The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-15
BELIEVES IN THE ROD.
Or. Hall Thinks That a Good Spanking
and Good Scolding Are Indispensable.

DR.. Hall spoke on 1.-The evolution of
primitive sensation" He said in
substance. The beginnings of psychic
life are now generally ascribed to SEN
sation. We know that the sensory
fibres develop and acquire their func-
lions before the motor fibres.
The tendency is to conceive the world
as a unity. We can now perhaps take
a broader view and see how sense de-
veloped. Some believed that even in
animate matter had a germ of sense in
it. In man the germs are co-ordinated
and unified
The lowest and oldest sensation is
touch. 1t is found, no doubt, in plants
The sensitive points of roots of plants
seem to feel their way toward their
proper nutriment. Whether this is ex-
actly touch or the germs of many other
sensations. is not known. There is a
very interesting sensation in man which
is the primordial sense of mankind. 1t
is the tickle sense, whereby a feather
or hair brings about a reaction. The
fact that a very slight touch prevokes
such massive motor discharges, seems
to be primordial. If this is the very
| oldest stratum of psychic life in the hui
man soul, it has enormous interest to
us. 1t has been shown that this type
of sensation played a very important
role, and we have only the rudiments
| left
! The sense of touch is the most inter-
esting of all the sensations. child
does not recognize its own feet at first,
and will try to throw them out of the
cradle. Gradually the child learns the
dimensions and forms of its own body.
| We become rudely to consider all
outside the skin as the non ego, and all
within as ego Touch can be cult
waited enormously.
The skin is a bundle of sensations,
| heat, cold, etc. Touch is the mother
of all sensations All through animal
! life there are gradations in sensation.
We have not hardly as yet begun to
develop this in our psychology. Chill
dren probably ought to be educated in
many kinds of touch.
Taste is perhaps most closely related
to touch. Taste goes way down into
the vegetable world. It's principal func-
ton is to discriminate what is suitable
for nutrition
Taste perseveres well into old age,
after blindness and deafness come.
Smell is another of the guardians to
the entrance to- the alimentary canal
Smell is anticipatory to taste. Olfac-
tory psychosis has played a large part
in the study of life. Smell seems to
p0 more SuDlle THAN Sight. we nave
associations with smell. Almost all
the emotions may be induced by this
sense. The range of this sensation is
very great. indeed.
1t seems as if there was a great de-
velopment of this sense in an infant, to
make it recognize it's mother 1t is a
decadent sense in man, however, and
sight takes its place.
In regard to hearing, we know that
xNFo -, e
the development of the organs of hear
ing. When we speak of people who are
sensualists, in which sense do we
mean? OF course, speech and music are
the two great functions of hearing. The
lower animals do not possess this.
First of all the ear seems to be sensi-
tive to noises, first to noises of the
species, then of the enemies to the spe-
cies. Then comes more development of
sounds, and in animal life that antici-
! pates speech and music. But 1t is music
in the large sense Of the word which
comes before speech.
| To understand language presupposes
| very complex ears and brains. To teach
, accurate hearing is an important thing
, in education. The mode of teaching any
spoken language is through the ear.
In sight, we have also a great differ
| entiation. We can trace its DEVELOPMENT
In lower animals by the little eye spots
that seem to tell difference between
light and dark. If the higher senses are
lost, the tendency is to develop others.
! 1t is important to have all the senses
developed, and the old object lesson
method of teaching is good.
These, then, are the the five senses.
II has been said that we really have
from 1000 to $4,000 sensations; that
these may be Disseminated in many
ways. 1t is true and Of the utmost i'm
! portance that the child cannot know
anything which he does not receive by