Year: 1875

AT the meeting of the Massachusetts, Teach


er's Association held in Boston, Wednesday,


Rev. DR.. Hill read q paper upon the culture of


the Imagination. Our life, said the speaker is


not in the present, but in the past and IN the


future, and therefore our life is in the imagina-


tion, which we may divide into simple memory,


fancy and imagination proper; fancy being the


building up of images of sensible things. while


the higher imagination creates spiritual things.


In general we may say that there are three


parts in intellectual life; first the perception


of phenomena, either external or internal; Sec


ond, the likening of these phenomena together


BY reasoning, or rather this reasoning out is the


third part The trained mind sees and hears


more than the unframed. A blind man has at


first no more delicacy of touch than one who


has sight, and yet by training he performs al


most miracles. Thirty years ago we gave no


time to the training of the Imagination, and


the Importance of the reasoning faculties is


still unduly exalted above those of the imagi-


nation. II is said that the whole consciousness


of intellectual life consists in drawing infer


ences, while it would be more correct to say


that the whole of intellectual life consists in


drawing pictures. We begin with the educa-


tion of children by teaching them to spell and


remember facts. We would do much better to


bring out and develop their imagination, in the


culture of which the memory takes precedence,


and the building up of, the erection of, images


in the mind is secondary. The natural Is the


only medium by which we can express the spir-


itual ST. Paul stated this when he said:


'First the natural, and then the spiritual"


The power of seeing and reproducing in mem


ory, and modifying in imagination, pictures Of


the external world is the first thing in the cul-


tivation of the imagination. 1t is this which


will put into our hands the keys to all the


treasures of knowledge, human and divine,


and furnish US with the charms Of the spells


and powers of the mind. Yet you put your
bright Boston boy into a schoolroom without
even allowing him to look at single fly which
may stray into the room. He drags over


books, the light of nature shut out from his
vision, and then when you need man you are
forced to go to Natck and New Hampshire,
where you find your Wilson's and your Web
sters, whose minds have been filled from
natures original treasure houses. lApplause.]
First teach the child to observe nature and to
initiate her in the arts. for on this depends the
activity of heart and mind. Unless the child
begins to study the principles of geometry
when it is born, it can never learn the science
OF mathematics or geometry. With the Greeks,
from the beginning in education, it was the
| training of the Imagination. We are making
a mistake in our trials tor practical education.
That which leads to grasp of higher intelli-
gence is practical education. Plato said that
| geometry must always be fundamental study
in the public schools of a republic, because IL Is
the best of all studies, and first of all teaches
| the mind to see the presence of eternal virtue
| and eternal thought in the fieeting shows of
| the outward world. After dwelling upon the
| value of geometry as an educator to the young
| mind, the essayist passed to the domain of
| modern scientific research, which furnishes to
| the imaginative mind an entertainments equal
| to that found in the perusai of the Arabian
| Nights. What field for imagination is there
| in that theory of the foundation of all worldly
| sensibility-that every sensible body in the
| world, every luminous point, whether it be sun
or taper, every electric body, every body under
| the influence of gravity, every sensible phe-
| nomenon in this world, is the direct mechanical
and mathematical consequence of imperceptible
| rays of light coming from beyond all the stars
| and sweeping through the universe and setting
| all this glorons machinery into motionl This
| is the training which natural science gives us,
| and Dr. Hill maintained that the time at which
the mind should receive this instruction regard
| ing the material world was in youth, and that
| when young men enter college they should be-
| gin the study of spiritual things, mental phil
| Osophy and Jurisprudence.