The Mind and Its Education

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

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Happy is the student who, starting in on his lesson rested and fresh,
can study with such concentration that an hour of steady application
will leave him mentally exhausted and limp. That is one hour of triumph
for him, no matter what else he may have accomplished or failed to
accomplish during the time. He can afford an occasional pause for rest,
for difficulties will melt rapidly away before him. He possesses one key
to successful achievement.

MENTAL WANDERING.--_Second_, we may have good mental power and be able
to think hard and efficiently on any one point, but lack the power to
think in a straight line. Every stray thought that comes along is a
"will-o'-the-wisp" to lead us away from the subject in hand and into
lines of thought not relating to it. Who has not started in to think on
some problem, and, after a few moments, been surprised to find himself
miles away from the topic upon which he started! Or who has not read
down a page and, turning to the next, found that he did not know a word
on the preceding page, his thoughts having wandered away, his eyes only
going through the process of reading! Instead of sticking to the _a_,
_b_, _c_, _d_, etc., of our topic and relating them all up to A, thereby
reaching a solution of the problem, we often jump at once to _x_, _y_,
_z_, and find ourselves far afield with all possibility of a solution
gone. We may have brilliant thoughts about _x_, _y_, _z_, but they are
not related to anything in particular, and so they pass from us and are
gone--lost in oblivion because they are not attached to something
permanent.

Such a thinker is at the mercy of circumstances, following blindly the
leadings of trains of thought which are his master instead of his
servant, and which lead him anywhere or nowhere without let or hindrance
from him. His consciousness moves rapidly enough and with enough force,
but it is like a ship without a helm. Starting for the intellectual port
_A_ by way of _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, he is mentally shipwrecked at last on
the rocks _x_, _y_, _z_, and never reaches harbor. Fortunate is he who
can shut out intruding thoughts and think in a straight line. Even with
mediocre ability he may accomplish more by his thinking than the
brilliant thinker who is constantly having his mental train wrecked by
stray thoughts which slip in on his right of way.

5. TYPES OF ATTENTION

THE THREE TYPES OF ATTENTION.--Attention may be secured in three ways:
(1) It is demanded by some sudden or intense sensory stimulus or
insistent idea, or (2) it follows interest, or (3) it is compelled by
the will. If it comes in the first way, as from a thunderclap or a flash
of light, or from the persistent attempt of some unsought idea to secure
entrance into the mind, it is called _involuntary_ attention. This form
of attention is of so little importance, comparatively, in our mental
life that we shall not discuss it further.

If attention comes in the second way, following interest, it is called
_nonvoluntary_ or spontaneous attention; if in the third, compelled by
the will, _voluntary_ or active attention. Nonvoluntary attention has
its motive in some object external to consciousness, or else follows a
more or less uncontrolled current of thought which interests us;
voluntary attention is controlled from within--_we_ decide what we shall
attend to instead of letting interesting objects of thought determine it
for us.

INTEREST AND NONVOLUNTARY ATTENTION.--In nonvoluntary attention the
environment largely determines what we shall attend to. All that we have
to do with directing this kind of attention is in developing certain
lines of interest, and then the interesting things attract attention.
The things we see and hear and touch and taste and smell, the things we
like, the things we do and hope to do--these are the determining factors
in our mental life so long as we are giving nonvoluntary attention. Our
attention follows the beckoning of these things as the needle the
magnet. It is no effort to attend to them, but rather the effort would
be to keep from attending to them. Who does not remember reading a
story, perhaps a forbidden one, so interesting that when mother called
up the stairs for us to come down to attend to some duty, we replied,
"Yes, in a minute," and then went on reading! We simply could not stop
at that place. The minute lengthens into ten, and another call startles
us. "Yes, I'm coming;" we turn just one more leaf, and are lost again.
At last comes a third call in tones so imperative that it cannot be
longer ignored, and we lay the book down, but open to the place where we
left off, and where we hope soon to begin further to unravel the
delightful mystery. Was it an effort to attend to the reading? Ah, no!
it took the combined force of our will and of mother's authority to
drag the attention away. This is nonvoluntary attention.

Left to itself, then, attention simply obeys natural laws and follows
the line of least resistance. By far the larger portion of our attention
is of this type. Thought often runs on hour after hour when we are not
conscious of effort or struggle to compel us to cease thinking about
this thing and begin thinking about that. Indeed, it may be doubted
whether this is not the case with some persons for days at a time,
instead of hours. The things that present themselves to the mind are the
things which occupy it; the character of the thought is determined by
the character of our interests. It is this fact which makes it vitally
necessary that our interests shall be broad and pure if our thoughts are
to be of this type. It is not enough that we have the strength to drive
from our minds a wrong or impure thought which seeks entrance. To stand
guard as a policeman over our thoughts to see that no unworthy one
enters, requires too much time and energy. Our interests must be of such
a nature as to lead us away from the field of unworthy thoughts if we
are to be free from their tyranny.

THE WILL AND VOLUNTARY ATTENTION.--In voluntary attention there is a
conflict either between the will and interest or between the will and
the mental inertia or laziness, which has to be overcome before we can
think with any degree of concentration. Interest says, "Follow this
line, which is easy and attractive, or which requires but little
effort--follow the line of least resistance." Will says, "Quit that line
of dalliance and ease, and take this harder way which I direct--cease
the line of least resistance and take the one of greatest resistance."
When day dreams and "castles in Spain" attempt to lure you from your
lessons, refuse to follow; shut out these vagabond thoughts and stick to
your task. When intellectual inertia deadens your thought and clogs your
mental stream, throw it off and court forceful effort. If wrong or
impure thoughts seek entrance to your mind, close and lock your mental
doors to them. If thoughts of desire try to drive out thoughts of duty,
be heroic and insist that thoughts of duty shall have right of way. In
short, see that _you_ are the master of your thinking, and do not let it
always be directed without your consent by influences outside of
yourself.

It is just at this point that the strong will wins victory and the weak
will breaks down. Between the ability to control one's thoughts and the
inability to control them lies all the difference between right actions
and wrong actions; between withstanding temptation and yielding to it;
between an inefficient purposeless life and a life of purpose and
endeavor; between success and failure. For we act in accordance with
those things which our thought rests upon. Suppose two lines of thought
represented by _A_ and _B_, respectively, lie before you; that _A_ leads
to a course of action difficult or unpleasant, but necessary to success
or duty, and that _B_ leads to a course of action easy or pleasant, but
fatal to success or duty. Which course will you follow--the rugged path
of duty or the easier one of pleasure? The answer depends almost wholly,
if not entirely, on your power of attention. If your will is strong
enough to pull your thoughts away from the fatal but attractive _B_ and
hold them resolutely on the less attractive _A_, then _A_ will dictate
your course of action, and you will respond to the call for endeavor,
self-denial, and duty; but if your thoughts break away from the
domination of your will and allow the beckoning of your interests
alone, then _B_ will dictate your course of action, and you will follow
the leading of ease and pleasure. _For our actions are finally and
irrevocably dictated by the things we think about._

NOT REALLY DIFFERENT KINDS OF ATTENTION.--It is not to be understood,
however, from what has been said, that there are _really_ different
kinds of attention. All attention denotes an active or dynamic phase of
consciousness. The difference is rather _in the way we secure
attention_; whether it is demanded by sudden stimulus, coaxed from us by
interesting objects of thought without effort on our part, or compelled
by force of will to desert the more interesting and take the direction
which we dictate.

6. IMPROVING THE POWER OF ATTENTION

While attention is no doubt partly a natural gift, yet there is probably
no power of the mind more susceptible to training than is attention. And
with attention, as with every other power of body and mind, the secret
of its development lies in its use. Stated briefly, the only way to
train attention is by attending. No amount of theorizing or resolving
can take the place of practice in the actual process of attending.

MAKING DIFFERENT KINDS OF ATTENTION REENFORCE EACH OTHER.--A very close
relationship and interdependence exists between nonvoluntary and
voluntary attention. It would be impossible to hold our attention by
sheer force of will on objects which were forever devoid of interest;
likewise the blind following of our interests and desires would finally
lead to shipwreck in all our lives. Each kind of attention must support
and reenforce the other. The lessons, the sermons, the lectures, and
the books in which we are most interested, and hence to which we attend
nonvoluntarily and with the least effort and fatigue, are the ones out
of which, other things being equal, we get the most and remember the
best and longest. On the other hand, there are sometimes lessons and
lectures and books, and many things besides, which are not intensely
interesting, but which should be attended to nevertheless. It is at this
point that the will must step in and take command. If it has not the
strength to do this, it is in so far a weak will, and steps should be
taken to develop it. We are to "_keep the faculty of effort alive in us
by a little gratuitous exercise every day_." We are to be systematically
heroic in the little points of everyday life and experience. We are not
to shrink from tasks because they are difficult or unpleasant. Then,
when the test comes, we shall not find ourselves unnerved and untrained,
but shall be able to stand in the evil day.

THE HABIT OF ATTENTION.--Finally, one of the chief things in training
the attention is _to form the habit of attending_. This habit is to be
formed only by _attending_ whenever and wherever the proper thing to do
is to attend, whether "in work, in play, in making fishing flies, in
preparing for an examination, in courting a sweetheart, in reading a
book." The lesson, or the sermon, or the lecture, may not be very
interesting; but if they are to be attended to at all, our rule should
be to attend to them completely and absolutely. Not by fits and starts,
now drifting away and now jerking ourselves back, but _all the time_.
And, furthermore, the one who will deliberately do this will often find
the dull and uninteresting task become more interesting; but if it never
becomes interesting, he is at least forming a habit which will be
invaluable to him through life. On the other hand, the one who fails to
attend except when his interest is captured, who never exerts effort to
compel attention, is forming a habit which will be the bane of his
thinking until his stream of thought shall end.

7. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION

1. Which fatigues you more, to give attention of the nonvoluntary type,
or the voluntary? Which can you maintain longer? Which is the more
pleasant and agreeable to give? Under which can you accomplish more?
What bearing have these facts on teaching?

2. Try to follow for one or two minutes the "wave" in your
consciousness, and then describe the course taken by your attention.

3. Have you observed one class alert in attention, and another lifeless
and inattentive? Can you explain the causes lying back of this
difference? Estimate the relative amount of work accomplished under the
two conditions.

4. What distractions have you observed in the schoolroom tending to
break up attention?

5. Have you seen pupils inattentive from lack of (1) change, (2) pure
air, (3) enthusiasm on the part of the teacher, (4) fatigue, (5) ill
health?

6. Have you noticed a difference in the _habit_ of attention in
different pupils? Have you noticed the same thing for whole schools or
rooms?

7. Do you know of children too much given to daydreaming? Are you?

8. Have you seen a teacher rap the desk for attention? What type of
attention was secured? Does it pay?

9. Have you observed any instance in which pupils' lack of attention
should be blamed on the teacher? If so, what was the fault? The remedy?

10. Visit a school room or a recitation, and then write an account of
the types and degrees of attention you observed. Try to explain the
factors responsible for any failures in attention, and also those
responsible for the good attention shown.

CHAPTER III

THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM

A fine brain, or a good mind. These terms are often used
interchangeably, as if they stood for the same thing. Yet the brain is
material substance--so many cells and fibers, a pulpy protoplasmic mass
weighing some three pounds and shut away from the outside world in a
casket of bone. The mind is a spiritual thing--the sum of the processes
by which we think and feel and will, mastering our world and
accomplishing our destiny.

1. THE RELATIONS OF MIND AND BRAIN

INTERACTION OF MIND AND BRAIN.--How, then, come these two widely
different facts, mind and brain, to be so related in our speech? Why are
the terms so commonly interchanged?--It is because mind and brain are so
vitally related in their processes and so inseparably connected in their
work. No movement of our thought, no bit of sensation, no memory, no
feeling, no act of decision but is accompanied by its own particular
activity in the cells of the brain. It is this that the psychologist has
in mind when he says, _no psychosis without its corresponding neurosis_.

So far as our present existence is concerned, then, no mind ever works
except through some brain, and a brain without a mind becomes but a mass
of dead matter, so much clay. Mind and brain are perfectly adapted to
each other. Nor is this mere accident. For through the ages of man's
past history each has grown up and developed into its present state of
efficiency by working in conjunction with the other. Each has helped
form the other and determine its qualities. Not only is this true for
the race in its evolution, but for every individual as he passes from
infancy to maturity.

THE BRAIN AS THE MIND'S MACHINE.--In the first chapter we saw that the
brain does not create the mind, but that the mind works through the
brain. No one can believe that the brain secretes mind as the liver
secretes bile, or that it grinds it out as a mill does flour. Indeed,
just what their exact relation is has not yet been settled. Yet it is
easy to see that if the mind must use the brain as a machine and work
through it, then the mind must be subject to the limitations of its
machine, or, in other words, the mind cannot be better than the brain
through which it operates. A brain and nervous system that are poorly
developed or insufficiently nourished mean low grade of efficiency in
our mental processes, just as a poorly constructed or wrongly adjusted
motor means loss of power in applying the electric current to its work.
We will, then, look upon the mind and the brain as counterparts of each
other, each performing activities which correspond to activities in the
other, both inextricably bound together at least so far as this life is
concerned, and each getting its significance by its union with the
other. This view will lend interest to a brief study of the brain and
nervous system.

2. THE MIND'S DEPENDENCE ON THE EXTERNAL WORLD

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 opens its eyes on the scenes of its
new existence. What is in its mind? What does it think about? Nothing.
Imagine, if you can, a person born blind and deaf, and without the sense
of touch, taste, or smell. Let such a person live on for a year, for
five years, for a lifetime. What would he know? What ray of intelligence
would enter his mind? What would he think about? All would be dark to
his eyes, all silent to his ears, all tasteless to his mouth, all
odorless to his nostrils, all touchless to his skin. His mind would be a
blank. He would have no mind. He could not get started to think. He
could not get started to act. He would belong to a lower scale of life
than the tiny animal that floats with the waves and the tide in the
ocean without power to direct its own course. He would be but an inert
mass of flesh without sense or intelligence.

THE MIND AT BIRTH.--Yet this is the condition of the babe at birth. It
is born practically blind and deaf, without definite sense of taste or
smell. Born without anything to think about, and no way to get anything
to think about until the senses wake up and furnish some material from
the outside world. Born with all the mechanism of muscle and nerve ready
to perform the countless complex movements of arms and legs and body
which characterize every child, he could not successfully start these
activities without a message from the senses to set them going. At birth
the child probably has only the senses of contact and temperature
present with any degree of clearness; taste soon follows; vision of an
imperfect sort in a few days; hearing about the same time, and smell a
little later. The senses are waking up and beginning their acquaintance
with the outside world.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--A NEURONE FROM A HUMAN SPINAL CORD. The central
portion represents the cell body. N, the nucleus; P, a pigmented or
colored spot; D, a dendrite, or relatively short fiber,--which branches
freely; A, an axon or long fiber, which branches but little.]

THE WORK OF THE SENSES.--And what a problem the senses have to solve! On
the one hand the great universe of sights and sounds, of tastes and
smells, of contacts and temperatures, and whatever else may belong to
the material world in which we live; and on the other hand the little
shapeless mass of gray and white pulpy matter called the brain,
incapable of sustaining its own shape, shut away in the darkness of a
bony case with no possibility of contact with the outside world, and
possessing no means of communicating with it except through the senses.
And yet this universe of external things must be brought into
communication with the seemingly insignificant but really wonderful
brain, else the mind could never be. Here we discover, then, the two
great factors which first require our study if we would understand the
growth of the mind--_the material world without, and the brain within_.
For it is the action and interaction of these which lie at the bottom of
the mind's development. Let us first look a little more closely at the
brain and the accompanying nervous system.

3. STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

It will help in understanding both the structure and the working of the
nervous system to keep in mind that it contains _but one fundamental
unit of structure_. This is the neurone. Just as the house is built up
by adding brick upon brick, so brain, cord, nerves and organs of sense
are formed by the union of numberless neurones.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Neurones in different stages of development,
from _a_ to _e_. In _a_, the elementary cell body alone is present; in
_c_, a dendrite is shown projecting upward and an axon downward.--After
DONALDSON.]

THE NEURONE.--What, then, is a neurone? What is its structure, its
function, how does it act? A neurone is _a protoplasmic cell, with its
outgrowing fibers_. The cell part of the neurone is of a variety of
shapes, triangular, pyramidal, cylindrical, and irregular. The cells
vary in size from 1/250 to 1/3500 of an inch in diameter. In general the
function of the cell is thought to be to generate the nervous energy
responsible for our consciousness--sensation, memory, reasoning, feeling
and all the rest, and for our movements. The cell also provides for the
nutrition of the fibers.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Longitudinal (a) and Transverse (b) section of
nerve fiber. The heavy border represents the medullary, or enveloping
sheath, which becomes thicker in the larger fibers.--After DONALDSON.]

NEURONE FIBERS.--The neurone fibers are of two kinds, _dendrites_ and
_axons_. The dendrites are comparatively large in diameter, branch
freely, like the branches of a tree, and extend but a relatively short
distance from the parent cell. Axons are slender, and branch but little,
and then approximately at right angles. They reach a much greater
distance from the cell body than the dendrites. Neurones vary greatly in
length. Some of those found in the spinal cord and brain are not more
than 1/12 of an inch long, while others which reach from the extremities
to the cord, measure several feet. Both dendrites and axons are of
diameter so small as to be invisible except under the microscope.

NEUROGLIA.--Out of this simple structural element, the neurone, the
entire nervous system is built. True, the neurones are held in place,
and perhaps insulated, by a kind of soft cement called _neuroglia_. But
this seems to possess no strictly nervous function. The number of the
microscopic neurones required to make up the mass of the brain, cord and
peripheral nervous system is far beyond our mental grasp. It is computed
that the brain and cord contain some 3,000 millions of them.

COMPLEXITY OF THE BRAIN.--Something of the complexity of the brain
structure can best be understood by an illustration. Professor Stratton
estimates that if we were to make a model of the human brain, using for
the neurone fibers wires so small as to be barely visible to the eye, in
order to find room for all the wires the model would need to be the size
of a city block on the base and correspondingly high. Imagine a
telephone system of this complexity operating from one switch-board!

"GRAY" AND "WHITE" MATTER.--The "gray matter" of the brain and cord is
made up of nerve cells and their dendrites, and the terminations of
axons, which enter from the adjoining white matter. A part of the mass
of gray matter also consists of the neuroglia which surrounds the nerve
cells and fibers, and a network of blood vessels. The "white matter" of
the central system consists chiefly of axons with their enveloping or
medullary, sheath and neuroglia. The white matter contains no nerve
cells or dendrites. The difference in color of the gray and the white
matter is caused chiefly by the fact that in the gray masses the
medullary sheath, which is white, is lacking, thus revealing the ashen
gray of the nerve threads. In the white masses the medullary sheath is
present.

4. GROSS STRUCTURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

DIVISIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.--The nervous system may be considered
in two divisions: (1) The _central_ system, which consists of the brain
and spinal cord, and (2) the _peripheral_ system, which comprises the
sensory and motor neurones connecting the periphery and the internal
organs with the central system and the specialized end-organs of the
senses. The _sympathetic_ system, which is found as a double chain of
nerve connections joining the roots of sensory and motor nerves just
outside the spinal column, does not seem to be directly related to
consciousness and so will not be discussed here. A brief description of
the nervous system will help us better to understand how its parts all
work together in so wonderful a way to accomplish their great result.

THE CENTRAL SYSTEM.--In the brain we easily distinguish three major
divisions--the _cerebrum_, the _cerebellum_ and the _medulla oblongata_.
The medulla is but the enlarged upper part of the cord where it connects
with the brain. It is about an inch and a quarter long, and is composed
of both medullated and unmedullated fibers--that is of both "white" and
"gray" matter. In the medulla, the unmedullated neurones which comprise
the center of the cord are passing to the outside, and the medullated to
the inside, thus taking the positions they occupy in the cerebrum. Here
also the neurones are crossing, or changing sides, so that those which
pass up the right side of the cord finally connect with the left side of
the brain, and vice versa.

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