Datasets:

ryandt

/

john-dewey-how-we-think

like 0

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]No words are oftener on our lips than _thinking_ and _thought_. So profuse and varied, indeed, is our use of these words that it is not easy to define just what we mean by them. The aim of this chapter is to find a single consistent meaning. Assistance may be had by considering some typical ways in which the terms are employed. In the first place _thought_ is used broadly, not to say loosely. Everything that comes to mind, that "goes through our heads," is called a thought. To think of a thing is just to be conscious of it in any way whatsoever. Second, the term is restricted by excluding whatever is directly presented; we think (or think of) only such things as we do not directly see, hear, smell, or taste. Then, third, the meaning is further limited to beliefs that rest upon some kind of evidence or testimony. Of this third type, two kinds--or, rather, two degrees--must be discriminated. In some cases, a belief is accepted with slight or almost no attempt to state the grounds that support it. In other cases, the ground or basis for a belief is deliberately sought and its adequacy to support the belief examined. This process is called reflective thought; it alone is truly educative in value, and it forms, accordingly, the principal subject of this volume. We shall now briefly describe each of the four senses. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]I. In its loosest sense, thinking signifies everything that, as we say, is "in our heads" or that "goes through our minds." He who offers "a penny for your thoughts" does not expect to drive any great bargain. In calling the objects of his demand _thoughts_, he does not intend to ascribe to them dignity, consecutiveness, or truth. Any idle fancy, trivial recollection, or flitting impression will satisfy his demand. Daydreaming, building of castles in the air, that loose flux of casual and disconnected material that floats through our minds in relaxed moments are, in this random sense, _thinking_. More of our waking life than we should care to admit, even to ourselves, is likely to be whiled away in this inconsequential trifling with idle fancy and unsubstantial hope. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]In this sense, silly folk and dullards _think_. The story is told of a man in slight repute for intelligence, who, desiring to be chosen selectman in his New England town, addressed a knot of neighbors in this wise: "I hear you don't believe I know enough to hold office. I wish you to understand that I am thinking about something or other most of the time." Now reflective thought is like this random coursing of things through the mind in that it consists of a succession of things thought of; but it is unlike, in that the mere chance occurrence of any chance "something or other" in an irregular sequence does not suffice. Reflection involves not simply a sequence of ideas, but a _con_sequence--a consecutive ordering in such a way that each determines the next as its proper outcome, while each in turn leans back on its predecessors. The successive portions of the reflective thought grow out of one another and support one another; they do not come and go in a medley. Each phase is a step from something to something--technically speaking, it is a term of thought. Each term leaves a deposit which is utilized in the next term. The stream or flow becomes a train, chain, or thread. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]II. Even when thinking is used in a broad sense, it is usually restricted to matters not directly perceived: to what we do not see, smell, hear, or touch. We ask the man telling a story if he saw a certain incident happen, and his reply may be, "No, I only thought of it." A note of invention, as distinct from faithful record of observation, is present. Most important in this class are successions of imaginative incidents and episodes which, having a certain coherence, hanging together on a continuous thread, lie between kaleidoscopic flights of fancy and considerations deliberately employed to establish a conclusion. The imaginative stories poured forth by children possess all degrees of internal congruity; some are disjointed, some are articulated. When connected, they simulate reflective thought; indeed, they usually occur in minds of logical capacity. These imaginative enterprises often precede thinking of the close-knit type and prepare the way for it. But _they do not aim at knowledge, at belief about facts or in truths_; and thereby they are marked off from reflective thought even when they most resemble it. Those who express such thoughts do not expect credence, but rather credit for a well-constructed plot or a well-arranged climax. They produce good stories, not--unless by chance--knowledge. Such thoughts are an efflorescence of feeling; the enhancement of a mood or sentiment is their aim; congruity of emotion, their binding tie. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]III. In its next sense, thought denotes belief resting upon some basis, that is, real or supposed knowledge going beyond what is directly present. It is marked by _acceptance or rejection of something as reasonably probable or improbable_. This phase of thought, however, includes two such distinct types of belief that, even though their difference is strictly one of degree, not of kind, it becomes practically important to consider them separately. Some beliefs are accepted when their grounds have not themselves been considered, others are accepted because their grounds have been examined. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]When we say, "Men used to think the world was flat," or, "I thought you went by the house," we express belief: something is accepted, held to, acquiesced in, or affirmed. But such thoughts may mean a supposition accepted without reference to its real grounds. These may be adequate, they may not; but their value with reference to the support they afford the belief has not been considered. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]Such thoughts grow up unconsciously and without reference to the attainment of correct belief. They are picked up--we know not how. From obscure sources and by unnoticed channels they insinuate themselves into acceptance and become unconsciously a part of our mental furniture. Tradition, instruction, imitation--all of which depend upon authority in some form, or appeal to our own advantage, or fall in with a strong passion--are responsible for them. Such thoughts are prejudices, that is, prejudgments, not judgments proper that rest upon a survey of evidence.[1] [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY] [1] This mode of thinking in its contrast with thoughtful inquiry receives special notice in the next chapter. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]IV. Thoughts that result in belief have an importance attached to them which leads to reflective thought, to conscious inquiry into the nature, conditions, and bearings of the belief. To _think_ of whales and camels in the clouds is to entertain ourselves with fancies, terminable at our pleasure, which do not lead to any belief in particular. But to think of the world as flat is to ascribe a quality to a real thing as its real property. This conclusion denotes a connection among things and hence is not, like imaginative thought, plastic to our mood. Belief in the world's flatness commits him who holds it to thinking in certain specific ways of other objects, such as the heavenly bodies, antipodes, the possibility of navigation. It prescribes to him actions in accordance with his conception of these objects. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]The consequences of a belief upon other beliefs and upon behavior may be so important, then, that men are forced to consider the grounds or reasons of their belief and its logical consequences. This means reflective thought--thought in its eulogistic and emphatic sense. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]Men _thought_ the world was flat until Columbus _thought_ it to be round. The earlier thought was a belief held because men had not the energy or the courage to question what those about them accepted and taught, especially as it was suggested and seemingly confirmed by obvious sensible facts. The thought of Columbus was a _reasoned conclusion_. It marked the close of study into facts, of scrutiny and revision of evidence, of working out the implications of various hypotheses, and of comparing these theoretical results with one another and with known facts. Because Columbus did not accept unhesitatingly the current traditional theory, because he doubted and inquired, he arrived at his thought. Skeptical of what, from long habit, seemed most certain, and credulous of what seemed impossible, he went on thinking until he could produce evidence for both his confidence and his disbelief. Even if his conclusion had finally turned out wrong, it would have been a different sort of belief from those it antagonized, because it was reached by a different method. _Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends_, constitutes reflective thought. Any one of the first three kinds of thought may elicit this type; but once begun, it is a conscious and voluntary effort to establish belief upon a firm basis of reasons. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]There are, however, no sharp lines of demarcation between the various operations just outlined. The problem of attaining correct habits of reflection would be much easier than it is, did not the different modes of thinking blend insensibly into one another. So far, we have considered rather extreme instances of each kind in order to get the field clearly before us. Let us now reverse this operation; let us consider a rudimentary case of thinking, lying between careful examination of evidence and a mere irresponsible stream of fancies. A man is walking on a warm day. The sky was clear the last time he observed it; but presently he notes, while occupied primarily with other things, that the air is cooler. It occurs to him that it is probably going to rain; looking up, he sees a dark cloud between him and the sun, and he then quickens his steps. What, if anything, in such a situation can be called thought? Neither the act of walking nor the noting of the cold is a thought. Walking is one direction of activity; looking and noting are other modes of activity. The likelihood that it will rain is, however, something _suggested_. The pedestrian _feels_ the cold; he _thinks of_ clouds and a coming shower. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]So far there is the same sort of situation as when one looking at a cloud is reminded of a human figure and face. Thinking in both of these cases (the cases of belief and of fancy) involves a noted or perceived fact, followed by something else which is not observed but which is brought to mind, suggested by the thing seen. One reminds us, as we say, of the other. Side by side, however, with this factor of agreement in the two cases of suggestion is a factor of marked disagreement. We do not _believe_ in the face suggested by the cloud; we do not consider at all the probability of its being a fact. There is no _reflective_ thought. The danger of rain, on the contrary, presents itself to us as a genuine possibility--as a possible fact of the same nature as the observed coolness. Put differently, we do not regard the cloud as meaning or indicating a face, but merely as suggesting it, while we do consider that the coolness may mean rain. In the first case, seeing an object, we just happen, as we say, to think of something else; in the second, we consider the _possibility and nature of the connection between the object seen and the object suggested_. The seen thing is regarded as in some way _the ground or basis of belief_ in the suggested thing; it possesses the quality of _evidence_. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]This function by which one thing signifies or indicates another, and thereby leads us to consider how far one may be regarded as warrant for belief in the other, is, then, the central factor in all reflective or distinctively intellectual thinking. By calling up various situations to which such terms as _signifies_ and _indicates_ apply, the student will best realize for himself the actual facts denoted by the words _reflective thought_. Synonyms for these terms are: points to, tells of, betokens, prognosticates, represents, stands for, implies.[2] We also say one thing portends another; is ominous of another, or a symptom of it, or a key to it, or (if the connection is quite obscure) that it gives a hint, clue, or intimation. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY] [2] _Implies_ is more often used when a principle or general truth brings about belief in some other truth; the other phrases are more frequently used to denote the cases in which one fact or event leads us to believe in something else. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]Reflection thus implies that something is believed in (or disbelieved in), not on its own direct account, but through something else which stands as witness, evidence, proof, voucher, warrant; that is, as _ground of belief_. At one time, rain is actually felt or directly experienced; at another time, we infer that it has rained from the looks of the grass and trees, or that it is going to rain because of the condition of the air or the state of the barometer. At one time, we see a man (or suppose we do) without any intermediary fact; at another time, we are not quite sure what we see, and hunt for accompanying facts that will serve as signs, indications, tokens of what is to be believed. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]Thinking, for the purposes of this inquiry, is defined accordingly as _that operation in which present facts suggest other facts (or truths) in such a way as to induce belief in the latter upon the ground or warrant of the former_. We do not put beliefs that rest simply on inference on the surest level of assurance. To say "I think so" implies that I do not as yet _know_ so. The inferential belief may later be confirmed and come to stand as sure, but in itself it always has a certain element of supposition. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY](_a_) In our illustration, the shock of coolness generated confusion and suspended belief, at least momentarily. Because it was unexpected, it was a shock or an interruption needing to be accounted for, identified, or placed. To say that the abrupt occurrence of the change of temperature constitutes a problem may sound forced and artificial; but if we are willing to extend the meaning of the word _problem_ to whatever--no matter how slight and commonplace in character--perplexes and challenges the mind so that it makes belief at all uncertain, there is a genuine problem or question involved in this experience of sudden change. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) The turning of the head, the lifting of the eyes, the scanning of the heavens, are activities adapted to bring to recognition facts that will answer the question presented by the sudden coolness. The facts as they first presented themselves were perplexing; they suggested, however, clouds. The act of looking was an act to discover if this suggested explanation held good. It may again seem forced to speak of this looking, almost automatic, as an act of research or inquiry. But once more, if we are willing to generalize our conceptions of our mental operations to include the trivial and ordinary as well as the technical and recondite, there is no good reason for refusing to give such a title to the act of looking. The purport of this act of inquiry is to confirm or to refute the suggested belief. New facts are brought to perception, which either corroborate the idea that a change of weather is imminent, or negate it. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]Another instance, commonplace also, yet not quite so trivial, may enforce this lesson. A man traveling in an unfamiliar region comes to a branching of the roads. Having no sure knowledge to fall back upon, he is brought to a standstill of hesitation and suspense. Which road is right? And how shall perplexity be resolved? There are but two alternatives: he must either blindly and arbitrarily take his course, trusting to luck for the outcome, or he must discover grounds for the conclusion that a given road is right. Any attempt to decide the matter by thinking will involve inquiry into other facts, whether brought out by memory or by further observation, or by both. The perplexed wayfarer must carefully scrutinize what is before him and he must cudgel his memory. He looks for evidence that will support belief in favor of either of the roads--for evidence that will weight down one suggestion. He may climb a tree; he may go first in this direction, then in that, looking, in either case, for signs, clues, indications. He wants something in the nature of a signboard or a map, and _his reflection is aimed at the discovery of facts that will serve this purpose_. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]The above illustration may be generalized. Thinking begins in what may fairly enough be called a _forked-road_ situation, a situation which is ambiguous, which presents a dilemma, which proposes alternatives. As long as our activity glides smoothly along from one thing to another, or as long as we permit our imagination to entertain fancies at pleasure, there is no call for reflection. Difficulty or obstruction in the way of reaching a belief brings us, however, to a pause. In the suspense of uncertainty, we metaphorically climb a tree; we try to find some standpoint from which we may survey additional facts and, getting a more commanding view of the situation, may decide how the facts stand related to one another. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]_Demand for the solution of a perplexity is the steadying and guiding factor in the entire process of reflection._ Where there is no question of a problem to be solved or a difficulty to be surmounted, the course of suggestions flows on at random; we have the first type of thought described. If the stream of suggestions is controlled simply by their emotional congruity, their fitting agreeably into a single picture or story, we have the second type. But a question to be answered, an ambiguity to be resolved, sets up an end and holds the current of ideas to a definite channel. Every suggested conclusion is tested by its reference to this regulating end, by its pertinence to the problem in hand. This need of straightening out a perplexity also controls the kind of inquiry undertaken. A traveler whose end is the most beautiful path will look for other considerations and will test suggestions occurring to him on another principle than if he wishes to discover the way to a given city. _The problem fixes the end of thought_ and _the end controls the process of thinking_. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 4. _Summary_ ) [DEWEY]We may recapitulate by saying that the origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion, or doubt. Thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles." There is something specific which occasions and evokes it. General appeals to a child (or to a grown-up) to think, irrespective of the existence in his own experience of some difficulty that troubles him and disturbs his equilibrium, are as futile as advice to lift himself by his boot-straps. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 4. _Summary_ ) [DEWEY]Given a difficulty, the next step is suggestion of some way out--the formation of some tentative plan or project, the entertaining of some theory which will account for the peculiarities in question, the consideration of some solution for the problem. The data at hand cannot supply the solution; they can only suggest it. What, then, are the sources of the suggestion? Clearly past experience and prior knowledge. If the person has had some acquaintance with similar situations, if he has dealt with material of the same sort before, suggestions more or less apt and helpful are likely to arise. But unless there has been experience in some degree analogous, which may now be represented in imagination, confusion remains mere confusion. There is nothing upon which to draw in order to clarify it. Even when a child (or a grown-up) has a problem, to urge him to think when he has no prior experiences involving some of the same conditions, is wholly futile. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 4. _Summary_ ) [DEWEY]If the suggestion that occurs is at once accepted, we have uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection. To turn the thing over in mind, to reflect, means to hunt for additional evidence, for new data, that will develop the suggestion, and will either, as we say, bear it out or else make obvious its absurdity and irrelevance. Given a genuine difficulty and a reasonable amount of analogous experience to draw upon, the difference, _par excellence_, between good and bad thinking is found at this point. The easiest way is to accept any suggestion that seems plausible and thereby bring to an end the condition of mental uneasiness. Reflective thinking is always more or less troublesome because it involves overcoming the inertia that inclines one to accept suggestions at their face value; it involves willingness to endure a condition of mental unrest and disturbance. Reflective thinking, in short, means judgment suspended during further inquiry; and suspense is likely to be somewhat painful. As we shall see later, the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of suspended conclusion, and in mastering the various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the first suggestions that occur. To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry--these are the essentials of thinking. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 4. _Summary_ ) [DEWEY]To expatiate upon the importance of thought would be absurd. The traditional definition of man as "the thinking animal" fixes thought as the essential difference between man and the brutes,--surely an important matter. More relevant to our purpose is the question how thought is important, for an answer to this question will throw light upon the kind of training thought requires if it is to subserve its end. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]I. Thought affords the sole method of escape from purely impulsive or purely routine action. A being without capacity for thought is moved only by instincts and appetites, as these are called forth by outward conditions and by the inner state of the organism. A being thus moved is, as it were, pushed from behind. This is what we mean by the blind nature of brute actions. The agent does not see or foresee the end for which he is acting, nor the results produced by his behaving in one way rather than in another. He does not "know what he is about." Where there is thought, things present act as signs or tokens of things not yet experienced. A thinking being can, accordingly, _act on the basis of the absent and the future_. Instead of being pushed into a mode of action by the sheer urgency of forces, whether instincts or habits, of which he is not aware, a reflective agent is drawn (to some extent at least) to action by some remoter object of which he is indirectly aware. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]An animal without thought may go into its hole when rain threatens, because of some immediate stimulus to its organism. A thinking agent will perceive that certain given facts are probable signs of a future rain, and will take steps in the light of this anticipated future. To plant seeds, to cultivate the soil, to harvest grain, are intentional acts, possible only to a being who has learned to subordinate the immediately felt elements of an experience to those values which these hint at and prophesy. Philosophers have made much of the phrases "book of nature," "language of nature." Well, it is in virtue of the capacity of thought that given things are significant of absent things, and that nature speaks a language which may be interpreted. To a being who thinks, things are records of their past, as fossils tell of the prior history of the earth, and are prophetic of their future, as from the present positions of heavenly bodies remote eclipses are foretold. Shakespeare's "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks," expresses literally enough the power superadded to existences when they appeal to a thinking being. Upon the function of signification depend all foresight, all intelligent planning, deliberation, and calculation. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]II. By thought man also develops and arranges artificial signs to remind him in advance of consequences, and of ways of securing and avoiding them. As the trait just mentioned makes the difference between savage man and brute, so this trait makes the difference between civilized man and savage. A savage who has been shipwrecked in a river may note certain things which serve him as signs of danger in the future. But civilized man deliberately _makes_ such signs; he sets up in advance of wreckage warning buoys, and builds lighthouses where he sees signs that such events may occur. A savage reads weather signs with great expertness; civilized man institutes a weather service by which signs are artificially secured and information is distributed in advance of the appearance of any signs that could be detected without special methods. A savage finds his way skillfully through a wilderness by reading certain obscure indications; civilized man builds a highway which shows the road to all. The savage learns to detect the signs of fire and thereby to invent methods of producing flame; civilized man invents permanent conditions for producing light and heat whenever they are needed. The very essence of civilized culture is that we deliberately erect monuments and memorials, lest we forget; and deliberately institute, in advance of the happening of various contingencies and emergencies of life, devices for detecting their approach and registering their nature, for warding off what is unfavorable, or at least for protecting ourselves from its full impact and for making more secure and extensive what is favorable. All forms of artificial apparatus are intentionally designed modifications of natural things in order that they may serve better than in their natural estate to indicate the hidden, the absent, and the remote. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]III. Finally, thought confers upon physical events and objects a very different status and value from that which they possess to a being that does not reflect. These words are mere scratches, curious variations of light and shade, to one to whom they are not linguistic signs. To him for whom they are signs of other things, each has a definite individuality of its own, according to the meaning that it is used to convey. _Exactly the same holds of natural objects._ A chair is a different object to a being to whom it consciously suggests an opportunity for sitting down, repose, or sociable converse, from what it is to one to whom it presents itself merely as a thing to be smelled, or gnawed, or jumped over; a stone is different to one who knows something of its past history and its future use from what it is to one who only feels it directly through his senses. It is only by courtesy, indeed, that we can say that an unthinking animal experiences an _object_ at all--so largely is anything that presents itself to us as an object made up by the qualities it possesses as a sign of other things. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]An English logician (Mr. Venn) has remarked that it may be questioned whether a dog _sees_ a rainbow any more than he apprehends the political constitution of the country in which he lives. The same principle applies to the kennel in which he sleeps and the meat that he eats. When he is sleepy, he goes to the kennel; when he is hungry, he is excited by the smell and color of meat; beyond this, in what sense does he see an _object_? Certainly he does not see a house--_i.e._ a thing with all the properties and relations of a permanent residence, _unless_ he is capable of making what is present a uniform sign of what is absent--unless he is capable of thought. Nor does he see what he eats _as_ meat unless it suggests the absent properties by virtue of which it is a certain joint of some animal, and is known to afford nourishment. Just what is left of an _object_ stripped of all such qualities of meaning, we cannot well say; but we can be sure that the object is then a very different sort of thing from the objects that we perceive. There is moreover no particular limit to the possibilities of growth in the fusion of a thing as it is to sense and as it is to thought, or as a sign of other things. The child today soon regards as constituent parts of objects qualities that once it required the intelligence of a Copernicus or a Newton to apprehend. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]These various values of the power of thought may be summed up in the following quotation from John Stuart Mill. "To draw inferences," he says, "has been said to be the great business of life. Every one has daily, hourly, and momentary need of ascertaining facts which he has not directly observed: not from any general purpose of adding to his stock of knowledge, but because the facts themselves are of importance to his interests or to his occupations. The business of the magistrate, of the military commander, of the navigator, of the physician, of the agriculturist, _is merely to judge of evidence and to act accordingly_.... As they do this well or ill, so they discharge well or ill the duties of their several callings. _It is the only occupation in which the mind never ceases to be engaged._"[3] [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY] [3] Mill, _System of Logic_, Introduction, § 5. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 2. _Importance of Direction in order to Realize these Values_ ) [DEWEY]What a person has not only daily and hourly, but momentary need of performing, is not a technical and abstruse matter; nor, on the other hand, is it trivial and negligible. Such a function must be congenial to the mind, and must be performed, in an unspoiled mind, upon every fitting occasion. Just because, however, it is an operation of drawing inferences, of basing conclusions upon evidence, of reaching belief _indirectly_, it is an operation that may go wrong as well as right, and hence is one that needs safeguarding and training. The greater its importance the greater are the evils when it is ill-exercised. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 2. _Importance of Direction in order to Realize these Values_ ) [DEWEY]An earlier writer than Mill, John Locke (1632-1704), brings out the importance of thought for life and the need of training so that its best and not its worst possibilities will be realized, in the following words: "No man ever sets himself about anything but upon some view or other, which serves him for a reason for what he does; and whatsoever faculties he employs, the understanding with such light as it has, well or ill informed, constantly leads; and by that light, true or false, all his operative powers are directed.... Temples have their sacred images, and we see what influence they have always had over a great part of mankind. But in truth the ideas and images in men's minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them, and to these they all, universally, pay a ready submission. It is therefore of the highest concernment that great care should be taken of the understanding, to conduct it aright in the search of knowledge and in the judgments it makes."[4] If upon thought hang all deliberate activities and the uses we make of all our other powers, Locke's assertion that it is of the highest concernment that care should be taken of its conduct is a moderate statement. While the power of thought frees us from servile subjection to instinct, appetite, and routine, it also brings with it the occasion and possibility of error and mistake. In elevating us above the brute, it opens to us the possibility of failures to which the animal, limited to instinct, cannot sink. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 2. _Importance of Direction in order to Realize these Values_ ) [DEWEY] [4] Locke, _Of the Conduct of the Understanding_, first paragraph. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]Up to a certain point, the ordinary conditions of life, natural and social, provide the conditions requisite for regulating the operations of inference. The necessities of life enforce a fundamental and persistent discipline for which the most cunningly devised artifices would be ineffective substitutes. The burnt child dreads the fire; the painful consequence emphasizes the need of correct inference much more than would learned discourse on the properties of heat. Social conditions also put a premium on correct inferring in matters where action based on valid thought is socially important. These sanctions of proper thinking may affect life itself, or at least a life reasonably free from perpetual discomfort. The signs of enemies, of shelter, of food, of the main social conditions, have to be correctly apprehended. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]But this disciplinary training, efficacious as it is within certain limits, does not carry us beyond a restricted boundary. Logical attainment in one direction is no bar to extravagant conclusions in another. A savage expert in judging signs of the movements and location of animals that he hunts, will accept and gravely narrate the most preposterous yarns concerning the origin of their habits and structures. When there is no directly appreciable reaction of the inference upon the security and prosperity of life, there are no natural checks to the acceptance of wrong beliefs. Conclusions may be generated by a modicum of fact merely because the suggestions are vivid and interesting; a large accumulation of data may fail to suggest a proper conclusion because existing customs are averse to entertaining it. Independent of training, there is a "primitive credulity" which tends to make no distinction between what a trained mind calls fancy and that which it calls a reasonable conclusion. The face in the clouds is believed in as some sort of fact, merely because it is forcibly suggested. Natural intelligence is no barrier to the propagation of error, nor large but untrained experience to the accumulation of fixed false beliefs. Errors may support one another mutually and weave an ever larger and firmer fabric of misconception. Dreams, the positions of stars, the lines of the hand, may be regarded as valuable signs, and the fall of cards as an inevitable omen, while natural events of the most crucial significance go disregarded. Beliefs in portents of various kinds, now mere nook and cranny superstitions, were once universal. A long discipline in exact science was required for their conquest. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]In the mere function of suggestion, there is no difference between the power of a column of mercury to portend rain, and that of the entrails of an animal or the flight of birds to foretell the fortunes of war. For all anybody can tell in advance, the spilling of salt is as likely to import bad luck as the bite of a mosquito to import malaria. Only systematic regulation of the conditions under which observations are made and severe discipline of the habits of entertaining suggestions can secure a decision that one type of belief is vicious and the other sound. The substitution of scientific for superstitious habits of inference has not been brought about by any improvement in the acuteness of the senses or in the natural workings of the function of suggestion. It is the result of regulation _of the conditions_ under which observation and inference take place. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]It is instructive to note some of the attempts that have been made to classify the main sources of error in reaching beliefs. Francis Bacon, for example, at the beginnings of modern scientific inquiry, enumerated four such classes, under the somewhat fantastic title of "idols" (Gr. [Greek: eidôla], images), spectral forms that allure the mind into false paths. These he called the idols, or phantoms, of the (_a_) tribe, (_b_) the marketplace, (_c_) the cave or den, and (_d_) the theater; or, less metaphorically, (_a_) standing erroneous methods (or at least temptations to error) that have their roots in human nature generally; (_b_) those that come from intercourse and language; (_c_) those that are due to causes peculiar to a specific individual; and finally, (_d_) those that have their sources in the fashion or general current of a period. Classifying these causes of fallacious belief somewhat differently, we may say that two are intrinsic and two are extrinsic. Of the intrinsic, one is common to all men alike (such as the universal tendency to notice instances that corroborate a favorite belief more readily than those that contradict it), while the other resides in the specific temperament and habits of the given individual. Of the extrinsic, one proceeds from generic social conditions--like the tendency to suppose that there is a fact wherever there is a word, and no fact where there is no linguistic term--while the other proceeds from local and temporary social currents. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]Locke's method of dealing with typical forms of wrong belief is less formal and may be more enlightening. We can hardly do better than quote his forcible and quaint language, when, enumerating different classes of men, he shows different ways in which thought goes wrong: [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]1. "The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbors, ministers, or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, for the saving of themselves the pains and troubles of thinking and examining for themselves." [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]2. "This kind is of those who put passion in the place of reason, and being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither use their own, nor hearken to other people's reason, any farther than it suits their humor, interest, or party."[5] [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY] [5] In another place he says: "Men's prejudices and inclinations impose often upon themselves.... Inclination suggests and slides into discourse favorable terms, which introduce favorable ideas; till at last by this means that is concluded clear and evident, thus dressed up, which, taken in its native state, by making use of none but precise determined ideas, would find no admittance at all." [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]3. "The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call large, sound, roundabout sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question.... They converse but with one sort of men, they read but one sort of books, they will not come in the hearing but of one sort of notions.... They have a pretty traffic with known correspondents in some little creek ... but will not venture out into the great ocean of knowledge." Men of originally equal natural parts may finally arrive at very different stores of knowledge and truth, "when all the odds between them has been the different scope that has been given to their understandings to range in, for the gathering up of information and furnishing their heads with ideas and notions and observations, whereon to employ their mind."[6] [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY] [6] _The Conduct of the Understanding_, § 3. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]In another portion of his writings,[7] Locke states the same ideas in slightly different form. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY] [7] _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_, bk. IV, ch. XX, "Of Wrong Assent or Error." [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]1. "That which is inconsistent with our _principles_ is so far from passing for probable with us that it will not be allowed possible. The reverence borne to these principles is so great, and their authority so paramount to all other, that the testimony, not only of other men, but the evidence of our own senses are often rejected, when they offer to vouch anything contrary to these _established rules_.... There is nothing more ordinary than children's receiving into their minds propositions ... from their parents, nurses, or those about them; which being insinuated in their unwary as well as unbiased understandings, and fastened by degrees, are at last (and this whether true or false) riveted there by long custom and education, beyond all possibility of being pulled out again. For men, when they are grown up, reflecting upon their opinions and finding those of this sort to be as ancient in their minds as their very memories, not having observed their early insinuation, nor by what means they got them, they are apt to reverence them as sacred things, and not to suffer them to be profaned, touched, or questioned." They take them as standards "to be the great and unerring deciders of truth and falsehood, and the judges to which they are to appeal in all manner of controversies." [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]2. "Secondly, next to these are men whose understandings are cast into a mold, and fashioned just to the size of a received hypothesis." Such men, Locke goes on to say, while not denying the existence of facts and evidence, cannot be convinced by the evidence that would decide them if their minds were not so closed by adherence to fixed belief. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]3. "Predominant Passions. Thirdly, probabilities which cross men's appetites and prevailing passions run the same fate. Let ever so much probability hang on one side of a covetous man's reasoning, and money on the other, it is easy to foresee which will outweigh. Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]4. "Authority. The fourth and last wrong measure of probability I shall take notice of, and which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the others together, is the giving up our assent to the common received opinions, either of our friends or party, neighborhood or country." [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]Both Bacon and Locke make it evident that over and above the sources of misbelief that reside in the natural tendencies of the individual (like those toward hasty and too far-reaching conclusions), social conditions tend to instigate and confirm wrong habits of thinking by authority, by conscious instruction, and by the even more insidious half-conscious influences of language, imitation, sympathy, and suggestion. Education has accordingly not only to safeguard an individual against the besetting erroneous tendencies of his own mind--its rashness, presumption, and preference of what chimes with self-interest to objective evidence--but also to undermine and destroy the accumulated and self-perpetuating prejudices of long ages. When social life in general has become more reasonable, more imbued with rational conviction, and less moved by stiff authority and blind passion, educational agencies may be more positive and constructive than at present, for they will work in harmony with the educative influence exercised willy-nilly by other social surroundings upon an individual's habits of thought and belief. At present, the work of teaching must not only transform natural tendencies into trained habits of thought, but must also fortify the mind against irrational tendencies current in the social environment, and help displace erroneous habits already produced. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]Thinking is important because, as we have seen, it is that function in which given or ascertained facts stand for or indicate others which are not directly ascertained. But the process of reaching the absent from the present is peculiarly exposed to error; it is liable to be influenced by almost any number of unseen and unconsidered causes,--past experience, received dogmas, the stirring of self-interest, the arousing of passion, sheer mental laziness, a social environment steeped in biased traditions or animated by false expectations, and so on. The exercise of thought is, in the literal sense of that word, _inference_; by it one thing _carries us over_ to the idea of, and belief in, another thing. It involves a jump, a leap, a going beyond what is surely known to something else accepted on its warrant. Unless one is an idiot, one simply cannot help having all things and events suggest other things not actually present, nor can one help a tendency to believe in the latter on the basis of the former. The very inevitableness of the jump, the leap, to something unknown, only emphasizes the necessity of attention to the conditions under which it occurs so that the danger of a false step may be lessened and the probability of a right landing increased. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]Such attention consists in regulation (1) of the conditions under which the function of suggestion takes place, and (2) of the conditions under which credence is yielded to the suggestions that occur. Inference controlled in these two ways (the study of which in detail constitutes one of the chief objects of this book) forms _proof_. To prove a thing means primarily to try, to test it. The guest bidden to the wedding feast excused himself because he had to _prove_ his oxen. Exceptions are said to prove a rule; _i.e._ they furnish instances so extreme that they try in the severest fashion its applicability; if the rule will stand such a test, there is no good reason for further doubting it. Not until a thing has been tried--"tried out," in colloquial language--do we know its true worth. Till then it may be pretense, a bluff. But the thing that has come out victorious in a test or trial of strength carries its credentials with it; it is approved, because it has been proved. Its value is clearly evinced, shown, _i.e._ demonstrated. So it is with inferences. The mere fact that inference in general is an invaluable function does not guarantee, nor does it even help out the correctness of any particular inference. Any inference may go astray; and as we have seen, there are standing influences ever ready to assist its going wrong. _What is important, is that every inference shall be a tested inference_; _or_ (since often this is not possible) _that we shall discriminate between beliefs that rest upon tested evidence and those that do not, and shall be accordingly on our guard as to the kind and degree of assent yielded_. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]While it is not the business of education to prove every statement made, any more than to teach every possible item of information, it is its business to cultivate deep-seated and effective habits of discriminating tested beliefs from mere assertions, guesses, and opinions; to develop a lively, sincere, and open-minded preference for conclusions that are properly grounded, and to ingrain into the individual's working habits methods of inquiry and reasoning appropriate to the various problems that present themselves. No matter how much an individual knows as a matter of hearsay and information, if he has not attitudes and habits of this sort, he is not intellectually educated. He lacks the rudiments of mental discipline. And since these habits are not a gift of nature (no matter how strong the aptitude for acquiring them); since, moreover, the casual circumstances of the natural and social environment are not enough to compel their acquisition, the main office of education is to supply conditions that make for their cultivation. The formation of these habits is the Training of Mind. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]In the last chapter we considered the need of transforming, through training, the natural capacities of inference into habits of critical examination and inquiry. The very importance of thought for life makes necessary its control by education because of its natural tendency to go astray, and because social influences exist that tend to form habits of thought leading to inadequate and erroneous beliefs. Training must, however, be itself based upon the natural tendencies,--that is, it must find its point of departure in them. A being who could not think without training could never be trained to think; one may have to learn to think _well_, but not to _think_. Training, in short, must fall back upon the prior and independent existence of natural powers; it is concerned with their proper direction, not with creating them. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]Teaching and learning are correlative or corresponding processes, as much so as selling and buying. One might as well say he has sold when no one has bought, as to say that he has taught when no one has learned. And in the educational transaction, the initiative lies with the learner even more than in commerce it lies with the buyer. If an individual can learn to think only in the sense of learning to employ more economically and effectively powers he already possesses, even more truly one can teach others to think only in the sense of appealing to and fostering powers already active in them. Effective appeal of this kind is impossible unless the teacher has an insight into existing habits and tendencies, the natural resources with which he has to ally himself. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]Any inventory of the items of this natural capital is somewhat arbitrary because it must pass over many of the complex details. But a statement of the factors essential to thought will put before us in outline the main elements. Thinking involves (as we have seen) the suggestion of a conclusion for acceptance, and also search or inquiry to test the value of the suggestion before finally accepting it. This implies (_a_) a certain fund or store of experiences and facts from which suggestions proceed; (_b_) promptness, flexibility, and fertility of suggestions; and (_c_) orderliness, consecutiveness, appropriateness in what is suggested. Clearly, a person may be hampered in any of these three regards: His thinking may be irrelevant, narrow, or crude because he has not enough actual material upon which to base conclusions; or because concrete facts and raw material, even if extensive and bulky, fail to evoke suggestions easily and richly; or finally, because, even when these two conditions are fulfilled, the ideas suggested are incoherent and fantastic, rather than pertinent and consistent. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY]The most vital and significant factor in supplying the primary material whence suggestion may issue is, without doubt, curiosity. The wisest of the Greeks used to say that wonder is the mother of all science. An inert mind waits, as it were, for experiences to be imperiously forced upon it. The pregnant saying of Wordsworth: [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY] "The eye--it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will"-- [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY]holds good in the degree in which one is naturally possessed by curiosity. The curious mind is constantly alert and exploring, seeking material for thought, as a vigorous and healthy body is on the _qui vive_ for nutriment. Eagerness for experience, for new and varied contacts, is found where wonder is found. Such curiosity is the only sure guarantee of the acquisition of the primary facts upon which inference must base itself. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY](_a_) In its first manifestations, curiosity is a vital overflow, an expression of an abundant organic energy. A physiological uneasiness leads a child to be "into everything,"--to be reaching, poking, pounding, prying. Observers of animals have noted what one author calls "their inveterate tendency to fool." "Rats run about, smell, dig, or gnaw, without real reference to the business in hand. In the same way Jack [a dog] scrabbles and jumps, the kitten wanders and picks, the otter slips about everywhere like ground lightning, the elephant fumbles ceaselessly, the monkey pulls things about."[8] The most casual notice of the activities of a young child reveals a ceaseless display of exploring and testing activity. Objects are sucked, fingered, and thumped; drawn and pushed, handled and thrown; in short, experimented with, till they cease to yield new qualities. Such activities are hardly intellectual, and yet without them intellectual activity would be feeble and intermittent through lack of stuff for its operations. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY] [8] Hobhouse, _Mind in Evolution_, p. 195. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) A higher stage of curiosity develops under the influence of social stimuli. When the child learns that he can appeal to others to eke out his store of experiences, so that, if objects fail to respond interestingly to his experiments, he may call upon persons to provide interesting material, a new epoch sets in. "What is that?" "Why?" become the unfailing signs of a child's presence. At first this questioning is hardly more than a projection into social relations of the physical overflow which earlier kept the child pushing and pulling, opening and shutting. He asks in succession what holds up the house, what holds up the soil that holds the house, what holds up the earth that holds the soil; but his questions are not evidence of any genuine consciousness of rational connections. His _why_ is not a demand for scientific explanation; the motive behind it is simply eagerness for a larger acquaintance with the mysterious world in which he is placed. The search is not for a law or principle, but only for a bigger fact. Yet there is more than a desire to accumulate just information or heap up disconnected items, although sometimes the interrogating habit threatens to degenerate into a mere disease of language. In the feeling, however dim, that the facts which directly meet the senses are not the whole story, that there is more behind them and more to come from them, lies the germ of _intellectual_ curiosity. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY](_c_) Curiosity rises above the organic and the social planes and becomes intellectual in the degree in which it is transformed into interest in _problems_ provoked by the observation of things and the accumulation of material. When the question is not discharged by being asked of another, when the child continues to entertain it in his own mind and to be alert for whatever will help answer it, curiosity has become a positive intellectual force. To the open mind, nature and social experience are full of varied and subtle challenges to look further. If germinating powers are not used and cultivated at the right moment, they tend to be transitory, to die out, or to wane in intensity. This general law is peculiarly true of sensitiveness to what is uncertain and questionable; in a few people, intellectual curiosity is so insatiable that nothing will discourage it, but in most its edge is easily dulled and blunted. Bacon's saying that we must become as little children in order to enter the kingdom of science is at once a reminder of the open-minded and flexible wonder of childhood and of the ease with which this endowment is lost. Some lose it in indifference or carelessness; others in a frivolous flippancy; many escape these evils only to become incased in a hard dogmatism which is equally fatal to the spirit of wonder. Some are so taken up with routine as to be inaccessible to new facts and problems. Others retain curiosity only with reference to what concerns their personal advantage in their chosen career. With many, curiosity is arrested on the plane of interest in local gossip and in the fortunes of their neighbors; indeed, so usual is this result that very often the first association with the word _curiosity_ is a prying inquisitiveness into other people's business. With respect then to curiosity, the teacher has usually more to learn than to teach. Rarely can he aspire to the office of kindling or even increasing it. His task is rather to keep alive the sacred spark of wonder and to fan the flame that already glows. His problem is to protect the spirit of inquiry, to keep it from becoming blasé from overexcitement, wooden from routine, fossilized through dogmatic instruction, or dissipated by random exercise upon trivial things. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]The function of suggestion has a variety of aspects (or dimensions as we may term them), varying in different persons, both in themselves and in their mode of combination. These dimensions are ease or promptness, extent or variety, and depth or persistence. (_a_) The common classification of persons into the dull and the bright is made primarily on the basis of the readiness or facility with which suggestions follow upon the presentation of objects and upon the happening of events. As the metaphor of dull and bright implies, some minds are impervious, or else they absorb passively. Everything presented is lost in a drab monotony that gives nothing back. But others reflect, or give back in varied lights, all that strikes upon them. The dull make no response; the bright flash back the fact with a changed quality. An inert or stupid mind requires a heavy jolt or an intense shock to move it to suggestion; the bright mind is quick, is alert to react with interpretation and suggestion of consequences to follow. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]Yet the teacher is not entitled to assume stupidity or even dullness merely because of irresponsiveness to school subjects or to a lesson as presented by text-book or teacher. The pupil labeled hopeless may react in quick and lively fashion when the thing-in-hand seems to him worth while, as some out-of-school sport or social affair. Indeed, the school subject might move him, were it set in a different context and treated by a different method. A boy dull in geometry may prove quick enough when he takes up the subject in connection with manual training; the girl who seems inaccessible to historical facts may respond promptly when it is a question of judging the character and deeds of people of her acquaintance or of fiction. Barring physical defect or disease, slowness and dullness in _all_ directions are comparatively rare. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) Irrespective of the difference in persons as to the ease and promptness with which ideas respond to facts, there is a difference in the number or range of the suggestions that occur. We speak truly, in some cases, of the flood of suggestions; in others, there is but a slender trickle. Occasionally, slowness of outward response is due to a great variety of suggestions which check one another and lead to hesitation and suspense; while a lively and prompt suggestion may take such possession of the mind as to preclude the development of others. Too few suggestions indicate a dry and meager mental habit; when this is joined to great learning, there results a pedant or a Gradgrind. Such a person's mind rings hard; he is likely to bore others with mere bulk of information. He contrasts with the person whom we call ripe, juicy, and mellow. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]A conclusion reached after consideration of a few alternatives may be formally correct, but it will not possess the fullness and richness of meaning of one arrived at after comparison of a greater variety of alternative suggestions. On the other hand, suggestions may be too numerous and too varied for the best interests of mental habit. So many suggestions may rise that the person is at a loss to select among them. He finds it difficult to reach any definite conclusion and wanders more or less helplessly among them. So much suggests itself _pro_ and _con_, one thing leads on to another so naturally, that he finds it difficult to decide in practical affairs or to conclude in matters of theory. There is such a thing as too much thinking, as when action is paralyzed by the multiplicity of views suggested by a situation. Or again, the very number of suggestions may be hostile to tracing logical sequences among them, for it may tempt the mind away from the necessary but trying task of search for real connections, into the more congenial occupation of embroidering upon the given facts a tissue of agreeable fancies. The best mental habit involves a balance between paucity and redundancy of suggestions. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY](_c_) _Depth._ We distinguish between people not only upon the basis of their quickness and fertility of intellectual response, but also with respect to the plane upon which it occurs--the intrinsic quality of the response. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]One man's thought is profound while another's is superficial; one goes to the roots of the matter, and another touches lightly its most external aspects. This phase of thinking is perhaps the most untaught of all, and the least amenable to external influence whether for improvement or harm. Nevertheless, the conditions of the pupil's contact with subject-matter may be such that he is compelled to come to quarters with its more significant features, or such that he is encouraged to deal with it upon the basis of what is trivial. The common assumptions that, if the pupil only thinks, one thought is just as good for his mental discipline as another, and that the end of study is the amassing of information, both tend to foster superficial, at the expense of significant, thought. Pupils who in matters of ordinary practical experience have a ready and acute perception of the difference between the significant and the meaningless, often reach in school subjects a point where all things seem equally important or equally unimportant; where one thing is just as likely to be true as another, and where intellectual effort is expended not in discriminating between things, but in trying to make verbal connections among words. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]Sometimes slowness and depth of response are intimately connected. Time is required in order to digest impressions, and translate them into substantial ideas. "Brightness" may be but a flash in the pan. The "slow but sure" person, whether man or child, is one in whom impressions sink and accumulate, so that thinking is done at a deeper level of value than with a slighter load. Many a child is rebuked for "slowness," for not "answering promptly," when his forces are taking time to gather themselves together to deal effectively with the problem at hand. In such cases, failure to afford time and leisure conduce to habits of speedy, but snapshot and superficial, judgment. The depth to which a sense of the problem, of the difficulty, sinks, determines the quality of the thinking that follows; and any habit of teaching which encourages the pupil for the sake of a successful recitation or of a display of memorized information to glide over the thin ice of genuine problems reverses the true method of mind training. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]It is profitable to study the lives of men and women who achieve in adult life fine things in their respective callings, but who were called dull in their school days. Sometimes the early wrong judgment was due mainly to the fact that the direction in which the child showed his ability was not one recognized by the good old standards in use, as in the case of Darwin's interest in beetles, snakes, and frogs. Sometimes it was due to the fact that the child dwelling habitually on a deeper plane of reflection than other pupils--or than his teachers--did not show to advantage when prompt answers of the usual sort were expected. Sometimes it was due to the fact that the pupil's natural mode of approach clashed habitually with that of the text or teacher, and the method of the latter was assumed as an absolute basis of estimate. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]In any event, it is desirable that the teacher should rid himself of the notion that "thinking" is a single, unalterable faculty; that he should recognize that it is a term denoting the various ways in which things acquire significance. It is desirable to expel also the kindred notion that some subjects are inherently "intellectual," and hence possessed of an almost magical power to train the faculty of thought. Thinking is specific, not a machine-like, ready-made apparatus to be turned indifferently and at will upon all subjects, as a lantern may throw its light as it happens upon horses, streets, gardens, trees, or river. Thinking is specific, in that different things suggest their own appropriate meanings, tell their own unique stories, and in that they do this in very different ways with different persons. As the growth of the body is through the assimilation of food, so the growth of mind is through the logical organization of subject-matter. Thinking is not like a sausage machine which reduces all materials indifferently to one marketable commodity, but is a power of following up and linking together the specific suggestions that specific things arouse. Accordingly, any subject, from Greek to cooking, and from drawing to mathematics, is intellectual, if intellectual at all, not in its fixed inner structure, but in its function--in its power to start and direct significant inquiry and reflection. What geometry does for one, the manipulation of laboratory apparatus, the mastery of a musical composition, or the conduct of a business affair, may do for another. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]Facts, whether narrow or extensive, and conclusions suggested by them, whether many or few, do not constitute, even when combined, reflective thought. The suggestions must be _organized_; they must be arranged with reference to one another and with reference to the facts on which they depend for proof. When the factors of facility, of fertility, and of depth are properly balanced or proportioned, we get as the outcome continuity of thought. We desire neither the slow mind nor yet the hasty. We wish neither random diffuseness nor fixed rigidity. Consecutiveness means flexibility and variety of materials, conjoined with singleness and definiteness of direction. It is opposed both to a mechanical routine uniformity and to a grasshopper-like movement. Of bright children, it is not infrequently said that "they might do anything, if only they settled down," so quick and apt are they in any particular response. But, alas, they rarely settle. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]On the other hand, it is not enough _not_ to be diverted. A deadly and fanatic consistency is not our goal. Concentration does not mean fixity, nor a cramped arrest or paralysis of the flow of suggestion. It means variety and change of ideas combined into a _single steady trend moving toward a unified conclusion_. Thoughts are concentrated not by being kept still and quiescent, but by being kept moving toward an object, as a general concentrates his troops for attack or defense. Holding the mind to a subject is like holding a ship to its course; it implies constant change of place combined with unity of direction. Consistent and orderly thinking is precisely such a change of subject-matter. Consistency is no more the mere absence of contradiction than concentration is the mere absence of diversion--which exists in dull routine or in a person "fast asleep." All kinds of varied and incompatible suggestions may sprout and be followed in their growth, and yet thinking be consistent and orderly, provided each one of the suggestions is viewed in relation to the main topic. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]In the main, for most persons, the primary resource in the development of orderly habits of thought is indirect, not direct. Intellectual organization originates and for a time grows as an accompaniment of the organization of the acts required to realize an end, not as the result of a direct appeal to thinking power. The need of thinking to accomplish something beyond thinking is more potent than thinking for its own sake. All people at the outset, and the majority of people probably all their lives, attain ordering of thought through ordering of action. Adults normally carry on some occupation, profession, pursuit; and this furnishes the continuous axis about which their knowledge, their beliefs, and their habits of reaching and testing conclusions are organized. Observations that have to do with the efficient performance of their calling are extended and rendered precise. Information related to it is not merely amassed and then left in a heap; it is classified and subdivided so as to be available as it is needed. Inferences are made by most men not from purely speculative motives, but because they are involved in the efficient performance of "the duties involved in their several callings." Thus their inferences are constantly tested by results achieved; futile and scattering methods tend to be discounted; orderly arrangements have a premium put upon them. The event, the issue, stands as a constant check on the thinking that has led up to it; and this discipline by efficiency in action is the chief sanction, in practically all who are not scientific specialists, of orderliness of thought. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]Such a resource--the main prop of disciplined thinking in adult life--is not to be despised in training the young in right intellectual habits. There are, however, profound differences between the immature and the adult in the matter of organized activity--differences which must be taken seriously into account in any educational use of activities: (_i_) The external achievement resulting from activity is a more urgent necessity with the adult, and hence is with him a more effective means of discipline of mind than with the child; (_ii_) The ends of adult activity are more specialized than those of child activity. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY](_i_) The selection and arrangement of appropriate lines of action is a much more difficult problem as respects youth than it is in the case of adults. With the latter, the main lines are more or less settled by circumstances. The social status of the adult, the fact that he is a citizen, a householder, a parent, one occupied in some regular industrial or professional calling, prescribes the chief features of the acts to be performed, and secures, somewhat automatically, as it were, appropriate and related modes of thinking. But with the child there is no such fixity of status and pursuit; there is almost nothing to dictate that such and such a consecutive line of action, rather than another, should be followed, while the will of others, his own caprice, and circumstances about him tend to produce an isolated momentary act. The absence of continued motivation coöperates with the inner plasticity of the immature to increase the importance of educational training and the difficulties in the way of finding consecutive modes of activities which may do for child and youth what serious vocations and functions do for the adult. In the case of children, the choice is so peculiarly exposed to arbitrary factors, to mere school traditions, to waves of pedagogical fad and fancy, to fluctuating social cross currents, that sometimes, in sheer disgust at the inadequacy of results, a reaction occurs to the total neglect of overt activity as an educational factor, and a recourse to purely theoretical subjects and methods. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY](_ii_) This very difficulty, however, points to the fact that the _opportunity for selecting truly educative activities_ is indefinitely greater in child life than in adult. The factor of external pressure is so strong with most adults that the educative value of the pursuit--its reflex influence upon intelligence and character--however genuine, is incidental, and frequently almost accidental. The problem and the opportunity with the young is selection of orderly and continuous modes of occupation, which, while they lead up to and prepare for the indispensable activities of adult life, have their own _sufficient justification in their present reflex influence upon the formation of habits of thought_. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]Educational practice shows a continual tendency to oscillate between two extremes with respect to overt and exertive activities. One extreme is to neglect them almost entirely, on the ground that they are chaotic and fluctuating, mere diversions appealing to the transitory unformed taste and caprice of immature minds; or if they avoid this evil, are objectionable copies of the highly specialized, and more or less commercial, activities of adult life. If activities are admitted at all into the school, the admission is a grudging concession to the necessity of having occasional relief from the strain of constant intellectual work, or to the clamor of outside utilitarian demands upon the school. The other extreme is an enthusiastic belief in the almost magical educative efficacy of any kind of activity, granted it is an activity and not a passive absorption of academic and theoretic material. The conceptions of play, of self-expression, of natural growth, are appealed to almost as if they meant that opportunity for any kind of spontaneous activity inevitably secures the due training of mental power; or a mythological brain physiology is appealed to as proof that any exercise of the muscles trains power of thought. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]While we vibrate from one of these extremes to the other, the most serious of all problems is ignored: the problem, namely, of discovering and arranging the forms of activity (_a_) which are most congenial, best adapted, to the immature stage of development; (_b_) which have the most ulterior promise as preparation for the social responsibilities of adult life; and (_c_) which, _at the same time_, have the maximum of influence in forming habits of acute observation and of consecutive inference. As curiosity is related to the acquisition of material of thought, as suggestion is related to flexibility and force of thought, so the ordering of activities, not themselves primarily intellectual, is related to the forming of intellectual powers of consecutiveness. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]The so-called faculty-psychology went hand in hand with the vogue of the formal-discipline idea in education. If thought is a distinct piece of mental machinery, separate from observation, memory, imagination, and common-sense judgments of persons and things, then thought should be trained by special exercises designed for the purpose, as one might devise special exercises for developing the biceps muscles. Certain subjects are then to be regarded as intellectual or logical subjects _par excellence_, possessed of a predestined fitness to exercise the thought-faculty, just as certain machines are better than others for developing arm power. With these three notions goes the fourth, that method consists of a set of operations by which the machinery of thought is set going and kept at work upon any subject-matter. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]We have tried to make it clear in the previous chapters that there is no single and uniform power of thought, but a multitude of different ways in which specific things--things observed, remembered, heard of, read about--evoke suggestions or ideas that are pertinent to the occasion and fruitful in the sequel. Training is such development of curiosity, suggestion, and habits of exploring and testing, as increases their scope and efficiency. A subject--any subject--is intellectual in the degree in which _with any given person_ it succeeds in effecting this growth. On this view the fourth factor, method, is concerned with providing conditions so adapted to individual needs and powers as to make for the permanent improvement of observation, suggestion, and investigation. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]The teacher's problem is thus twofold. On the one side, he needs (as we saw in the last chapter) to be a student of individual traits and habits; on the other side, he needs to be a student of the conditions that modify for better or worse the directions in which individual powers habitually express themselves. He needs to recognize that method covers not only what he intentionally devises and employs for the purpose of mental training, but also what he does without any conscious reference to it,--anything in the atmosphere and conduct of the school which reacts in any way upon the curiosity, the responsiveness, and the orderly activity of children. The teacher who is an intelligent student both of individual mental operations and of the effects of school conditions upon those operations, can largely be trusted to develop for himself methods of instruction in their narrower and more technical sense--those best adapted to achieve results in particular subjects, such as reading, geography, or algebra. In the hands of one who is not intelligently aware of individual capacities and of the influence unconsciously exerted upon them by the entire environment, even the best of technical methods are likely to get an immediate result only at the expense of deep-seated and persistent habits. We may group the conditioning influences of the school environment under three heads: (1) the mental attitudes and habits of the persons with whom the child is in contact; (2) the subjects studied; (3) current educational aims and ideals. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY]To confine, however, the conditioning influence of the educator, whether parent or teacher, to imitation is to get a very superficial view of the intellectual influence of others. Imitation is but one case of a deeper principle--that of stimulus and response. _Everything the teacher does, as well as the manner in which he does it, incites the child to respond in some way or other, and each response tends to set the child's attitude in some way or other._ Even the inattention of the child to the adult is often a mode of response which is the result of unconscious training.[9] The teacher is rarely (and even then never entirely) a transparent medium of access by another mind to a subject. With the young, the influence of the teacher's personality is intimately fused with that of the subject; the child does not separate nor even distinguish the two. And as the child's response is _toward_ or _away from_ anything presented, he keeps up a running commentary, of which he himself is hardly distinctly aware, of like and dislike, of sympathy and aversion, not merely to the acts of the teacher, but also to the subject with which the teacher is occupied. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY] [9] A child of four or five who had been repeatedly called to the house by his mother with no apparent response on his own part, was asked if he did not hear her. He replied quite judicially, "Oh, yes, but she doesn't call very mad yet." [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY]The extent and power of this influence upon morals and manners, upon character, upon habits of speech and social bearing, are almost universally recognized. But the tendency to conceive of thought as an isolated faculty has often blinded teachers to the fact that this influence is just as real and pervasive in intellectual concerns. Teachers, as well as children, stick more or less to the main points, have more or less wooden and rigid methods of response, and display more or less intellectual curiosity about matters that come up. And every trait of this kind is an inevitable part of the teacher's method of teaching. Merely to accept without notice slipshod habits of speech, slovenly inferences, unimaginative and literal response, is to indorse these tendencies, and to ratify them into habits--and so it goes throughout the whole range of contact between teacher and student. In this complex and intricate field, two or three points may well be singled out for special notice. (_a_) Most persons are quite unaware of the distinguishing peculiarities of their own mental habit. They take their own mental operations for granted, and unconsciously make them the standard for judging the mental processes of others.[10] Hence there is a tendency to encourage everything in the pupil which agrees with this attitude, and to neglect or fail to understand whatever is incongruous with it. The prevalent overestimation of the value, for mind-training, of _theoretic_ subjects as compared with practical pursuits, is doubtless due partly to the fact that the teacher's calling tends to select those in whom the theoretic interest is specially strong and to repel those in whom executive abilities are marked. Teachers sifted out on this basis judge pupils and subjects by a like standard, encouraging an intellectual one-sidedness in those to whom it is naturally congenial, and repelling from study those in whom practical instincts are more urgent. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY] [10] People who have _number-forms_--_i.e._ project number series into space and see them arranged in certain shapes--when asked why they have not mentioned the fact before, often reply that it never occurred to them; they supposed that everybody had the same power. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) Teachers--and this holds especially of the stronger and better teachers--tend to rely upon their personal strong points to hold a child to his work, and thereby to substitute their personal influence for that of subject-matter as a motive for study. The teacher finds by experience that his own personality is often effective where the power of the subject to command attention is almost nil; then he utilizes the former more and more, until the pupil's relation to the teacher almost takes the place of his relation to the subject. In this way the teacher's personality may become a source of personal dependence and weakness, an influence that renders the pupil indifferent to the value of the subject for its own sake. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY](_c_) The operation of the teacher's own mental habit tends, unless carefully watched and guided, to make the child a student of the teacher's peculiarities rather than of the subjects that he is supposed to study. His chief concern is to accommodate himself to what the teacher expects of him, rather than to devote himself energetically to the problems of subject-matter. "Is this right?" comes to mean "Will this answer or this process satisfy the teacher?"--instead of meaning, "Does it satisfy the inherent conditions of the problem?" It would be folly to deny the legitimacy or the value of the study of human nature that children carry on in school; but it is obviously undesirable that their chief intellectual problem should be that of producing an answer approved by the teacher, and their standard of success be successful adaptation to the requirements of another. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY]Studies are conventionally and conveniently grouped under these heads: (1) Those especially involving the acquisition of skill in performance--the school arts, such as reading, writing, figuring, and music. (2) Those mainly concerned with acquiring knowledge--"informational" studies, such as geography and history. (3) Those in which skill in doing and bulk of information are relatively less important, and appeal to abstract thinking, to "reasoning," is most marked--"disciplinary" studies, such as arithmetic and formal grammar.[11] Each of these groups of subjects has its own special pitfalls. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY] [11] Of course, any one subject has all three aspects: _e.g._ in arithmetic, counting, writing, and reading numbers, rapid adding, etc., are cases of skill in doing; the tables of weights and measures are a matter of information, etc. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY](_a_) In the case of the so-called disciplinary or pre-eminently logical studies, there is danger of the isolation of intellectual activity from the ordinary affairs of life. Teacher and student alike tend to set up a chasm between logical thought as something abstract and remote, and the specific and concrete demands of everyday events. The abstract tends to become so aloof, so far away from application, as to be cut loose from practical and moral bearing. The gullibility of specialized scholars when out of their own lines, their extravagant habits of inference and speech, their ineptness in reaching conclusions in practical matters, their egotistical engrossment in their own subjects, are extreme examples of the bad effects of severing studies completely from their ordinary connections in life. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) The danger in those studies where the main emphasis is upon acquisition of skill is just the reverse. The tendency is to take the shortest cuts possible to gain the required end. This makes the subjects _mechanical_, and thus restrictive of intellectual power. In the mastery of reading, writing, drawing, laboratory technique, etc., the need of economy of time and material, of neatness and accuracy, of promptness and uniformity, is so great that these things tend to become ends in themselves, irrespective of their influence upon general mental attitude. Sheer imitation, dictation of steps to be taken, mechanical drill, may give results most quickly and yet strengthen traits likely to be fatal to reflective power. The pupil is enjoined to do this and that specific thing, with no knowledge of any reason except that by so doing he gets his result most speedily; his mistakes are pointed out and corrected for him; he is kept at pure repetition of certain acts till they become automatic. Later, teachers wonder why the pupil reads with so little expression, and figures with so little intelligent consideration of the terms of his problem. In some educational dogmas and practices, the very idea of training mind seems to be hopelessly confused with that of a drill which hardly touches _mind_ at all--or touches it for the worse--since it is wholly taken up with training skill in external execution. This method reduces the "training" of human beings to the level of animal training. Practical skill, modes of effective technique, can be intelligently, non-mechanically _used_, only when intelligence has played a part in their _acquisition_. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY](_c_) Much the same sort of thing is to be said regarding studies where emphasis traditionally falls upon bulk and accuracy of information. The distinction between information and wisdom is old, and yet requires constantly to be redrawn. Information is knowledge which is merely acquired and stored up; wisdom is knowledge operating in the direction of powers to the better living of life. Information, merely as information, implies no special training of intellectual capacity; wisdom is the finest fruit of that training. In school, amassing information always tends to escape from the ideal of wisdom or good judgment. The aim often seems to be--especially in such a subject as geography--to make the pupil what has been called a "cyclopedia of useless information." "Covering the ground" is the primary necessity; the nurture of mind a bad second. Thinking cannot, of course, go on in a vacuum; suggestions and inferences can occur only upon a basis of information as to matters of fact. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY]But there is all the difference in the world whether the acquisition of information is treated as an end in itself, or is made an integral portion of the training of thought. The assumption that information which has been accumulated apart from use in the recognition and solution of a problem may later on be freely employed at will by thought is quite false. The skill at the ready command of intelligence is the skill acquired with the aid of intelligence; the only information which, otherwise than by accident, can be put to logical use is that acquired in the course of thinking. Because their knowledge has been achieved in connection with the needs of specific situations, men of little book-learning are often able to put to effective use every ounce of knowledge they possess; while men of vast erudition are often swamped by the mere bulk of their learning, because memory, rather than thinking, has been operative in obtaining it. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( §4. _The Influence of Current Aims and Ideals_ ) [DEWEY](_a_) In instruction, the external standard manifests itself in the importance attached to the "correct answer." No one other thing, probably, works so fatally against focussing the attention of teachers upon the training of mind as the domination of _their_ minds by the idea that the chief thing is to get pupils to recite their lessons correctly. As long as this end is uppermost (whether consciously or unconsciously), training of mind remains an incidental and secondary consideration. There is no great difficulty in understanding why this ideal has such vogue. The large number of pupils to be dealt with, and the tendency of parents and school authorities to demand speedy and tangible evidence of progress, conspire to give it currency. Knowledge of subject-matter--not of children--is alone exacted of teachers by this aim; and, moreover, knowledge of subject-matter only in portions definitely prescribed and laid out, and hence mastered with comparative ease. Education that takes as its standard the improvement of the intellectual attitude and method of students demands more serious preparatory training, for it exacts sympathetic and intelligent insight into the workings of individual minds, and a very wide and flexible command of subject-matter--so as to be able to select and apply just what is needed when it is needed. Finally, the securing of external results is an aim that lends itself naturally to the mechanics of school administration--to examinations, marks, gradings, promotions, and so on. [/DEWEY]

Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( §4. _The Influence of Current Aims and Ideals_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) With reference to behavior also, the external ideal has a great influence. Conformity of acts to precepts and rules is the easiest, because most mechanical, standard to employ. It is no part of our present task to tell just how far dogmatic instruction, or strict adherence to custom, convention, and the commands of a social superior, should extend in moral training; but since problems of conduct are the deepest and most common of all the problems of life, the ways in which they are met have an influence that radiates into every other mental attitude, even those far remote from any direct or conscious moral consideration. Indeed, the _deepest plane of the mental attitude of every one is fixed by the way in which problems of behavior are treated_. If the function of thought, of serious inquiry and reflection, is reduced to a minimum in dealing with them, it is not reasonable to expect habits of thought to exercise great influence in less important matters. On the other hand, habits of active inquiry and careful deliberation in the significant and vital problems of conduct afford the best guarantee that the general structure of mind will be reasonable. [/DEWEY]