The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-08-30

simple that it can be easily understood
one can get an outlined idea of the
structure of the machine in very easy
way. All we have to start with is GER
tain active impulses, instincts and ten
dencieS; we talk about sensations, but
after all, sensations of life would be
Of no value to us, if there were no i'm
pulses or instincts or appetiteS back
of it. The eye is to be thought Of, not
as a receiving organ, but first as an
active organ, the same as the hand as
graSping or a reaching-Out organ.
We should never succeed in seeing any
thing if our eyes were not continually
searching out something, roaming
about; we might have all the sensa-
tions we have got now, but if it were
not for reactive tendency the whole
world would be an absolute blur to
uS-a mental cloud.
1--WE begin with certain instincts
and impulses Now if these express
themselves as they show themselves,
they come into contact with outward
conditions; they run up against some
thing. The child reaches out, and as
he reaches out he grasps; he feels
something; it may be rough or smooth,
hot or cold, large or small; now his
impulse has taught him something: the
burnt child grasped fire At first he
is controlled by his active impulses;
if he sees a bright light he reaches for
it; he gets his finger burnt; now the
next time he breads the fire; he di-
reefs his activity in a different way
True, from contact he gets his sensa-
tons about objects, and as he gets that
he derives new tendencies, so the next
ti111n tn of, hn atc l,o%
emily in his active impulses. Now this
continual outflow of the active i'm
pulses, with the continual return of
sensations or ideas, which he got
through activity, constitutes in gen
eral way, the scheme of the working of
this machine. Where every act which
is put forth under normal conditions
it mobiles future activity That is
what we mean by forming habits.
I'VE cannot mold the child literally
from without as to it's habits; we have
got to find something in which the
child cO-OperateS with the tendencies
to which we wish to mold it. AS to
habits, a child, for instance, is kept
figuring sums at school, but as ma4-
ter of fact, most persons when they
get into business later on in life learn
their arithmetic then; in the case of
the child it is literally showed into
him, because it is said that by repeti-
ton, by doing the same thing over and
over again, he will become proficient;
if the child has anything in mind or
anything to gain by any particular fig
uring that has any connection with
anything he wants to do himself, he
makes real use of it, and he doesn't
wait until he is grown up; it becomes
a part of his working capital and
something, then, which he cannot lose.
He doesn't store up muscle in his arm
to use some twenty years later on;
he has use for it while he is gaining
it.
"a word about habits and their for
nation. The old, old theory is that
having formed habit by repeated
repetitions, you finally have the habit
firmly fixed upon you. To the con-
trary, repetition is a consequence of
the formation of a habit, and not the
source If a child repeats a thing
twenty times in a laundering way he
has not got the habit right; he has a
bad habit; but if he has the habit
formed right away, he will have more
stimulus about acquiring good habits;
if a child'S reading is confined to read
ing certain sentences, by constantly re-
peating the same sentences over and
over again for the sake of learning to
read, what habit can be got by the rep
etition of such nonsense? Nothing.
If he is given a new sentence in read
ing he gets a new idea of the world,
and his habits for observation are
thereby quickened. We lose more time
in this one respect than in any other
one thing. AS a rule, this just doing
thing over and over again means
that we are simply trying to make good
by sheer nonsense for some lack of
original experience.