The Story of the Mind

J >> James Mark Baldwin >> The Story of the Mind

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Coming a little closer to the pedagogical problems which this type of
pupil raises before us, we find, in the first place, that it is
excessively difficult for this scholar to give continuous or adequate
attention to anything of any complexity. The movements of attention
are so easy, the outlets of energy, to use the physical figure, so
large and well used, that the minor relationships of the thing are
passed over. The variations of the object from its class are swept
away in the onrush of his motor tendencies. He assumes the facts which
he does not understand, and goes right on to express himself in
action on these assumptions. So while he seems to take in what is told
him, with an intuition that is surprisingly swift, and a personal
adaptation no less surprising, the disappointment is only the more
keen when the instructor finds the next day that he has not penetrated
at all into the inner current of this scholar's mental processes.

Again, as marked as this is in its early stages, the continuance of it
leads to results which are nothing short of deplorable. When such a
student has gone through a preparatory school without overcoming this
tendency to "fluid attention" and comes to college, the instructors in
the higher institutions are practically helpless before him. We say of
him that "he has never learned to study," that he does not know "how
to apply himself," that he has no "power of assimilation." All of
which simply means that his channels of reaction are so formed already
that no instruction can get sufficient lodgment in him to bring about
any modification of his "apperceptive systems." The embarrassment is
the more marked because such a youth, all through his education
period, is willing, ready, evidently receptive, prompt, and punctual
in all his tasks.

Now what shall be done with such a student in his early school years?
This is a question for the secondary teacher especially, apart from
the more primary measures recommended above. It is in the years
between eight and fifteen that this type of mind has its rapid
development; before that the treatment is mainly preventive, and
consists largely in suggestions which aim to make the muscular
discharges more deliberate and the general tone less explosive. But
when the boy or girl comes to school with the dawning capacity for
independent self-direction and personal application, then it is that
the problem of the motor scholar becomes critical. The "let-alone"
method puts a premium upon the development of his tendencies and the
eventual playing out of his mental possibilities in mere motion.
Certain positive ways of giving some indirect discipline to the mind
of this type may be suggested.

Give this student relatively difficult and complex tasks. There is no
way to hinder his exuberant self-discharges except by measures which
embarrass and baffle him. We can not "lead him into all truth"; we
have to drive him back from all error. The lessons of psychology are
to the effect that the normal way to teach caution and deliberation is
the way of failure, repulse, and unfortunate, even painful,
consequences. Personal appeals to him do little good, since it is a
part of his complaint that he is too ready to hear all appeals; and
also, since he is not aware of his own lack nor able to carry what he
hears into effect. So keep him in company of scholars a little more
advanced than he is. Keep him out of the concert recitations, where
his tendency to haste would work both personal and social harm.
Refrain from giving him assistance in his tasks until he has learned
from them something of the real lesson of discouragement, and then
help him only by degrees, and by showing him one step at a time, with
constant renewals of his own efforts. Shield him with the greatest
pains from distractions of all kinds, for even the things and events
about him may carry his attention off at the most critical moments.
Give him usually the secondary parts in the games of the school,
except when real planning, complex execution, and more or less
generalship are required; then give him the leading parts: they
exercise his activities in new ways not covered by habit, and if he do
not rise to their complexity, then the other party to the sport will,
and his haste will have its own punishment, and so be a lesson to him.

Besides these general checks and regulations, there remains the very
important question as to what studies are most available for this type
of mind. I have intimated already the general answer that ought to be
given to this question. The aim of the studies of the motor student
should be discipline in the direction of correct generalization, and,
as helpful to this, discipline in careful observation of concrete
facts. On the other hand, the studies which involve principles simply
of a descriptive kind should have little place in his daily study.
They call out largely the more mechanical operations of memory, and
their command can be secured for the most part by mere repetition of
details all similar in character and of equal value. The measure of
the utility to him of the different studies of the schoolroom is found
in the relative demand they make upon him to modify his hasty personal
reactions, to suspend his thoughtless rush to general results, and
back of it all, to hold the attention long enough upon the facts as
they arise to get some sense of the logical relationships which bind
them together. Studies which do not afford any logical relationships,
and which tend, on the contrary, to foster the habit of learning by
repetition, only tend to fix the student in the quality of attention
which I have called "fluidity."

In particular, therefore: give this student all the mathematics he
can absorb, and pass him from arithmetic into geometry, leaving his
algebra till later. Give him plenty of grammar, taught inductively.
Start him early in the elements of physics and chemistry. And as
opposed to this, keep him out of the classes of descriptive botany and
zooelogy. Rather let him join exploring parties for the study of
plants, stones, and animals. A few pet animals are a valuable adjunct
to any school museum. If there be an industrial school or machine shop
near at hand, try to get him interested in the way things are made,
and encourage him to join in such employments. A false generalization
in the wheels of a cart supplies its own corrective very quickly, or
in the rigging and sails of a toy boat. Drawing from models is a fine
exercise for such a youth, and drawing from life, as soon as he gets a
little advanced in the control of his pencil. All this, it is easy to
see, trains his impulsive movements into some degree of subjection to
the deliberative processes.

With this general line of treatment in mind, the details of which the
reader will work out in the light of the boy's type, space allows me
only two more points before I pass to the sensory scholar.

First, in all the teaching of the type of mind now in question, pursue
a method which proceeds from the particular to the general. The
discussion of pedagogical method with all its ins and outs needs to
take cognizance of the differences of students in their type. The
motor student should never, in normal cases, be given a general
formula and told to work out particular instances; that is too much
his tendency already--to approach facts from the point of view of
their resemblances. What he needs rather is a sense of the dignity of
the single fact, and of the necessity of giving it its separate place,
before hastening on to lose it in the flow of a general statement. So
whether the teacher have in hand mathematics, grammar, or science, let
him disclose the principles only gradually, and always only so far as
they are justified by the observations which the boy has been led to
make for himself. For the reason that such a method is practically
impossible in the descriptive sciences, and some other branches, as
taught in the schoolbooks--botany, zooelogy, and, worse than all,
history and geography--we should restrict their part in the discipline
studies of such a youth. They require simple memory, without
observation, and put a premium on hasty and temporary acquisition.

As I have said, algebra should be subordinated to geometry. Algebra
has as its distinctive method the principle of substitution, whereby
symbols of equal and, for the most part, absolute generality are
substituted for one another, and the results stand for one fact as
well as for another, in disregard of the worth of the particular in
the scheme of nature. For the same reason, deductive logic is not a
good discipline for these students; empirical psychology, or political
economy, is a better introduction to the moral sciences for them when
they reach the high school. This explains what was meant above in the
remark as to the method of teaching grammar. As to language study
generally, I think the value of it, at this period, and later, is
extraordinarily overrated. The proportion of time given to language
study in our secondary schools is nothing short of a public crime in
its effect upon students of this type--and indeed of any type. This,
however, is a matter to which we return below. The average student
comes to college with his sense of exploration, his inductive
capacity, stifled at its birth. He stands appalled when confronted
with the unassimilated details of any science which does not give him
a "key" in the shape of general formulas made up beforehand. Were it
not that his enlarging experience of life is all the while running
counter to the trend of his so-called education, he would probably
graduate ready for the social position in which authority takes the
place of evidence, and imitation is the method of life.

Second, the teacher should be on the lookout for a tendency which is
very characteristic of a student of this type, the tendency, i. e., to
fall into elaborate guessing at results. Take a little child of about
seven or eight years of age, especially one who has the marks of motor
heredity, and observe the method of his acquisition of new words in
reading. First he speaks the word which his habit dictates, and, that
being wrong, he rolls his eyes away from the text and makes a guess of
the first word that comes into his mind; this he keeps up as long as
the teacher persists in asking him to try again. Here is the same
tendency that carries him later on in his education to a general
conclusion by a short cut. He has not learned to interpret the data of
a deliberate judgment, and his attention does not dwell on the
necessary details. So with him all through his training; he is always
ready with a guess. Here, again, the teacher can do him good only by
patiently employing the inductive method. Lead him back to the
simplest elements of the problem in hand, and help him gradually to
build up a result step by step.

I think in this, as in most of the work with these scholars, the
association with children of the opposite type is one of the best
correctives, provided the companionship is not made altogether
one-sided by the motor boy's perpetual monopolizing of all the avenues
of personal expression. When he fails in the class, the kind of social
lesson which is valuable may be taught him by submitting the same
question to a pupil of the plodding, deliberate kind, and waiting for
the latter to work it out. Of course, if the teacher have any
supervision over the playground, similar treatment can be employed
there.

Coming to consider the so-called "sensory" youth of the age between
eight, let us say, and sixteen--the age during which the training of
the secondary school presents its great problems--we find certain
interesting contrasts between this type and that already characterized
as "motor." The study of this type of youth is the more pressing for
reasons which I have already hinted in considering the same type in
the earlier childhood period. It is necessary, first, to endeavour to
get a fairly adequate view of the psychological characteristics of
this sort of pupil.

The current psychological doctrine of mental "types" rests upon a
great mass of facts, drawn in the first instance from the different
kinds of mental trouble, especially those which involve derangements
of speech--the different kinds of Aphasia. The broadest generalization
which is reached from these facts is that which marks the distinction,
of which I have already said so much, between the motor and the
sensory types. But besides this general distinction there are many
finer ones; and in considering the persons of the sensory type, it is
necessary to inquire into these finer distinctions. Not only do men
and children differ in the matter of the sort of mental material which
they find requisite, as to whether it is pictures of movements on the
one hand, or pictures from the special senses on the other hand; but
they differ also in the latter case with respect to which of the
special senses it is, in this case or that, which gives the particular
individual his necessary cue, and his most perfect function. So we
find inside of the general group called "sensory" several relatively
distinct cases, all of which the teacher is likely to come across in
varying numbers in a class of pupils. Of these the "visual" and the
"auditory" are most important.

There are certain aspects of the case which are so common to all the
cases of sensory minds, whether they be visual, auditory, or other,
that I may set them out before proceeding further.

First, in all these matters of type distinction, one of the essential
things to observe is the behaviour of the Attention. We have already
seen that the attention is implicated to a remarkable degree--in what
I called "fluid attention" above--in the motor scholar. The same
implication of the attention occurs in all the sensory cases, but
presents very different aspects; and the common fact that the
attention is directly involved affords us one of the best rules of
judgment and distinction. We may say, generally, of the sensory
children, that the attention is best, most facile, most
interest-carrying for some one preferred sense, leading for this sense
into preoccupation and ready distraction. This tendency manifests
itself, as we saw above, in the motor persons also, taking effect in
action, speed, vivacity, hasty generalization, etc.; but in the
sensory one it takes on varying forms. This first aspect of our
typical distinction of minds we may call "the relation of the
'favoured function' to the attention."

Then, second, there is another and somewhat contrasted relation which
also assumes importance when we come to consider individual cases; and
that is the relation of the "favoured function"--say movement, vision,
hearing, etc.--to Habit. It is a common enough observation, that habit
renders functions easy, and that habits are hard to break; indeed, all
treatment of habits is likely to degenerate into the commonplace. But,
when looked at as related to the attention, certain truths emerge from
the consideration of habit.

In general, we may say that habit bears a twofold relation to
attention: on the one hand, _facile attention shows the reign of
habit_. The solid acquisitions are those with which attention is at
home, and which are therefore more or less habitual. But, on the other
hand, it is equally true that _attention is in inverse ratio to
habit_. We need to attend least to these functions which are most
habitual, and we have to attend most to those which are novel and only
half acquired. We get new acquisitions mainly, indeed, by strained
attention. So we have a contrast of possible interpretations in all
cases of sharp and exclusive attention by the children: _does the
attention represent a Habit in this particular action of the
child_?--or, _does it represent the breaking up of a habit, an act of
Accommodation_? In each case these questions have to be intelligently
considered. The motor person, usually, when uninstructed and not held
back, uses his attention under the lead of habit. It is largely the
teacher's business in his case, as we saw, to get him to hold,
conserve, and direct his attention steadily to the novel and the
complex. The sensory person, on the other hand, shows the attention
obstructed by details, hindered by novelties, unable to pass smoothly
over its acquisitions, and in general lacking the regular influence of
habit in leading him to summarize and utilize his mental store in
general ways.

The third general aspect of the topic is this: the person of the
sensory type is more likely to be the one in whom positive derangement
occurs in the higher levels, and in response to the more refined
social and personal influences. This, for the reason that this type
represents brain processes of greater inertia and complexity, with
greater liability to obstruction. They are slower, and proceed over
larger brain areas.

With these general remarks, then, on the wider aspects of the
distinction of types, we may now turn to one of the particular cases
which occurs among sensory individuals. This is all that our space
will allow.

_The Visual Type._--The so-called "visuals," or "eye-minded" people
among us, are numerically the largest class of the sensory population.
They resort to visual imagery whenever possible, either because that
is the prevailing tendency with them, or because, in the particular
function in question in any special act, the visual material comes
most readily to mind. The details of fact regarding the "visuals" are
very interesting; but I shall not take space to dwell upon them. The
sphere in which the facts regarding the pupil of this type are
important to the teacher is that of language, taken with the group of
problems which arise about instruction in language. The question of
his symbolism, and its relations to mathematics, logic, etc., is
important. And finally, the sphere of the pupil's _expression_ in all
its forms. Then, from all his discoveries in these things, the teacher
is called upon to make his method of teaching and his general
treatment suitable to this student.

The visual pupil usually shows himself to be so predominately in his
speech and language functions; he learns best and fastest from copies
which he sees. He delights in illustrations put in terms of vision, as
when actually drawn out on the blackboard for him to see. He
understands what he reads better than what he hears; and he uses his
visual symbols as a sort of common coin into which to convert the
images which come to him through his other senses. In regard to the
movements of attention, we may say that this boy or girl illustrates
both the aspects of the attention-function which I pointed out above;
he attends best--that is, most effectively--to visual instruction
provided he exert himself; but on the other hand, it is just here that
the drift of habit tends to make him superficial. As attention to the
visual is the most easy for him, and as the details of his visual
stock are most familiar, so he tends to pass too quickly over the new
matters which are presented to him, assimilating the details to the
old schemes of his habit. It is most important to observe this
distinction, since it is analogous to the "fluid attention" of the
motor scholar; and some of the very important questions regarding
correlation of studies, the training of attention, and the stimulation
of interest depend upon its recognition. _Acquisition best just where
it is most likely to go wrong_; that is the state of things. The
voluntary use of the visual function gives the best results; but the
habitual, involuntary, slipshod use of it gives bad results, and tends
to the formation of injurious habits.

For example, I set a strongly visual boy a "copy" to draw. Seeing this
visual copy he will quickly recognise it, take it to be very easy,
dash it off quickly, all under the lead of habit; but his result is
poor, because his habit has taken the place of effort. Once get him to
make effort upon it, however, and his will be the best result of all
the scholars, perhaps, just because the task calls him out in the line
of his favoured function. The same antithesis comes out in connection
with other varieties of sensory scholars.

We may say, therefore, in regard to two of the general aspects of
mental types--the relation of the favoured function to attention, on
the one hand, and to habit, on the other--that they both find emphatic
illustration in the pupil of the visual type. He is, more than any
other sensory pupil, a special case. His mental processes set
decidedly toward vision. He is the more important, also, because he is
so common. Statistics are lacking, but possibly half of the entire
human family in civilized life are visual in their type for most of
the language functions. This is due, no doubt, to the emphasis that
civilization puts upon sight as the means of social acquisition
generally, and to our predominantly visual methods of instruction.

The third fact mentioned is also illustrated by this type; the fact
that mental instruction and derangement may come easily, through the
stress laid upon vision in the person's mental economy. I need not
enlarge upon the different forms of special defect which come through
impairment of sight by central lesion or degeneration of the visual
centers and connections. Suffice it to say that they are very common,
and very difficult of recovery. The visual person is often so
completely a slave to his sight that when that fails either in itself
or through weakness of attention he becomes a wreck off the shore of
the ocean of intellect. When we consider the large proportion just
mentioned of pupils of this type, the care which should be exercised
by the school authorities in the matter of favourable conditions of
light, avoidance of visual fatigue, proper distance-adjustments in all
visual application as regards focus, symmetry, size of objects,
copies, prints, etc., becomes at once sufficiently evident to the
thoughtful teacher, as it should be still earlier to the parent. There
should be a medical examination, by a competent oculist, before the
child goes to school, and regular tests afterward. School examiners
and boards should have qualifications for reporting on the hygienic
conditions of the school as regards lighting. The bright glare of a
neighbouring wall before a window toward which children with weak eyes
face when at their desks may result not only in common defects of
vision but also in resulting mental and moral damage; and the results
are worse to those who depend mainly on vision for the food, drink,
and exercise, so to speak, of their growing minds.

As to the methods of teaching these and also the other sensory pupils,
the indications already given must suffice. The statement of some of
these far-reaching problems of educational psychology, and of the
directions in which their answers are to be sought, exhausts the
purpose of this chapter. In general it may be said that the
recommendations made for the treatment of sensory children at the
earlier stage may be extended to later periods also, and that the
treatment should be, for the most part, in intelligent contrast to
that which the motor pupils receive.

_Language Study._--From this general consideration of the child's
training it becomes evident that the great subjects which are most
useful for discipline in the period of secondary education are the
mathematical studies on the one hand, which exercise the faculty of
abstraction, and the positive sciences, which train the power of
observation and require truth to detail. If we should pursue the
subject into the collegiate period, we should find mental and moral
science, literature, and history coming to their rights. If this be in
the main psychological, we see that language study, as such, should
have no great place in secondary education. The study of grammar, as
has been already said, is very useful in the early periods of
development if taught vocally; it brings the child out in
self-expression, and carries its own correctives, from the fact that
its results are always open to social control. These are, in my mind,
the main functions of the study of language.

What, then, is the justification for devoting ten or twelve years of
the youth's time to study of a dead language, as is commonly done in
the case of Latin? The utility of expression does not enter into it,
and the discipline of truth to elegant literary copy can be even so
well attained from the study of our own tongue, which is lamentably
neglected. In all this dreary language study, the youth's interest is
dried up at its source. He is fed on formulas and rules; he has no
outlet for invention or discovery; lists of exceptions to the rules
destroy the remnant of his curiosity and incentive; even reasoning
from analogy is strictly forbidden him; he is shut up from Nature as
in a room with no windows; the dictionary is his authority as absolute
and final as it is flat and sterile. His very industry, being forced
rather than spontaneous, makes him mentally, no less than physically,
stoop-shouldered and near-sighted. It seems to be one of those
mistakes of the past still so well lodged in tradition and class
rivalry that soundness of culture is artificially identified with its
maintenance. Yet there is no reason that the spirit of classical
culture and the durable elements of Greek and Roman life should not be
as well acquired--nay, better--from the study of history, archaeology,
and literature. For this language work is not study of literature. Not
one in one hundred of the students who are forced through the
periodical examinations in these languages ever gets any insight into
their aesthetic quality or any inspiration from their form.

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