop it ourselves. When we try to stop
thinking, the stream but changes its direction and flows on. While we
wake and while we sleep, while we are unconscious under an anaesthetic,
even, some sort of mental process continues. Sometimes the stream flows
slowly, and our thoughts lag--we "feel slow"; again the stream flows
faster, and we are lively and our thoughts come with a rush; or a fever
seizes us and delirium comes on; then the stream runs wildly onward,
defying our control, and a mad jargon of thoughts takes the place of our
usual orderly array. In different persons, also, the mental stream moves
at different rates, some minds being naturally slow-moving and some
naturally quick in their operations.

Consciousness resembles a stream also in other particulars. A stream is
an unbroken whole from its source to its mouth, and an observer
stationed at one point cannot see all of it at once. He sees but the one
little section which happens to be passing his station point at the
time. The current may look much the same from moment to moment, but the
component particles which constitute the stream are constantly changing.
So it is with our thought. Its stream is continuous from birth till
death, but we cannot see any considerable portion of it at one time.
When we turn about quickly and look in upon our minds, we see but the
little present moment. That of a few seconds ago is gone and will never
return. The thought which occupied us a moment since can no more be
recalled, just as it was, than can the particles composing a stream be
re-collected and made to pass a given point in its course in precisely
the same order and relation to one another as before. This means, then,
that we can never have precisely the same mental state twice; that the
thought of the moment cannot have the same associates that it had the
first time; that the thought of this moment will never be ours again;
that all we can know of our minds at any one time is the part of the
process present in consciousness at that moment.

[Illustration: FIG. 1]

[Illustration: FIG. 2]

THE WAVE IN THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS.--The surface of our mental
stream is not level, but is broken by a wave which stands above the
rest; which is but another way of saying that some one thing is always
more prominent in our thought than the rest. Only when we are in a
sleepy reverie, or not thinking about much of anything, does the stream
approximate a level. At all other times some one object occupies the
highest point in our thought, to the more or less complete exclusion of
other things which we might think about. A thousand and one objects are
possible to our thought at any moment, but all except one thing occupy a
secondary place, or are not present to our consciousness at all. They
exist on the margin, or else are clear off the edge of consciousness,
while the one thing occupies the center. We may be reading a fascinating
book late at night in a cold room. The charm of the writer, the beauty
of the heroine, or the bravery of the hero so occupies the mind that the
weary eyes and chattering teeth are unnoticed. Consciousness has piled
up in a high wave on the points of interest in the book, and the bodily
sensations are for the moment on a much lower level. But let the book
grow dull for a moment, and the make-up of the stream changes in a
flash. Hero, heroine, or literary style no longer occupies the wave.
They forfeit their place, the wave is taken by the bodily sensations,
and we are conscious of the smarting eyes and shivering body, while
these in turn give way to the next object which occupies the wave. Figs.
1-3 illustrate these changes.

[Illustration: FIG. 3]

CONSCIOUSNESS LIKENED TO A FIELD.--The consciousness of any moment has
been less happily likened to a field, in the center of which there is an
elevation higher than the surrounding level. This center is where
consciousness is piled up on the object which is for the moment foremost
in our thought. The other objects of our consciousness are on the margin
of the field for the time being, but any of them may the next moment
claim the center and drive the former object to the margin, or it may
drop entirely out of consciousness. This moment a noble resolve may
occupy the center of the field, while a troublesome tooth begets
sensations of discomfort which linger dimly on the outskirts of our
consciousness; but a shooting pain from the tooth or a random thought
crossing the mind, and lo! the tooth holds sway, and the resolve dimly
fades to the margin of our consciousness and is gone.

THE "PILING UP" OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS ATTENTION.--This figure is not so
true as the one which likens our mind to a stream with its ever onward
current answering to the flow of our thought; but whichever figure we
employ, the truth remains the same. Our mental energy is always piled up
higher at one point than at others. Either because our interest leads
us, or because the will dictates, the mind is withdrawn from the
thousand and one things we might think about, and directed to this one
thing, which for the time occupies chief place. In other words, we
_attend_; for this piling up of consciousness is nothing, after all, but
attention.

3. CONTENT OF THE MENTAL STREAM

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 the stream, or what is the stuff that
makes up the current of our thought--what is the _content_ of
consciousness? The question cannot be fully answered at this point, but
a general notion can be gained which will be of service.

WHY WE NEED MINDS.--Let us first of all ask what mind is for, why do
animals, including men, have minds? The biologist would say, in order
that they may _adapt_ themselves to their environment. Each individual
from mollusc to man needs the amount and type of mind that serves to
fit its possessor into its particular world of activity. Too little mind
leaves the animal helpless in the struggle for existence. On the other
hand a mind far above its possessor's station would prove useless if not
a handicap; a mollusc could not use the mind of a man.

CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS DETERMINED BY FUNCTION.--How much mind does man
need? What range and type of consciousness will best serve to adjust us
to our world of opportunity and responsibility? First of all we must
_know_ our world, hence, our mind must be capable of gathering
knowledge. Second, we must be able to _feel_ its values and respond to
the great motives for action arising from the emotions. Third, we must
have the power to exert self-compulsion, which is to say that we possess
a _will_ to control our acts. These three sets of processes, _knowing_,
_feeling_, and _willing_, we shall, therefore, expect to find making up
the content of our mental stream.

Let us proceed at once to test our conclusion by introspection. If we
are sitting at our study table puzzling over a difficult problem in
geometry, _reasoning_ forms the wave in the stream of consciousness--the
center of the field. It is the chief thing in our thinking. The fringe
of our consciousness is made up of various sensations of the light from
the lamp, the contact of our clothing, the sounds going on in the next
room, some bit of memory seeking recognition, a "tramp" thought which
comes along, and a dozen other experiences not strong enough to occupy
the center of the field.

But instead of the study table and the problem, give us a bright
fireside, an easy-chair, and nothing to do. If we are aged,
_memories_--images from out the past--will probably come thronging in
and occupy the field to such extent that the fire burns low and the room
grows cold, but still the forms from the past hold sway. If we are
young, visions of the future may crowd everything else to the margin of
the field, while the "castles in Spain" occupy the center.

Our memories may also be accompanied by emotions--sorrow, love, anger,
hate, envy, joy. And, indeed, these emotions may so completely occupy
the field that the images themselves are for the time driven to the
margin, and the mind is occupied with its sorrow, its love, or its joy.

Once more, instead of the problem or the memories or the "castles in
Spain," give us the necessity of making some decision, great or small,
where contending motives are pulling us now in this direction, now in
that, so that the question finally has to be settled by a supreme effort
summed up in the words, _I will_. This is the struggle of the will which
each one knows for himself; for who has not had a raging battle of
motives occupy the center of the field while all else, even the sense of
time, place and existence, gave way in the face of this conflict! This
struggle continues until the decision is made, when suddenly all the
stress and strain drop out and other objects may again have place in
consciousness.

THE THREE FUNDAMENTAL PHASES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.--Thus we see that if we
could cut the stream of consciousness across as we might cut a stream of
water from bank to bank with a huge knife, and then look at the cut-off
section, we should find very different constituents in the stream at
different times. We should at one time find the mind manifesting itself
in _perceiving_, _remembering_, _imagining_, _discriminating_,
_comparing_, _judging_, _reasoning_, or the acts by which we gain our
knowledge; at another in _fearing_, _loving_, _hating_, _sorrowing_,
_enjoying_, or the acts of feeling; at still another in _choosing_, or
the act of the will. These processes would make up the stream, or, in
other words, these are the acts which the mind performs in doing its
work. We should never find a time when the stream consists of but one of
the processes, or when all these modes of mental activity are not
represented. They will be found in varying proportions, now more of
knowing, now of feeling, and now of willing, but some of each is always
present in our consciousness. The nature of these different elements in
our mental stream, their relation to each other, and the manner in which
they all work together in amazing perplexity yet in perfect harmony to
produce the wonderful _mind_, will constitute the subject-matter we
shall consider together in the pages which follow.

4. WHERE CONSCIOUSNESS RESIDES

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 overstudy, I seem to be in it. When the
heart throbs, the breath comes quick, and the muscles grow tense from
noble resolve or strong emotion, I seem to be in them all. When, filled
with the buoyant life of vigorous youth, every fiber and nerve is
a-tingle with health and enthusiasm, I live in every part of my
marvelous body. Small wonder that the ancients located the soul at one
time in the heart, at another in the pineal gland of the brain, and at
another made it coextensive with the body!

CONSCIOUSNESS WORKS THROUGH THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.--Later science has
taught that the _mind resides in and works through the nervous system,
which has its central office in the brain_. And the reason why _I_ seem
to be in every part of my body is because the nervous system extends to
every part, carrying messages of sight or sound or touch to the brain,
and bearing in return orders for movements, which set the feet a-dancing
or the fingers a-tingling. But more of this later.

This partnership between mind and body is very close. Just how it
happens that spirit may inhabit matter we may not know. But certain it
is that they interact on each other. What will hinder the growth of one
will handicap the other, and what favors the development of either will
help both. The methods of their cooeperation and the laws that govern
their relationship will develop as our study goes on.

5. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION

One should always keep in mind that psychology is essentially a
laboratory science, and not a text-book subject. The laboratory material
is to be found in ourselves and in those about us. While the text should
be thoroughly mastered, its statements should always be verified by
reference to one's own experience, and observation of others. Especially
should prospective teachers constantly correlate the lessons of the book
with the observation of children at work in the school. The problems
suggested for observation and introspection will, if mastered, do much
to render practical and helpful the truths of psychology.

1. Think of your home as you last left it. Can you see vividly just how
it looked, the color of the paint on the outside, with the familiar form
of the roof and all; can you recall the perfume in some old drawer, the
taste of a favorite dish, the sound of a familiar voice in farewell?

2. What illustrations have you observed where the mental content of the
moment seemed chiefly _thinking_ (knowledge process); chiefly _emotion_
(feeling process); chiefly _choosing_, or self-compulsion (willing
process)?

3. When you say that you remember a circumstance that occurred
yesterday, how do you remember it? That is, do you see in your mind
things just as they were, and hear again sounds which occurred, or feel
again movements which you performed? Do you experience once more the
emotions you then felt?

4. What forms of expression most commonly reveal _thought_; what reveal
emotions? (i.e., can you tell what a child is _thinking about_ by the
expression on his face? Can you tell whether he is _angry_,
_frightened_, _sorry_, by his face? Is speech as necessary in expressing
feeling as in expressing thought?)

5. Try occasionally during the next twenty-four hours to turn quickly
about mentally and see whether you can observe your thinking, feeling,
or willing in the very act of taking place.

6. What becomes of our mind or consciousness while we are asleep? How
are we able to wake up at a certain hour previously determined? Can a
person have absolutely _nothing_ in his mind?

7. Have you noticed any children especially adept in expression? Have
you noticed any very backward? If so, in what form of expression in each
case?

8. Have you observed any instances of expression which you were at a
loss to interpret (remember that "expression" includes every form of
physical action, voice, speech, face, form, hand, etc.)?

CHAPTER II

ATTENTION

How do you rank in mental ability, and how effective are your mind's
grasp and power? The answer that must be given to these questions will
depend not more on your native endowment than on your skill in using
attention.

1. NATURE OF ATTENTION

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 distributed evenly over the whole field,
but "piled up," now on this object of thought, now on that, in obedience
to interest or necessity. _The concentration of the mind's energy on one
object of thought is attention._

THE NATURE OF ATTENTION.--Everyone knows what it is to attend. The story
so fascinating that we cannot leave it, the critical points in a game,
the interesting sermon or lecture, the sparkling conversation--all these
compel our attention. So completely is our mind's energy centered on
them and withdrawn from other things that we are scarcely aware of what
is going on about us.

We are also familiar with another kind of attention. For we all have
read the dull story, watched the slow game, listened to the lecture or
sermon that drags, and taken part in conversation that was a bore. We
gave these things our attention, but only with effort. Our mind's energy
seemed to center on anything rather than the matter in hand. A thousand
objects from outside enticed us away, and it required the frequent
"mental jerk" to bring us to the subject in hand. And when brought back
to our thought problem we felt the constant "tug" of mind to be free
again.

NORMAL CONSCIOUSNESS ALWAYS IN A STATE OF ATTENTION.--But this very
effort of the mind to free itself from one object of thought that it may
busy itself with another is _because attention is solicited by this
other_. Some object in our field of consciousness is always exerting an
appeal for attention; and to attend _to_ one thing is always to attend
_away from_ a multitude of other things upon which the thought might
rest. We may therefore say that attention is constantly _selecting_ in
our stream of thought those aspects that are to receive emphasis and
consideration. From moment to moment it determines the points at which
our mental energy shall be centered.

2. THE EFFECTS OF ATTENTION

ATTENTION MAKES ITS OBJECT CLEAR AND DEFINITE.--Whatever attention
centers upon stands out sharp and clear in consciousness. Whether it be
a bit of memory, an "air-castle," a sensation from an aching tooth, the
reasoning on an algebraic formula, a choice which we are making, the
setting of an emotion--whatever be the object to which we are attending,
that object is illumined and made to stand out from its fellows as the
one prominent thing in the mind's eye while the attention rests on it.
It is like the one building which the searchlight picks out among a city
full of buildings and lights up, while the remainder are left in the
semilight or in darkness.

ATTENTION MEASURES MENTAL EFFICIENCY.--In a state of attention the mind
may be likened to the rays of the sun which have been passed through a
burning glass. You may let all the rays which can pass through your
window pane fall hour after hour upon the paper lying on your desk, and
no marked effects follow. But let the same amount of sunlight be passed
through a lens and converged to a point the size of your pencil point,
and the paper will at once burst into flame. What the diffused rays
could not do in hours or in ages is now accomplished in seconds.
Likewise the mind, allowed to scatter over many objects, can accomplish
but little. We may sit and dream away an hour or a day over a page or a
problem without securing results. But let us call in our wits from their
wool-gathering and "buckle down to it" with all our might, withdrawing
our thoughts from everything else but this _one thing_, and
concentrating our mind on it. More can now be accomplished in minutes
than before in hours. Nay, _things which could not be accomplished at
all before_ now become possible.

Again, the mind may be compared to a steam engine which is constructed
to run at a certain pressure of steam, say one hundred and fifty pounds
to the square inch of boiler surface. Once I ran such an engine; and
well I remember a morning during my early apprenticeship when the
foreman called for power to run some of the lighter machinery, while my
steam gauge registered but seventy-five pounds. "Surely," I thought, "if
one hundred and fifty pounds will run all this machinery, seventy-five
pounds should run half of it," so I opened the valve. But the powerful
engine could do but little more than turn its own wheels, and refused
to do the required work. Not until the pressure had risen above one
hundred pounds could the engine perform half the work which it could at
one hundred and fifty pounds. And so with our mind. If it is meant to do
its best work under a certain degree of concentration, it cannot in a
given time do half the work with half the attention. Further, there will
be much _which it cannot do at all_ unless working under full pressure.
We shall not be overstating the case if we say that as attention
increases in arithmetical ratio, mental efficiency increases in
geometrical ratio. It is in large measure a difference in the power of
attention which makes one man a master in thought and achievement and
another his humble follower. One often hears it said that "genius is but
the power of sustained attention," and this statement possesses a large
element of truth.

3. HOW WE ATTEND

Someone has said that if our attention is properly trained we should be
able "to look at the point of a cambric needle for half an hour without
winking." But this is a false idea of attention. The ability to look at
the point of a cambric needle for half an hour might indicate a very
laudable power of concentration; but the process, instead of
enlightening us concerning the point of the needle, would result in our
passing into a hypnotic state. Voluntary attention to any one object can
be sustained for but a brief time--a few seconds at best. It is
essential that the object change, that we turn it over and over
incessantly, and consider its various aspects and relations. Sustained
voluntary attention is thus a repetition of successive efforts to bring
back the object to the mind. Then the subject grows and develops--it is
living, not dead.

ATTENTION A RELATING ACTIVITY.--When we are attending strongly to one
object of thought it does not mean that consciousness sits staring
vacantly at this one object, but rather that it uses it as a central
core of thought, and thinks into relation with this object the things
which belong with it. In working out some mathematical solution the
central core is the principle upon which the solution is based, and
concentration in this case consists in thinking the various conditions
of the problem in relation to this underlying principle. In the
accompanying diagram (Fig. 4) let A be the central core of some object
of thought, say a patch of cloud in a picture, and let _a_, _b_, _c_,
_d_, etc., be the related facts, or the shape, size, color, etc., of the
cloud. The arrows indicate the passing of our thought from cloud to
related fact, or from related fact to cloud, and from related fact to
related fact. As long as these related facts lead back to the cloud each
time, that long we are attending to the cloud and thinking about it. It
is when our thought fails to go back that we "wander" in our attention.
Then we leave _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, etc., which are related to the cloud,
and, flying off to _x_, _y_, and _z,_ finally bring up heaven knows
where.

[Illustration: FIG. 4]

THE RHYTHMS OF ATTENTION.--Attention works in rhythms. This is to say
that it never maintains a constant level of concentration for any
considerable length of time, but regularly ebbs and flows. The
explanation of this rhythmic action would take us too far afield at this
point. When we remember, however, that our entire organism works within
a great system of rhythms--hunger, thirst, sleep, fatigue, and many
others--it is easy to see that the same law may apply to attention. The
rhythms of attention vary greatly, the fluctuations often being only a
few seconds apart for certain simple sensations, and probably a much
greater distance apart for the more complex process of thinking. The
seeming variation in the sound of a distant waterfall, now loud and now
faint, is caused by the rhythm of attention and easily allows us to
measure the rhythm for this particular sensation.

4. POINTS OF FAILURE IN ATTENTION

LACK OF CONCENTRATION.--There are two chief types of inattention whose
danger threatens every person. _First_, we may be thinking about the
right things, but not thinking _hard_ enough. We lack mental pressure.
Outside thoughts which have no relation to the subject in hand may not
trouble us much, but we do not attack our problem with vim. The current
in our stream of consciousness is moving too slowly. We do not gather up
all our mental forces and mass them on the subject before us in a way
that means victory. Our thoughts may be sufficiently focused, but they
fail to "set fire." It is like focusing the sun's rays while an eclipse
is on. They lack energy. They will not kindle the paper after they have
passed through the lens. This kind of attention means mental dawdling.
It means inefficiency. For the individual it means defeat in life's
battles; for the nation it means mediocrity and stagnation.

A college professor said to his faithful but poorly prepared class,
"Judging from your worn and tired appearance, young people, you are
putting in twice too many hours on study." At this commendation the
class brightened up visibly. "But," he continued, "judging from your
preparation, you do not study quite half hard enough."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21