Maurice Joblin - "Cleveland Past and Present"

Jessie Graham Flower - "Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College"

Various - "Roumanian Fairy Tales"

Henry D. Thoreau - "Excursions"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Mind and Its Education

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




Not only would the skill and speed demanded by modern industry be
impossible without the aid of habit, but without its help none could
stand the fatigue and strain. The new workman placed at a high-speed
machine is ready to fall from weariness at the end of his first day. But
little by little he learns to omit the unnecessary movements, the
necessary movements become easier and more automatic through habit, and
he finds the work easier. We may conclude, then, that not only do
consciously directed movements show less skill than the same movements
made automatic by habit, but they also require more effort and produce
greater fatigue.

HABIT ECONOMIZES MORAL EFFORT.--To have to decide each time the question
comes up whether we will attend to this lecture or sermon or lesson;
whether we will persevere and go through this piece of disagreeable work
which we have begun; whether we will go to the trouble of being
courteous and kind to this or that poor or unlovely or dirty
fellow-mortal; whether we will take this road because it looks easy, or
that one because we know it to be the one we ought to take; whether we
will be strictly fair and honest when we might just as well be the
opposite; whether we will resist the temptation which dares us; whether
we will do this duty, hard though it is, which confronts us--to have to
decide each of these questions every time it presents itself is to put
too large a proportion of our thought and energy on things which should
take care of themselves. For all these things should early become so
nearly habitual that they can be settled with the very minimum of
expenditure of energy when they arise.

THE HABIT OF ATTENTION.--It is a noble thing to be able to attend by
sheer force of will when the interest lags, or some more attractive
thing appears, but far better is it so to have formed the habit of
attention that we naturally fall into that attitude when this is the
desirable thing. To understand what I mean, you only have to look over a
class or an audience and note the different ways which people have of
finally settling down to listening. Some with an attitude which says,
"Now here I am, ready to listen to you if you will interest me,
otherwise not." Others with a manner which says, "I did not really come
here expecting to listen, and you will have a large task if you
interest me; I never listen unless I am compelled to, and the
responsibility rests on you." Others plainly say, "I really mean to
listen, but I have hard work to control my thoughts, and if I wander I
shall not blame you altogether; it is just my way." And still others
say, "When I am expected to listen, I always listen whether there is
anything much to listen to or not. I have formed that habit, and so have
no quarrel with myself about it. You can depend on me to be attentive,
for I cannot afford to weaken my habit of attention whether you do well
or not." Every speaker will clasp these last listeners to his heart and
feed them on the choicest thoughts of his soul; they are the ones to
whom he speaks and to whom his address will appeal.

HABIT ENABLES US TO MEET THE DISAGREEABLE.--To be able to persevere in
the face of difficulties and hardships and carry through the
disagreeable thing in spite of the protests of our natures against the
sacrifice which it requires, is a creditable thing; but it is more
creditable to have so formed the habit of perseverance that the
disagreeable duty shall be done without a struggle, or protest, or
question. Horace Mann testifies of himself that whatever success he was
able to attain was made possible through the early habit which he formed
of never stopping to inquire whether he _liked_ to do a thing which
needed doing, but of doing everything equally well and without question,
both the pleasant and the unpleasant.

The youth who can fight out a moral battle and win against the
allurements of some attractive temptation is worthy the highest honor
and praise; but so long as he has to fight the same battle over and over
again, he is on dangerous ground morally. For good morals must finally
become habits, so ingrained in us that the right decision comes largely
without effort and without struggle. Otherwise the strain is too great,
and defeat will occasionally come; and defeat means weakness and at last
disaster, after the spirit has tired of the constant conflict. And so on
in a hundred lines. Good habits are more to be coveted than individual
victories in special cases, much as these are to be desired. For good
habits mean victories all along the line.

HABIT THE FOUNDATION OF PERSONALITY.--The biologist tells us that it is
the _constant_ and not the _occasional_ in the environment that
impresses itself on an organism. So also it is the _habitual_ in our
lives that builds itself into our character and personality. In a very
real sense we _are_ what we are in the habit of doing and thinking.

Without habit, personality could not exist; for we could never do a
thing twice alike, and hence would be a new person each succeeding
moment. The acts which give us our own peculiar individuality are our
habitual acts--the little things that do themselves moment by moment
without care or attention, and are the truest and best expression of our
real selves. Probably no one of us could be very sure which arm he puts
into the sleeve, or which foot he puts into the shoe, first; and yet
each of us certainly formed the habit long ago of doing these things in
a certain way. We might not be able to describe just how we hold knife
and fork and spoon, and yet each has his own characteristic and habitual
way of handling them. We sit down and get up in some characteristic way,
and the very poise of our heads and attitudes of our bodies are the
result of habit. We get sleepy and wake up, become hungry and thirsty at
certain hours, through force of habit. We form the habit of liking a
certain chair, or nook, or corner, or path, or desk, and then seek this
to the exclusion of all others. We habitually use a particular pitch of
voice and type of enunciation in speaking, and this becomes one of our
characteristic marks; or we form the habit of using barbarisms or
solecisms of language in youth, and these cling to us and become an
inseparable part of us later in life.

On the mental side the case is no different. Our thinking is as
characteristic as our physical acts. We may form the habit of thinking
things out logically, or of jumping to conclusions; of thinking
critically and independently, or of taking things unquestioningly on the
authority of others. We may form the habit of carefully reading good,
sensible books, or of skimming sentimental and trashy ones; of choosing
elevating, ennobling companions, or the opposite; of being a good
conversationalist and doing our part in a social group, or of being a
drag on the conversation, and needing to be "entertained." We may form
the habit of observing the things about us and enjoying the beautiful in
our environment, or of failing to observe or to enjoy. We may form the
habit of obeying the voice of conscience or of weakly yielding to
temptation without a struggle; of taking a reverent attitude of prayer
in our devotions, or of merely saying our prayers.

HABIT SAVES WORRY AND REBELLION.--Habit has been called the "balance
wheel" of society. This is because men readily become habituated to the
hard, the disagreeable, or the inevitable, and cease to battle against
it. A lot that at first seems unendurable after a time causes less
revolt. A sorrow that seems too poignant to be borne in the course of
time loses some of its sharpness. Oppression or injustice that arouses
the fiercest resentment and hate may finally come to be accepted with
resignation. Habit helps us learn that "what cannot be cured must be
endured."


3. THE TYRANNY OF HABIT

EVEN GOOD HABITS NEED TO BE MODIFIED.--But even in good habits there is
danger. Habit is the opposite of attention. Habit relieves attention of
unnecessary strain. Every habitual act was at one time, either in the
history of the race or of the individual, a voluntary act; that is, it
was performed under active attention. As the habit grew, attention was
gradually rendered unnecessary, until finally it dropped entirely out.
And herein lies the danger. Habit once formed has no way of being
modified unless in some way attention is called to it, for a habit left
to itself becomes more and more firmly fixed. The rut grows deeper. In
very few, if any, of our actions can we afford to have this the case.
Our habits need to be progressive, they need to grow, to be modified, to
be improved. Otherwise they will become an incrusting shell, fixed and
unyielding, which will limit our growth.

It is necessary, then, to keep our habitual acts under some surveillance
of attention, to pass them in review for inspection every now and then,
that we may discover possible modifications which will make them more
serviceable. We need to be inventive, constantly to find out better ways
of doing things. Habit takes care of our standing, walking, sitting; but
how many of us could not improve his poise and carriage if he would? Our
speech has become largely automatic, but no doubt all of us might remove
faults of enunciation, pronunciation or stress from our speaking. So
also we might better our habits of study and thinking, our methods of
memorizing, or our manner of attending.

THE TENDENCY OF "RUTS."--But this will require something of heroism. For
to follow the well-beaten path of custom is easy and pleasant, while to
break out of the rut of habit and start a new line of action is
difficult and disturbing. Most people prefer to keep doing things as
they always have done them, to continue reading and thinking and
believing as they have long been in the habit of doing, not so much
because they feel that their way is best, but because it is easier than
to change. Hence the great mass of us settle down on the plane of
mediocrity, and become "old fogy." We learn to do things passably well,
cease to think about improving our ways of doing them, and so fall into
a rut. Only the few go on. They make use of habit as the rest do, but
they also continue to attend at critical points of action, and so make
habit an _ally_ in place of accepting it as a _tyrant_.


4. HABIT-FORMING A PART OF EDUCATION

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 realize how soon they will
become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to
their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates,
good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or
of vice leaves its never-so-little scar." Any youth who is forming a
large number of useful habits is receiving no mean education, no matter
if his knowledge of books may be limited; on the other hand, no one who
is forming a large number of bad habits is being well educated, no
matter how brilliant his knowledge may be.

YOUTH THE TIME FOR HABIT-FORMING.--Childhood and youth is the great time
for habit-forming. Then the brain is plastic and easily molded, and it
retains its impressions more indelibly; later it is hard to modify, and
the impressions made are less permanent. It is hard to teach an old dog
new tricks; nor would he remember them if you could teach them to him,
nor be able to perform them well even if he could remember them. The
young child will, within the first few weeks of its life, form habits of
sleeping and feeding. It may in a few days be led into the habit of
sleeping in the dark, or requiring a light; of going to sleep lying
quietly, or of insisting upon being rocked; of getting hungry by the
clock, or of wanting its food at all times when it finds nothing else to
do, and so on. It is wholly outside the power of the mother or the nurse
to determine whether the child shall form habits, but largely within
their power to say what habits shall be formed, since they control his
acts.

As the child grows older, the range of his habits increases; and by the
time he has reached his middle teens, the greater number of his personal
habits are formed. It is very doubtful whether a boy who has not formed
habits of punctuality before the age of fifteen will ever be entirely
trustworthy in matters requiring precision in this line. The girl who
has not, before this age, formed habits of neatness and order will
hardly make a tidy housekeeper later in her life. Those who in youth
have no opportunity to habituate themselves to the usages of society may
study books on etiquette and employ private instructors in the art of
polite behavior all they please later in life, but they will never cease
to be awkward and ill at ease. None are at a greater disadvantage than
the suddenly-grown-rich who attempt late in life to surround themselves
with articles of art and luxury, though their habits were all formed
amid barrenness and want during their earlier years.

THE HABIT OF ACHIEVEMENT.--What youth does not dream of being great, or
noble, or a celebrated scholar! And how few there are who finally
achieve their ideals! Where does the cause of failure lie? Surely not in
the lack of high ideals. Multitudes of young people have "Excelsior!" as
their motto, and yet never get started up the mountain slope, let alone
toiling on to its top. They have put in hours dreaming of the glory
farther up, _and have never begun to climb_. The difficulty comes in not
realizing that the only way to become what we wish or dream that we may
become is _to form the habit of being that thing_. To form the habit of
achievement, of effort, of self-sacrifice, if need be. To form the habit
of deeds along with dreams; to form the habit of _doing_.

Who of us has not at this moment lying in wait for his convenience in
the dim future a number of things which he means to do just as soon as
this term of school is finished, or this job of work is completed, or
when he is not so busy as now? And how seldom does he ever get at these
things at all! Darwin tells that in his youth he loved poetry, art, and
music, but was so busy with his scientific work that he could ill spare
the time to indulge these tastes. So he promised himself that he would
devote his time to scientific work and make his mark in this. Then he
would have time for the things that he loved, and would cultivate his
taste for the fine arts. He made his mark in the field of science, and
then turned again to poetry, to music, to art. But alas! they were all
dead and dry bones to him, without life or interest. He had passed the
time when he could ever form the taste for them. He had formed his
habits in another direction, and now it was forever too late to form new
habits. His own conclusion is, that if he had his life to live over
again, he would each week listen to some musical concert and visit some
art gallery, and that each day he would read some poetry, and thereby
keep alive and active the love for them.

So every school and home should be a species of habit-factory--a place
where children develop habits of neatness, punctuality, obedience,
politeness, dependability and the other graces of character.


5. RULES FOR HABIT-FORMING

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 "Moral Habits." I quote this
statement at some length: "In the acquisition of a new habit, or the
leaving off of an old one, we must take care to _launch ourselves with
as strong and decided an initiative as possible_. Accumulate all the
possible circumstances which shall reenforce right motives; put yourself
assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements
incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in
short, develop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give
your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down
will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which
a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at
all.

"The second maxim is: _Never suffer an exception to occur until the new
habit is securely rooted in your life._ Each lapse is like letting fall
a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes
more than a great many turns will wind again. _Continuity_ of training
is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right....
The need of securing success nerves one to future vigor.

"A third maxim may be added to the preceding pair: _Seize the very first
possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every
emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits
you aspire to gain._ It is not in the moment of their forming, but in
the moment of their producing _motor effects_, that resolves and
aspirations communicate the new 'set' to the brain."[3]

THE PREPONDERANCE OF GOOD HABITS OVER BAD.--And finally, let no one be
disturbed or afraid because in a little time you become a "walking
bundle of habits." For in so far as your good actions predominate over
your bad ones, that much will your good habits outweigh your bad habits.
Silently, moment by moment, efficiency is growing out of all worthy acts
well done. Every bit of heroic self-sacrifice, every battle fought and
won, every good deed performed, is being irradicably credited to you in
your nervous system, and will finally add its mite toward achieving the
success of your ambitions.


6. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION

1. Select some act which you have recently begun to perform and watch it
grow more and more habitual. Notice carefully for a week and see whether
you do not discover some habits which you did not know you had. Make a
catalog of your bad habits; of the most important of your good ones.

2. Set out to form some new habits which you desire to possess; also to
break some undesirable habit, watching carefully what takes place in
both cases, and how long it requires.

3. Try the following experiment and relate the results to the matter of
automatic control brought about by habit: Draw a star on a sheet of
cardboard. Place this on a table before you, with a hand-mirror so
arranged that you can see the star in the mirror. Now trace the outline
of the star with a pencil, looking steadily in the mirror to guide your
hand. Do not lift the pencil from the paper from the time you start
until you finish. Have others try this experiment.

4. Study some group of pupils for their habits (1) of attention, (2) of
speech, (3) of standing, sitting, and walking, (4) of study. Report on
your observations and suggest methods of curing bad habits observed.

5. Make a list of "mannerisms" you have observed, and suggest how they
may be cured.

6. Make a list of from ten to twenty habits which you think the school
and its work should especially cultivate. What ones of these are the
schools you know least successful in cultivating? Where does the trouble
lie?




CHAPTER VI

SENSATION


We can best understand the problems of sensation and perception if we
first think of the existence of two great worlds--the world of physical
nature without and the world of mind within. On the one hand is our
material environment, the things we see and hear and touch and taste and
handle; and on the other hand our consciousness, the means by which we
come to know this outer world and adjust ourselves to it. These two
worlds seem in a sense to belong to and require each other. For what
would be the meaning or use of the physical world with no mind to know
or use it; and what would be the use of a mind with nothing to be known
or thought about?


1. HOW WE COME TO KNOW THE EXTERNAL WORLD

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 it now appears to us as commonplace,
and we take for granted many things that it would puzzle us to explain.

KNOWLEDGE THROUGH THE SENSES.--For example, we say, "Of course I see
yonder green tree: it is about ten rods distant." But why "of course"?
Why should objects at a distance from us and with no evident connection
between us and them be known to us at all merely by turning our eyes in
their direction when there is light? Why not rather say with the blind
son of Professor Puiseaux of Paris, who, when asked if he would like to
be restored to sight, answered: "If it were not for curiosity I would
rather have long arms. It seems to me that my hands would teach me
better what is passing in the moon than your eyes or telescopes."

We listen and then say, "Yes, that is a certain bell ringing in the
neighboring village," as if this were the most simple thing in the
world. But why should one piece of metal striking against another a mile
or two away make us aware that there is a bell there at all, let alone
that it is a certain bell whose tone we recognize? Or we pass our
fingers over a piece of cloth and decide, "That is silk." But why,
merely by placing our skin in contact with a bit of material, should we
be able to know its quality, much less that it is cloth and that its
threads were originally spun by an insect? Or we take a sip of liquid
and say, "This milk is sour." But why should we be able by taking the
liquid into the mouth and bringing it into contact with the mucous
membrane to tell that it is milk, and that it possesses the quality
which we call _sour_? Or, once more, we get a whiff of air through the
open window in the springtime and say, "There is a lilac bush in bloom
on the lawn." Yet why, from inhaling air containing particles of lilac,
should we be able to know that there is anything outside, much less that
it is a flower and of a particular variety which we call lilac? Or,
finally, we hold a heated flatiron up near the cheek and say, "This is
too hot! it will burn the cloth." But why by holding this object a foot
away from the face do we know that it is there, let alone knowing its
temperature?

THE UNITY OF SENSORY EXPERIENCE.--Further, our senses come through
experience to have the power of fusing, or combining their knowledge, so
to speak, by which each expresses its knowledge in terms of the others.
Thus we take a glance out of the window and say that the day looks cold,
although we well know that we cannot see _cold_. Or we say that the
melon sounds green, or the bell sounds cracked, although a _crack_ or
_greenness_ cannot be heard. Or we say that the box feels empty,
although _emptiness_ cannot be felt. We have come to associate cold,
originally experienced with days which look like the one we now see,
with this particular appearance, and so we say we see the cold; sounds
like the one coming from the bell we have come to associate with cracked
bells, and that coming from the melon with green melons, until we say
unhesitatingly that the bell sounds cracked and the melon sounds green.
And so with the various senses. Each gleans from the world its own
particular bit of knowledge, but all are finally in a partnership and
what is each one's knowledge belongs to every other one in so far as the
other can use it.

THE SENSORY PROCESSES TO BE EXPLAINED.--The explanation of the ultimate
nature of knowledge, and how we reach it through contact with our
material environment, we will leave to the philosophers. And battles
enough they have over the question, and still others they will have
before the matter is settled. The easier and more important problem for
us is to describe the _processes_ by which the mind comes to know its
environment, and to see how it uses this knowledge in thinking. This
much we shall be able to do, for it is often possible to describe a
process and discover its laws even when we cannot fully explain its
nature and origin. We know the process of digestion and assimilation,
and the laws which govern them, although we do not understand the
ultimate nature and origin of _life_ which makes these possible.

THE QUALITIES OF OBJECTS EXIST IN THE MIND.--Yet even in the relatively
simple description which we have proposed many puzzles confront us, and
one of them appears at the very outset. This is that the qualities which
we usually ascribe to objects really exist in our own minds and not in
the objects at all. Take, for instance, the common qualities of light
and color. The physicist tells us that what we see as light is
occasioned by an incredibly rapid beating of ether waves on the retina
of the eye. All space is filled with this ether; and when it is
light--that is, when some object like the sun or other light-giving body
is present--the ether is set in motion by the vibrating molecules of the
body which is the source of light, its waves strike the retina, a
current is produced and carried to the brain, and we see light. This
means, then, that space, the medium in which we see objects, is not
filled with light (the sensation), but with very rapid waves of ether,
and that the light which we see really occurs in our own minds as the
mental response to the physical stimulus of ether waves. Likewise with
color. Color is produced by ether waves of different lengths and degrees
of rapidity.

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