162 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
distance — all such claims are explained, so far as they have anything to rest upon, by suggestion under conditions of mental hypersesthesia or ex- altation.
I may now add certain practical remarks on the subject.
In general, any method which fixes the atten- tion upon a single stimulus long enough is prob- ably sufficient to produce Hypnosis; but the result is quick and profound in proportion as the patient has the idea that it is going to succeed, i. e., gets the suggestion of sleep. It may be said, there- fore, that the elaborate performances, such as passes, rubbings, mysterious incantations, etc., often resorted to, have no physiological effect whatever, and only serve to work in the way of suggestion upon the mind of the subject. In view of this it is probable that any person in normal health can be hypnotized, provided he is not too sceptical of the operator's knowledge and power; and, on the contrary, any one can hypnotize an- other, provided he do not arouse too great scepti- cism, and is not himself wavering and clumsy. It is probable, however, that susceptibility varies greatly in degree, and that race exerts an impor- tant influence. Thus in Europe the French seem to be most susceptible, and the English and Scan- dinavians least so. The impression that weak- minded persons are most available is quite mis- taken. On the contrary, patients in the insane asylums, idiots, etc., are the most refractory. This is to be expected, from the fact that in these cases power of strong, steady attention is wanting. The only class of pathological cases which seem peculiarly open to the hypnotic influence is that of the hystero-epileptics, whose tendencies are SUGGESTION IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS. 163 toward extreme suggestibility. Further, one may hypnotize himself — what we have called above Auto-suggestion — especially after having been put into the trance more than once by others. When let alone after being hypnotized, the pa- tient usually passes into a normal sleep and wakes naturally.
It is further evident that frequent hypnotiza- tion is very damaging if done by the same opera- tor, since then the patient contracts a habit of responding to the same class of suggestions; and this may influence his normal life. A further dan- ger arises from the possibility that all suggestions have not been removed from the patient's mind before his awaking. Competent scientific observ- ers always make it a point to do this. It is pos- sible also that damaging effects result directly to a man from frequent hypnotizing; and this is in some degree probable, simply from the fact that, while it lasts, the state is abnormal. Consequent- ly, all general exhibitions in public, as well as all individual hypnotizing by amateurs, should be prohibited by law, and the whole practical appli- cation as well as observation of Hypnosis should be left in the hands of physicians or experts who have proved their fitness by an examination and secured a certificate of licence. In Russia a de- cree (summer, 1893) permits physicians to practise hypnotism for purposes of cure under official cer- tificates. In France public exhibitions are for- bidden.
So-called Criminal Suggestions may be made, with more or less effect, in the hypnotic state. Cases have been tried in the French courts, in which evidence for and against such influence of a third person over the criminal has been admitted.
164 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
The reality of the phenomenon, however, is in dispute. The Paris school claim that criminal acts may be suggested to the hypnotized subject, which are just as certain to be performed by him as any other acts. Such a subject will discharge a blank-loaded pistol at one, when told to do so, or stab him with a paper dagger. While admit- ting the facts, the Nancy theorists claim that the subject knows the performance to be a farce; gets suggestions of the unreality of it from the ex- perimenters, and so acquiesces. This is probably, true, as is seen in frequent cases in which patients have refused, in hypnotic sleep, to perform sug- gested acts which shocked their modesty, veracity, etc. This goes to show that the Nancy school are right in saying that while in Hypnosis suggesti- bility is exaggerated to an enormous degree, still it has limits in the more well-knit habits, moral sentiments, social opinions, etc., of the subject. And it further shows that Hypnosis is probably, as they claim, a temporary disturbance, rather than a pathological condition of mind or body.
There have been many remarkable and sensa- tional cases of cure of disease by hypnotic sug- gestion, reported especially in France. That hys- teria in many of its manifestations has been re- lieved is certainly true; but that any organic, structural disease has ever been cured by hypno- tism is unproved. It is not regarded by medical authorities as an agent of much therapeutic value, and is rarely employed; but it is doubtful, in view of the natural prejudice caused by the pre- tensions of charlatans, whether its merits have been fairly tested. On the European Continent it has been successfully applied in a great variety of cases; and Bernheim has shown that minor nerv- SUGGESTION IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS. 165 ous troubles, insomnia, migraines, drunkenness, lighter cases of rheumatism, sexual and digestive disorders, together With a host of smaller tempo- rary causes of pain — corns, cricks in back and side, etc. — may be cured or very materially alle- viated by suggestions conveyed in the hypnotic state. In many cases such cures are permanently effected with aid from no other remedies. In a number of great city hospitals patients of recog- nised classes are at once hypnotized, and sugges- tions of cure made. Liebeault, the founder of the Nancy school, has the credit of having first made use of hypnosis as a remedial agent. It is also becoming more and more recognised as a method of controlling refractory and violent pa- tients in asylums and reformatory institutions. It must be added, however, that psychological theory rather than medical practice is seriously concerning itself with this subject.
Theory. — Two rival theories are held as to the general character of Hypnosis. The Paris school already referred to, led by the late Dr. Charcot, hold that it is a pathological condition which is most readily induced in patients already mentally diseased or having neuropathic tendencies. They claim that the three stages described above are a discovery of great importance. The so-called Nancy school, on the other hand, led by Bern- heim, deny the pathological character of Hypnosis altogether, claiming that the hypnotic condition is nothing more than a special form of ordinary sleep brought on artificially by suggestion. Hyp- notic suggestion, say they, is only an exaggera- tion of an influence to which all persons are nor- mally subject. All the variations, stages, curious phenomena, etc., of the Paris school, they claim, 1 66 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
can be explained by this " suggestion " hypothe- sis. The Nancy school must be considered com- pletely victorious apart from some facts which no theory has yet explained.
Hypnotism shows an intimacy of interaction between mind and body to which current psychol- ogy is only beginning to do justice; and it is this aspect of the whole matter which should be em- phasized in this connection. The hypnotic con- dition of consciousness may be taken to represent the working of Suggestion most remarkably.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRAINING OF THE MIND EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY.
A GREAT deal has been said and written about the physical and mental differences shown by the young; and one of the most oft-repeated of all the charges which we hear brought against the current methods of teaching is that all children are treated alike. The point is carried so far that a teacher is judged from the way he has or has not of getting at the children under him as indi- viduals. All this is a move in the right direction; and yet the subject is still so vague that many of the very critics who declaim against the similar treatment which diverse pupils get at school have no clear idea of what is needed; they merely make demands that the treatment shall suit the child. How each child is to be suited, and the inquiry still back of that, what peculiarity it is in this child or that which is to be " suited " — these things are left to settle themselves.
THE TRAINING OF THE MIND. 167 It is my aim in this chapter to indicate some of the variations which are shown by different children; and on the basis of such facts to en- deavour to arrive at a more definite idea of what variations of treatment are called for in the sev- eral classes into which the children are divided. I shall confine myself at first to those differences which are more hereditary and constitutional.
First Period — Early Childhood. — The first and most comprehensive distinction is that based on the division of the life of man into the two great spheres of reception and action. The " sensory " and the " motor " are becoming the most common descriptive terms of current psychology. We hear all the while of sensory processes, sensory contents, sensory centres, sensory attention, etc.; and, on the other hand, of motor processes, motor centres, motor ataxy, motor attention, motor con- sciousness, etc. And in the higher reaches of mental function, the same antithesis comes out in the contrast of sensory and motor aphasia, alexia, sensory and motor types of memory and imagina- tion, etc. Indeed the tendency is now strong to think that when we have assigned a given func- tion of consciousness to one or other side of the nervous apparatus, making it either sensory or motor, then our duty to it is done. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the distinction is throwing great light on the questions of mind which involve also the correlative questions of the nervous system. This is true of all questions of educational psychology.
This first distinction between children — as hav- ing general application — is that which I may cover by saying that some are more active, or motile, while others are more passive, or recep- 1 68 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
tive. This is a common enough distinction; but possibly a word or two on its meaning in the con- stitution of the child may give it more actual value.
The " active " person to the psychologist is one who is very responsive to what we have called Suggestions. Suggestions may be described in most general terms as any and all the influences from outside, from the environment, both phys- ical and personal, which get a lodgment in con- sciousness and lead to action. A child who is " suggestible " to a high degree shows it in what we call " motility." The suggestions which take hold of him translate themselves very directly into action. He tends to act promptly, quickly, unreflectively, assimilating the newer elements of the suggestions of the environment to the ways of behaviour fixed by his earlier habits. Generally such a person, child or adult, is said to "jump" at conclusions; he is anxious to know in order to act; he acts in some way on all events or sug- gestions, even when no course of action is ex- plicitly suggested, and even when one attempts to keep him from acting.
Psychologically such a person is dominated by habit. And this means that his nervous sys- tem sets, either by its hereditary tendencies or by the undue predominance of certain elements in his education, quickly in the direction of motor discharge. The great channels of readiest out- pouring from the brain into the muscles have be- come fixed and pervious; it is hard for the pro- cesses once started in the sense centres, such as those of sight, hearing, etc., to hold in their ener- gies. They tend to unstable equilibrium in the direction of certain motor combinations, which in THE TRAINING OF THE MIND. 169 their turn represent certain classes of acts. This is habit; and the person of the extreme motor type is always a creature of habit.
Now what is the line of treatment that such a child should have? The necessity for getting an answer to this question is evident from what was said above — i. e., that the very rise of the condi- tion itself is due, apart from heredity, oftener than not to the fact that he has not had proper treatment from his teachers.
The main point for a teacher to have in mind in dealing with such a boy or girl — the impulsive, active one, always responsive, but almost always in error in what he says and does — is that here is a case of habit. Habit is good; indeed, if we should go a little further we should see that all education is the forming of habits; but here, in this case, what we have is not habits, but habit. This child shows a tendency to habit as such: to habits of any and every kind. The first care of the teacher in order to the control of the forma- tion of habits is in some way to bring about a little inertia of habit, so to speak — a short period of organic hesitation, during which the reasons pro and con for each habit may be brought into the consciousness of the child.
The means by which this tendency to crude, inconsiderate action on the part of the child is to be controlled and regulated is one of the most typical questions for the intelligent teacher. Its answer must be different for children of different ages. The one thing to do, in general, however, from the psychologist's point of view, is in some way to bring about greater complications in the motor processes which the child uses most habit- ually, and with this complication to get greater 170 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
inhibition along the undesirable lines of his ac- tivity. Inhibition is the damming up of the pro- cesses for a period, causing some kind of a " set- back " of the energies of movement into the sensory centres, or the redistribution of this en- ergy in more varied and less habitual discharges. With older children a rational method is to ana- lyze for them the mistakes they have made, show- ing the penalties they have brought upon them- selves by hasty action. This requires great watchfulness. In class work, the teacher may profitably point out the better results reached by the pupil who " stops to think." This will bring to the reform of the hasty scholar the added mo- tive of semi-public comparison with the more de- liberate members of the class. Such procedure is quite unobjectionable if made a recognised part of the class method; yet care should be taken that no scholar suffer mortification from such comparisons. The matter may be " evened up " by dwelling also on the merit of promptness which the scholar in question will almost always be found to show.
For younger pupils as well as older more in- direct methods of treatment are more effective. The teacher should study the Tfhnjnr to find the general trend of his habits. Then oversight should be exercised over both his tasks and his sports with certain objects in view. His habitual actions should be made as complicated as his ability can cope with; this in order to educate his habits and keep them from working back into mere mechan- ism. If he shows his fondness for drawing by marking his desk, see that he has drawing mate- rials at hand and some intelligent tasks in this line to do; not as tasks, but for himself. Encourage THE TRAINING OF THE MIND. 171 him to make progress always, not simply to repeat himself. If he has awkward habits of movement with his hands and feet, try to get him interested in games that exercise these members in regular and skilful ways.
Furthermore, in his intellectual tasks such a pupil should be trained, as far as may be, on the more abstract subjects, which do not give imme- diate openings for action. Mathematics is the best possible discipline for rTfflTT^Trrarnmar also is good; it serves at once to interest him, if it is well taught, in certain abstract relationships, and also to send out his motor energies in the exer- cise of speech, which is the function which al- ways needs exercise, and which is always under the observation of the teacher, ^jjjjnjmar, in fact, is one of the very best of primary-school Tubjects, because instruction in it issues at once in the very motor functions which embody the relationships which the teacher seeks to impress. The teacher has in his ear, so to speak, the evidence as to whether his instruction is understood or not. This gives him a valuable opportunity to keep his instruction well ahead of its motor expres- sion — thus leading the pupil to think rather than to act without thinking — and at the same time to point out the errors of performance which follow from haste in passing from thought to action.
These indirect methods of reaching the impul- sive pupil should never be cast aside for the direct effort to " control " such a scholar. The very worst thing that can be done to such a boy or girl is to command him or her to sit still or not to act; and a still worse thing — to make a comparative again on the head of the superlative — is to affix 172 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
to the command painful penalties. This is a di- rect violation of the principle of Suggestion. Such a command only tends to empty the pupil's mind of other objects of thought and interest, and so to keep his attention upon his own movements. This, then, amounts to a continual suggestion to him to do just what you want to keep him from doing. On the contrary, unless you give him suggestions and interests which lead his thought away from his acts, it is impossible not to aggra- vate his bad tendencies by your very efforts. This is the way, as I intimated above, that many teach- ers create or confirm bad habits in their pupils, and so render any amount of well-intended posi- tive instruction abortive. It seems well estab- lished that a suggestion of the negative — that is, not to do a thing — has no negative force; but, on the contrary, in the early period, it amounts only to a stronger suggestion in the positive sense, since it adds emphasis, to the thing which is forbidden. The " not " in a prohibition is no addition to the pictured course to which it is attached, and the physiological fact that the at- tention tends to set up action upon that which is attended to comes in to put a premium on dis- obedience. Indeed, the philosophy of all punishment rests in this consideration, i. e., that unless the penalty tends to fill the mind with some object other than the act punished, it does more harm than good. The punishment must be actual and its nature diverting; never a threat which termi- nates there, nor a penalty which fixes the thought of the offence more strongly in mind. This is to say, that the permanent inhibition of a movement at this period is best secured by establishing some different movement.
THE TRAINING OF THE MIND. 173 The further consideration of the cases of great motility would lead to the examination of the kinds of memory and imagination and their treat- ment; to that we return below. We may now take up the instances of the sensory type consid- ered with equal generality.
The sensory children are in the main those which seem more passive, more troubled with physical inertia, more contemplative when a little older, less apt in learning to act out new move- ments, less quick at taking a hint, etc.
These children are generally further distin- guished as being — and here the antithesis to the motor ones is very marked — much less suggesti- ble. They seem duller when young. Boys often get credit for dulness compared with girls on this account. Even as early as the second year can this distinction among children be readily ob- served in many instances. The motor child will show sorrow by loud crying and vigorous action, while the sensory child will grieve in quiet, and continue to grieve when the other has forgotten the disagreeable occurrence altogether. The mo- tor one it is that asks a great many questions and seems to learn little from the answers; while the sensory one learns simply from hearing the ques- tions of the other and the answers given to them. The motor child, again, gets himself hurt a great many times in the same way, without developing enough self-control to restrain himself from the same mistake again and again; the sensory child tends to be timid in the presence of the unknown and uncertain, to learn from one or a few experi- ences, and to hold back until he gets satisfactory assurances that danger is absent. The former tends to be more restless in sitting, standing, etc., 13 174 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
more demonstrative in affection, more impulsive in action, more forgiving in disposition.
As to the treatment of the sensory child, it is a problem of even greater difficulty and danger than that of his motor brother. The very nature of the distinction makes it evident that while the motor individual " gives himself away," so to speak, by constantly acting out his impressions, and so revealing his progress and his errors, with the other it is not so. All knowledge that we are ever able to get of the mental condition of another individual is through his movements, ex- pressive, in a technical sense, or of other kinds, such as his actions, attitudes, lines of conduct, etc. We have no way to read thought directly. So just in so far as the sensory individual is less active, to that degree he is less expressive, less self- revealing. To the teacher, therefore, he is more of an enigma. It is harder to tell in his case what instruction he has appreciated and made his own; and what, on the other hand, has been too hard for him; what wise, and what unwise. Where the child of movement speaks out his impulsive inter- pretations, this one sinks into himself and gives no answer. So we are deprived of the best way of interpreting him — that afforded by his own in- terpretation of himself.
A general policy of caution is therefore strongly to be recommended. Let the teacher wait in every case for some positive indication of the child's real state of mind. Even the directions given the child may not have been understood, or the quick word of admonition may have wounded him, or a duty which is so elementary as to be a commonplace in the mental life of the motor child may yet be so vaguely apprehended that to insist THE TRAINING OF THE MIND. 175 upon its direct performance may cost the teacher all his influence with the pupil of this type. It is better to wait even at the apparent risk of losing valuable days than to proceed a single step upon a mistaken estimate of the child's measure of assimilation. And, further, the effect of wrong treatment upon this boy or girl is very different from that of a similar mistake in the other case. He becomes more silent, retired, even secretive, when once an unsympathetic relationship is sug- gested between him and his elder.
Then more positively — his instruction should be well differentiated. He should in every pos- sible case be given inducements to express him- self. Let him recite a great deal. Give him simple verses to repeat. Keep him talking all you can. Show him his mistakes with the utmost deliberation and kindliness of manner; and induce him to repeat his performances in your hearing after the correction has been suggested. Culti- vate the imitative tendency in him; it is the hand- maid to the formation of facile habits of action. In arranging the children's games, see that he gets the very active parts, even though he be backward and hesitating about assuming them. Make him as far as possible a leader, in order to cultivate his sense of responsibility for the doing of things, and to lead to the expression of his understanding of arrangements, etc. In it all, the essential thing is to bring him out in some kind of expression; both for the sake of the improved balance it gives himself, and as an indication to the observant teacher of his progress and of the next step to be taken in his development.
It is for the sensory child, I think, that the kindergarten has its great utility. It gives him 176 THE STORY OF THE MIND.