Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1910-04-08
UNION NORMAL CLASS.
Prof. Mcfarland Speaks Helpfully
on Important Subjects

on Important Subjects.
A regular meeting of the Union Nor
NAL class was held in the Methodist
chapel on Monday evening. The presi-
dent of the class, DR.. Howard L.
Averill, announced that future meetings
will be held on Wednesday evenings.
Rev. Arthur E. Hartman, of the Me
mortal church, offered prayer, and the
secretary, Mrs. S. r. Patrick, read the
minutes of the previous meeting.
The members of the class listened to
one of the most interesting lectures in
the course, and gathered from it many
practical suggestions which will tend to
increase their efficiency as Bible school
workers. Prof. Mcfarland said, in
part, as follows
''This evening / wish to speak to you
about four important subjects, namely,
Perception and Apperception, and In
terest and Attention.
Consider, first of all, the meaning of
perception. The mind receives the ma
terials of knowledge through the senses,
that is, through the impressions which
the nerves carry to the brain. There
are five senses: Hearing, seeing, smell
ing, tasting and feeling. To these five
senses some modern observers are in
clined to add two more, namely, the
sense of weight and the temperature
sense. The impressions which the
nerves of the sense-organs bear to the
brain are called sensations. Now per-
ception is the recognition, on the part
of the mind, of that which causes the
sensation.
For example: Suppose an infant is
pricked by a pin. The child feels
sensation, but its experience of life is
too brief to be able to trace out the
cause of the sensation; it is, therefore,
without perception. In later years,
accommodating experiences will enable
the child to refer the sensation to the
pin-prick, and so perception is formed.
Great emphasis is laid today upon the
training of the perceptions in definite
ness and accuracy. The mind is thus
developed in its powers of observation.
Not only do material blessings flow into
the life as the result of increasing the
power of observation, but moral bless
ings as well. John Ruskin claimed that
a perception of and love for the beauti-
full in nature leads to a discernment of
the beautiful in the moral world. The
mind sees only what it is capable of
seeing. The wise Bible school teacher
will, therefore, use maps, blackboards
and other suitable aids, in order to open
as many channels as possible to the
child's mind. Eye-gate should be used
as well as ear-gate, and the more of
the child's senses the teacher can en-
list, the deeper and more definite the
impression.
Now let us think, for few moments,
about apperception. The mind works
upon the mass of sensations which the
nerves bring to the brain and strives to
assimilate and classify them. The
process of assimilating new sensations
and attempting to interpret them in the
light of familiar sensations is called APP
perception.
1t is of the utmost Importance that
the teacher should know that the mind
tends to interpret new facts in the
terms of familiar facts; and when,
therefore, she brings some new fact to
the attention of her pupils she should
seek to relate it to something within
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other words, she should seek for a point
of contact with child life.
Suppose, for example, the lesson of
the day required the teacher to say
something about the Fatherhood of
God. How could she approach the
theme more wisely and helpfully than
by speaking of what fatherhood means
in ordinary family relations.
Let us now take up the subject of
interest. The mind has the power of
knowing its own acts, states and pur-
poses, and also the power of focusing
itself upon single object. President
Schurman says that interest is the
greatest word in education, and an
other says that interest is the motive
power of attention. The mind will
eagerly fix itself upon that in which it
has an interest, and sometimes it be-
| comes so absorbed in matter of pecu-
liar interest as to be utterly oblivious to
the sensations which come flowing in
through ordinary channels.
For example: 1t is said that soldiers
have become so absorbed in battle that
they have not known that they We're
wounded.
Attention has been called the tree of
which interest is the root 1t is the
attitude of the mind in which one or
more of the powers are fixed upon
something that is presented to it from
without or within. The word literally
means to stretch towards 1t is,
therefore, the reaching out of the mind
after the thing with which tits concern
ed at the time.
The best way to secure attention is
not by eXacting military requirements,
nor by arbitrary commands, nor by re-
quests for attention, nor by threatening
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