 Chapter 16 of the Mind and is Education This is the LiborVox recording. Our LiborVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LiborVox.org. Recording by Cassie The Mind and is Education by George Herbert Betts Chapter 16 Interest The feeling that we call interest is so important a motive in our lives and so colors our acts and gives direction to our endeavors that we will do well to devote a chapter to its discussion. 1. The Nature of Interest We saw in an earlier chapter that personal habits have their rights in raised habits or instincts. Let us now see how interest helps the individual to select from his instinctive acts those which are useful to build into personal habits. Instinct impartially starts the child in the performance of many different activities but does not dictate what particular acts shall be retained to serve as the basis for habits. Interest comes in at this point and says This act is of more value than that act. Continue this act and drop that. Instinct prompts the babe to countless movements of body and limb. Interest picks out those that are most vitally connected with the welfare of the organism and the child comes to prefer these rather than the others. Thus it is that out of the random movements of arms and legs and head and body we finally develop the coordinated activities which are infinitely more useful than the random ones were. And these activities originating in instincts and selected by interest are soon crystallized into habits. Interest a Selective Agent The same truth holds for mental activities as for physical. A thousand channels lie open for a stream of thought at this moment but your interest has beckoned it into the one particular channel which for the time at least appears to be of the greatest subjective value and it is now following that channel unless your will has compelled it to leave that for another. Your thinking as naturally follows your interest as the needle does the magnet hence your thought activities are conditioned largely by your interests. This is equivalent to saying that your mental habits rest back finally upon your interests. Everyone knows what it is to be interested but interest like other elementary states of consciousness cannot be rigidly defined. Subjectively Considered Interest may be looked upon as a feeling attitude which assigns our activities their place in a subjective scale of values and hence selects among them. Objectively Considered An interest is the object which cause forth the feeling. Functionally Considered Interest is the dynamic phase of consciousness. Interest supplies a subjective scale of values. If you are interested in driving a horse rather than in riding a bicycle it is because the former has a greater subjective value to you than the latter. If you are interested in reading these words instead of thinking about the next social function or the last picnic party it is because at this moment the thought suggested appeals to you as of more value than the other lines of thought. From this it follows that your standards of values are revealed in the character of your interests. The young man who is interested in the race track in gaming and in low resource confesses by the fact that these things occupy a high place among the things which appeal to him as subjectively valuable. The mother whose interests are chiefly in clubs and other social organizations places these higher in her scale of values than her home. The reader who can become interested only in light trashy literature must admit that matter of this type ranks higher in his subjective scale of values than the works of the masters. Teachers and students whose strongest interest is in great marks value these more highly than true attainment. For whatever may be our claims or assertions interest is finally an infallible barometer of values we assign to our activities. In the case of some of our feelings it is not always possible to ascribe an objective side to them. A feeling of ennui, of impending evil or of bounding vivacity may be produced by an unanalyzable complex of causes. But interest while it is related primarily to the activities of the self is carried over from the activity to the object which occasions the activity. That is, interest has both an objective and a subjective side. On the subjective side a certain activity connected with self expression is worth so much. On the objective side a certain object is worth so much as related to this self expression. Thus we say, I have an interest in books or in business. My daily activities, my self expression are governed with reference to these objects. They are my interests. Interest dynamic. Many of our milder feelings terminate within ourselves, never attaining sufficient force as motives to impel us to action. Not so with interest. Its very nature is dynamic. Whatever it says is upon becomes ifso facto an object for some activity, for some form of expression of the self. Are we interested in a new book? We must read it. In a new invention we must see it, handle it, test it. In some vocation or avocation we must pursue it. Interest is impulsive. It gives its possessor no opportunity for lethargic rest and quiet, but constantly urges him to action. Grown ardent, interest becomes enthusiasm. Without which says Emerson, nothing great was ever accomplished. Are we an Addison with a strong interest centered in mechanical invention? It will drive us day and night in a ceaseless activity which scarcely gives us time for food and sleep. Are we a Lincoln with an undying interest in the Union? This motive will make possible superhuman efforts for the accomplishment of our end. Are we man or woman anywhere in any walk of life? So we are dominated by mighty interests grown into enthusiasm for some object. We shall find great purposes growing within us, and our life will be one of activity and achievement. On the contrary, a life which has developed no great interest lacks motive power. Of necessity, such a life must be devoid of purpose, and hence barren of results, counting little while it is being lived, and little missed by the world when it is gone. Habit antagonistic to interest. Well, as we have seen, interest is necessary to the formation of habits, yet habits once formed are antagonistic to interest, that is, acts which are so habitually performed that they do themselves are accompanied by a minimum of interest. They come to be done without attentive consciousness, hence interest cannot attach to their performance. Many of the activities which make up the daily round of our lives are of this kind. As long as habit is being modified in some degree, as long as we are improving in our ways of doing things, interest will still cling to the process. But let us once settle into an unmodified rut, and interest quickly fades away. We then have the conditions present which make up us either a machine or a drudge. 2. Direct and indirect interest. We may have an interest either 1 in the doing of an act or 2 in the end sought through the doing. In the first instance, we call the interest immediate or direct. In the second instance, immediate or indirect. Interest in the end versus interest in the activity. If we do not find an interest in the doing of our work, or if it has become positively disagreeable so that we loathe its performance, then there must be some ultimate end for which the task is being performed, and in which there is a strong interest, else the whole process will be the various drudgery. If the end is sufficiently interesting, it may serve to throw a halo of interest over the whole process connected with it. The following instance illustrates this fact. A 12-year-old boy was told by his father that if he would make the body of an automobile at his bench in the manual training school, the father would purchase the running gear for it and give the machine to the boy. In order to secure the coveted prize, the boy had to master the arithmetic necessary for making the calculations, and the drawing necessary for making the plans to scale before the teacher in manual training would allow him to take up the work of construction. The boy had always lacked interest in both arithmetic and drawing, and consequently was dull in them. Under the new incentive, however, he took hold of them with such avidity that he soon surpassed all the remainder of the class and was able to make his calculations and drawings within a term. He secured his automobile a few months later and still retained his interest in arithmetic and drawing. Indirect interest as a motive Interest of the indirect type, which does not attach to the process, but comes from some more or less distant end. Most of us find much less potent than interest, which is immediate. This is especially true unless the end be one of intense desire and not too distant. The assurance to a boy that he must get his lessons well because he will need to be an educated man 10 years, hence when he goes into business for himself does not compensate for the lack of interest in the lessons of today. Yet it is necessary in the economy of life that both children and adults should learn to work under the incitement of indirect interests. Much of the work we do is for an end which is more desirable than the work itself. It will always be necessary to sacrifice present pleasure for future good. Ability to work cheerfully for a somewhat distant end saves much of our work from becoming drudgery. If interest is removed from both the process and the end, no inducement is left to work except compulsion and this, if continued, results in the lowest type of effort. It puts a man on a level with the beast of burden, which constantly shirks his work. Indirect interest alone insufficient. Interest coming from an end instead of inhering in the process may finally lead to an interest in the work itself. But if it does not, the worker is in danger of being left a drudge at last. To be more than a slave to his work, one must ultimately find the work worth doing for its own sake. The man who performs his work solely because he has a wife and babies at home will never be an artist in his trade of profession. The student who masters a subject only because he must know it for an examination is not developing the traits of a scholar. The question of interest in the process makes the difference between the one who works because he loves to work and the one who toils because he must. It makes the difference between the artist and the drudge. The drudge does only what he must when he works, the artist all he can. The drudge longs for the end of labor, the artist for it to begin. The drudge studies how he may escape his labor, the artist how he may better his and ennoble it. To labor when there is joy in the work is elevating, to labor under the lash of compulsion is degrading. It matters not so much what a man's occupation as how it is performed. A coachman driving his team down the crowded street better than anyone else could do it and glorying in that fact may be a true artist in his occupation and be ennobled through his work. A statesman molding the affairs of a nation as no one else could do it or a scholar leading the thought of his generation is subject to the same law in order to give the best grade of service of which he is capable. Man must find a joy in the performance of the work as well as in the end sought through his performance. No matter how high the position or how refined the work, the worker becomes a slave to his labor and less interest in his performance saves him. 3. Transitourinas of certain interests Since our interests are always connected with our activities it follows that many interests will have their birth, grow to full strength and then fade away as the corresponding instincts which are responsible for the activities passed through these same stages. This only means that interest in play develops at the time when the play activities are seeking expression that interest in the opposite sex becomes strong when instinctive tendencies are directing the attention to the choice of a mate and that interest in abstract studies comes when the development of the brain enables us to carry on All of us can recall many interests which were once strong and are now weak or else have altogether passed away. Hide and seek. Pussy wants a corner. Excursions to the little fishing pond. Securing the colored chromo at school. The care of pets. Reading blood and thunder stories or sentimental ones. Interest in these things belongs to our past or has left but a faint shadow. Other interests have come and these in turn will also disappear and other new ones yet appear as long as we keep on acquiring new experience. Interests must be utilized when they appear. This means that we must take advantage of interests when they appear if we wish to utilize and develop them. How many people there are who at one time felt an interest impaling them to cultivate their taste for music, art or literature and said they would do this at some convenient season and finally found themselves without a taste for these things. How many of us have felt an interest in some benevolent work but at last discovered that our inclination had died before we found time to help the cause. How many of us young as we are do not at this moment lament the passing of some interest from our lives or are now watching the dying of some interest which we had fondly supposed was as stable as Gibraltar. The drawings of every interest which appeals to us is a voice crying. Now is the appointed time. What impulse urges us today to become or to do, we must begin at once to be or perform if we would attend to the coveted end. The value of a strong interest. Nor are we to look upon these transitory interests as useless. They come to us not only as a race heritage but they impel us to activities which are immediately useful or else prepare us for the later battles of life. But even aside from this important fact it is worth everything just to be interested. For it is only through the impulsion of interest that we first learn to put forth effort in any true sense of the word and interest furnishes the final foundation upon which volition rests. Without interest the greatest powers may slumber in us unawakened and abilities capable of the highest attainment rise to satisfied with commonplace mediocrity. No one will ever know how many glass stones and labnizes the world has lost simply because their interests were never appealed to in such a way as to start them on the road to achievement. It matters less what the interest be so it be not bad than that there shall be some great interest to compel endeavor, test the strength of endurance and lead to habits of achievement. 4. Selection among our interests I said early in the discussion that interest is selective among our activities picking out those which appear to be of the most value to us. In the same manner there must be a selection among our interests themselves. The mistake of following too many interests it is possible for us to become interested in so many lines of activity that we do none of them well. This leads to a life so full of hurry and stress that we forget life in our busy living. 6. James with respect to the necessity of making a choice among our interests With most objects of desire physical nature restricts our choice to but one of many represented goods and even so it is here. I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not if I could be both handsome and fat and well dressed and a great athlete and make a million a year. There must be a wit, a bonvivant and a lady killer as well as a philosopher, a philanthropist, statesman, warrior and African explorer as well as a tomb poet and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saints. The bonvivant and the philosopher and the lady killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to men but to make any one of them actual the rest must more or less be suppressed. The seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the least carefully and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. Interests may be too narrow. On the other hand, it is just as possible for our interests to be too narrow as too broad. The one who has cultivated no interests outside his daily run of home drum activities does not get enough out of life. It is possible to become so engrossed with making a living that we forget to leave, to become so habituated to some narrow treadmill of labor with the limited field of thought suggested by his environment that will miss the richest experiences of life. Many there are who live a barren, trivial and self-centered life because they fail to see the significant and the beautiful which lie just beyond where their interests reach. Many there are so taken up with their own petty troubles that they have no heart or sympathy for fellow humanity. Many there are so absorbed with their own little achievements that they fail to catch step with the progress of the age. Specialization should not come too early. It is not well to specialize too early in our interests. We miss too many rich views which lie ready for the harvesting and whose gleaning would enrich our lives. The student who is so buried in books that he has no time for athletic recreations or social diversions is making a mistake equally with the one who is so enthusiastic and athlete and social devotee that he neglects his studies. Likewise, the youth who is so taken up with the study of one particular line that he applies himself to this at the expense of all other lines is inviting a distorted growth. Youth is the time for pushing the skyline back on all sides. It is the time for cultivating diverse and varied lines of interests if we would grow into a rich experience in our later lives. The physical must be developed but not at the expense of the mental and vice versa. The social must not be neglected but it must not be indulged to such an extent that other interests suffer. Interest in amusements and recreations should be cultivated that these should never run counter to the moral and religious. Specialization is necessary but specialization in our interests should rest upon a broad field of fundamental interests in order that the selection of the special line may be an intelligent one and that our specialty shall not prove a rot in which we become so deeply buried that we are lost to the best in life. A proper balance to be sought. It behooves us then to find a proper balance in cultivating our interests making them neither too broad nor too narrow. We should deliberately seek to discover those which are strong enough to point the way to a life vocation but this should not be done until we have had an opportunity to become acquainted with various lines of interests. Otherwise our decision in this important matter may be based merely on a whim. We should also decide what interests we should cultivate for our own personal development and happiness and for the service we are to render in a sphere outside our immediate vocation. We should consider avocations as well as vocations. Whatever interests are selected should be carried to efficiency. Better a reasonable number of carefully selected interests while developed and resulting in efficiency than a multitude of interests which lead us into so many fields that we can at best get but a smattering of each and thereby neglecting the things which should mean the most to us. Our interests should lead us to leave what Wagner calls a simple life but not a narrow one. Some educators have feared that in finding our occupations interesting we shall lose all power of effort and self-direction that the will not being caught sufficiently into requisition must suffer from none use. That we shall come to do the interesting and agreeable things well enough but fail before the disagreeable. Interest not antagonistic to effort. The best development of the will does not come through our being forced to do acts in which there is absolutely no interest. Work done under compulsion never secures the full self in its performance. It is done mechanically and usually under such a spirit of rebellion on the part of the doer that the advantage of such training may well be doubted. Nor are we safe in assuming that tasks done without interest as the motive are always performed under the direction of the will. It is far more likely that they are done under some external compulsion and that the will has, after all, the very little to do with it. A boy may get an uninteresting lesson at school without much pressure from his will providing he is sufficiently afraid of the master. In order that the will may receive training through compelling the performance of certain acts it must have a reasonably free field with external pressure removed. The compelling force must come from within and not from without. On the other hand, there is not the least danger that we shall ever find a place in life where all the disagreeable is removed and all faces of our work made smooth and interesting. The necessity will always be rising to call upon effort to take up the fight and hold us to duty where interest has failed. And it is just here that there must be no failure else we shall be mere creatures of circumstance drifting with every addy in the tide of our life and never able to breast the current. Interest is not to splint the necessity for stern and strenuous endeavor but rather to call forth the largest measure of endeavor of which the self is capable. It is to put at work a larger amount of power than can be secured in any other way. In place of supplanting the will it is to give it as point of departure and render its service all the more effective. Interest and character. Finally, we are not to forget that bad interests have the same propulsive power as good ones and will lead to acts just as surely and these acts will just as readily be formed into habits. It is worth noticing that back of the act lies an interest, in the act lies the seed of a habit, ahead of the act lies behavior which grows into conduct, this into character and character into destiny. Bad interests should be shunned and discouraged. But even that is not enough. Good interests must be installed in the place of the bad ones from which we wish to escape, for it is through substitution rather than suppression that we are able to break from the bad and adhere to the good. Our interests are an evolution. Out of the simple interests of the child grow the more complex interests of the man. Lacking the opportunity to develop the interests of childhood, the man will come somewhat short of the four interests of manhood. The great thing then in educating a child is to discover the fundamental interests which come to him from the race and using these as a starting point, direct them into constantly broadening and more serviceable ones. Out of the early interest in play is to come the later interest in work. Out of the early interest in collecting treasure boxes full of worthless trinkets and old scraps comes the later interest in earning and retaining ownership of property. Out of the interest in chomps and playmates come the larger social interests. Out of interest in nature comes the interest of the naturalist. And so one by one we may examine the interests which bear the largest fruit in our adult life and we find that they all have their roots in some early interest of childhood which was encouraged and given a chance to grow. 6. Order of development of our interests. The order in which our interests develop thus becomes an important question in our education. Nor is the order an arbitrary one as might appear on the first thought. For interest follows the invariable law of attaching to the activity for which the organism is at that time ready and which it then needs in its further growth. That we are sometimes interested in harmful things does not disprove this assertion. The interest in its fundamental aspect is good and but needs more healthful environment or more wise direction. Well space forbids a full discussion of the genetic phase of interest here yet we may profit by a brief statement of the fundamental interests of certain well-marked periods in our development. The interests of early childhood. The interests of early childhood are chiefly connected with ministering to the wants of the organism as expressed in the appetites and in securing control of the larger muscles. Activity is the preeminent thing. Racing and romping are worth doing for their own sake alone. Imitation is strong. Curiosity is rising and imagination is building a new world. Speech is a joy. Language is learned with ease and rhyme and rhythm become second nature. The interests of this stage are still very direct and immediate. A distant end does not attract. The thing must be worth doing for the sake of the doing. Since the young child's life is so full of action and since it is out of acts that habits grow, it is doubly desirous during this period that environment, models, and teaching should all direct its interests and activities into lines that will lead to permanent values. The interests of later childhood. In the period from second dentition to puberty, there is a great widening in the scope of interests as well as a noticeable change in their character. Activity is still the keynote but the child is no longer interested merely in the doing but is now able to look forward to the end soft. Interests which are somewhat indirect now appeal to him and the how of things attracts his attention. He is beginning to reach outside of his own little circle and is ready for handicraft, reading, history, and science. Spelling, writing and arithmetic interest him partly from the activities involved but more as a means to an end. Interest in complex games and plays increases but the child is not yet ready for games which require teamwork. He has not come to the point where he is willing to sacrifice himself for the good of all. Interest in moral questions is beginning and right and wrong are no longer things which may or may not be done without rebuke or punishment. The great problem at this stage is to direct the interest into ways of adapting the means to ends and into willingness to work under voluntary attention for the accomplishment of the desired end. The interests of adolescence. Finally, with the advent of puberty comes the last stage in the development of interests before adult life. This period is not marked by the birth of new interests so much as by a deepening and broadening of those already begun. The end sought becomes an increasingly larger factor whether in play or in work. Mere activity itself no longer satisfies. The youth can now play team games for his social interests are taking shape and he can subordinate himself for the good of the group. Interest in the opposite sex takes on a new face and social form and mode of dress receive attention. A new consciousness of self emerges and the youth becomes introspective. Questions of the ultimate meaning of things press for solution and what and who am I demands an answer. At this age we pass from a regime of obedience to one of self control from an ethics of authority to one of individualism. All the interests are now taking on a more definite and stable form and are looking seriously towards life vocations. This is a time of big plans and strenuous activity. It is a crucial period in our life, fraught with pitfalls and dangers with privileges and opportunities. At this strategic point in our life's voyage we may anchor ourselves with right interests to a safe manhood and a successful career or we may with wrong interests bind ourselves to a broken life of discouragement and defeat. 7. Problems in observation and introspection. 1. Try making a list of your most important interests in order of their strength. Suppose you had made such a list five years ago, where would it have deferred from the present least? Are you ever obliged to perform any activities in which you have little or no interest? Either directly or indirectly. Can you name any activities in which you once had a strong interest but which you now perform chiefly from force of habit and without much interest? 2. Have you any interests of which you are not proud? On the other hand, do you lack certain interests which you feel that you should possess? What interests are you now trying especially to cultivate? To suppress. Have you as broad a field of interests as you can well take care of? Have you so many interests that you are slighting the development of some of the more important ones? 3. Observe several recitations for differences in the amount of interest shown. Account for these differences. Have you ever observed an enthusiastic teacher with an uninterested class? A dull listless teacher with an interested class. 4. A father offers his son a dollar for ever grade on his term report which is above 90. What type of interest relative to studies does this appeal to? What do you think of the advisability of giving prizes in connection with schoolwork? 5. Most children in the elementary school are not interested in technical grammar. Why not? Histories made up chiefly of dates and lists of kings or presidents are not interesting. What is their remedy? Would you call any teaching of literature, history, geography or science successful which fails to develop an interest in the subject? 6. After careful observation, make a statement of the differences in the typical play interests of boys and girls of children of the third grade and the eighth grade. End of Chapter 16, Recording by Cassie Chapter 17 of The Mind and Its Education This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Mind and Its Education by George Herbert Betts Chapter 17, The Will The fundamental fact in all ranges of life from the lowest to the highest is activity, doing. Every individual, either animal or man, is constantly meeting situations which demand response. In the lower forms of life, this response is very simple. While in the higher forms, and especially in man, it is very complex. The bird sees a nook favorable for a nest and at once appropriates it. A man sees a house that strikes his fancy and works and plans and saves for months to secure money with which to buy it. It is evident that the larger the possible number of responses and the greater their diversity and complexity, the more difficult it will be to select and compel the right response to any given situation. Man therefore needs some special power of control over his acts. He requires a will. 1. The Nature of the Will There has been much discussion and not a little controversy as to the true nature of the will. Just what is the will and what is the content of our mental stream when we are in the act of willing? Is there at such times a new and distinctly different content which we do not find in our processes of knowledge or emotion, such as perception, memory, judgment, interest, desire? Or do we find, when we are engaged in an act of the will, that the mental stream contains only the familiar old elements of attention, perception, judgment, desire, purpose, etc. All organized or set for the purpose of accomplishing or preventing some act. 2. The Content of the Will We shall not attempt here to settle the controversy suggested by the foregoing questions, nor for immediately practical purposes do we need to settle it. It is perhaps safe to say, however, that whenever we are willing, the mental content consists of elements of cognition and feeling, plus a distinct sense of effort with which everyone is familiar. Whether this sense of effort is a new and different element, or only a complex of old and familiar mental processes, we need not now decide. 3. The Function of the Will Concerning the function of the will, there can be no haziness or doubt. Volition concerns itself wholly with acts, responses. The will always has to do with causing or inhibiting some action, either physical or mental. We need to go to the dentist, tell some friend we were in the wrong, hold our mind to a difficult or uninteresting task, or do some other disagreeable thing from which we shirk. It is at such points that we must call upon the will. Again, we must restrain our tongue from speaking the unkind word, keep from crying out when the dentist drills the tooth, check some unworthy line of thought. We must hear also appeal to the will. We may conclude then that the will is needed whenever the physical or mental activity must be controlled with effort. Some writers have called the work of the will in compelling action its positive function, and in inhibiting action its negative function. How the will exerts its compulsion. How does the will bring its compulsion to bear? It is not a kind of mental policeman who can take us by the collar, so to speak, and say do this or do not do that. The secret of the will's power of control lies in attention. It is the line of action that we hold the mind upon with an attitude of intending to perform it that we finally follow. It is the thing we keep thinking about that we finally do. On the other hand, let us resolutely hold the mind away from some attractive but unsuitable line of action, directing our thoughts to an opposite course or to some wholly different subject, and we have effectually blocked the wrong response. To control our acts is therefore to control our thoughts, and strength of will can be measured by our ability to direct our attention. Two, the extent of voluntary control over our acts. A relatively small proportion of our acts or responses are controlled by volition. Nature, in her wise economy, has provided a simpler and easier method than to have all our actions performed or checked with conscious effort. Classes of acts or response. Movements or acts, like other phenomena, do not just happen. They never occur without a cause back of them. Whether they are performed with a conscious end in view or without it, the fact remains the same. Something must lie back of the act to account for its performance. During the last hour each of us has performed many simple movements and more or less complex acts. These acts have varied greatly in character. Of many we were wholly unconscious. Others were consciously performed but without feeling of effort on our part. Still others were accomplished only with effort. And after a struggle to decide which of two lines of action we should take. Some of our acts were reflex. Some were chiefly instinctive and some were volitional. Simple reflex acts. First there are going on within every living organism countless movements of which he is in large part unconscious, which he does nothing to initiate and which he is largely powerless to prevent. Some of them are wholly and others almost out of the reach and power of his will. Such are the movements of the heart and vascular system, the action of the lungs in breathing, the movements of the digestive tract, the work of the various glands in their process of secretion. The entire organism is a mass of living matter and just because it is living, no part of it is at rest. Movements of this type require no external stimulus and no direction. They are reflex. They take care of themselves as long as the body is in health without let or hindrance, continuing whether we sleep or wake, even if we are in hypnotic or anesthetic coma. With movements of reflex type we shall have no more concern since they are almost wholly physiological and come scarcely at all within the range of the consciousness. Instinctive acts. Next there are a large number of such acts as closing the eyes when they are threatened, starting back from danger, crying out from pain or alarm, frowning and striking when angry. These may roughly be classed as instinctive and have already been discussed under that head. They differ from the former class in that they require some stimulus to set the act off. We are fully conscious of their performance, although they are performed without a conscious end in view. Winking the eyes serves an important purpose, but that is not why we wink. Starting back from danger is a wise thing to do, but we do not stop to consider this before performing the act. And so it is with a multitude of reflex and instinctive acts. They are performed immediately upon receiving an appropriate stimulus because we possess an organism calculated to act in a definite way in response to certain stimuli. There is no need for, and indeed no place for, anything to come in between the stimulus and the act. The stimulus pulls the trigger of the ready-set nervous system, and the act follows at once. Acts of these reflex and instinctive types do not come properly within the range of volition, hence we will not consider them further. Automatic or spontaneous acts. Growing out of these reflex and instinctive acts is a broad field of action which may be called automatic or spontaneous. The distinguishing feature of this type of action is that all such acts, though performed now largely without conscious purpose or intent, were at one time purposed acts performed with effort. This is to say that they were volitional. Such acts as writing or fingering the keyboard of a piano were once consciously purposed volitional acts selected from many random or reflex movements. The effects of experience and habit are such, however, that soon the mere presence of pencil and paper or the sight of the keyboard is enough to set one scribbling or playing. Stated differently, certain objects and situations come to suggest certain characteristic acts or responses so strongly that the action follows immediately on the heels of the percept of the object or the idea of the act. James calls such action idio motor. Many illustrations of this type of acts will occur to each of us. A door starts to blow shut and we spring up and avert the slam. The memory of a neglected engagement comes to us and we have started to our feet on the instant. A dish of nuts stands before us and we find ourselves nibbling without intending to do so. The cycle from volitional to automatic. It is of course evident that no such acts, though they were at one time in our experience volitional, now require effort or definite intention for their performance. The law covering this point may be stated as follows. All volitional acts, when repeated, tend through the effects of habit to become automatic and thus relieve the will from the necessity of directing them. To illustrate this law, try the following experiment. Draw on a piece of cardboard, a star, like figure 19, making each line segment two inches. Seat yourself at a table with the star before you, placing a mirror back of the star so that it can be seen in the mirror. Have someone hold a screen a few inches above the table so as to hide the star from your direct view, but so that you can see it in the mirror. Now reach your hand under the screen and trace with a pencil around the star from left to right, not taking your pencil off the paper until you get clear around. Keep track of how long it takes to go around and also note the irregular wanderings of your pencil. Try this experiment five times over, noting the decrease in time and effort required and the increase in efficiency as the movements tend to become automatic. Volitional action While it is obvious that the various types of action already described include a very large proportion of all our acts, yet they do not include all. For there are some acts that are neither reflex nor instinctive nor automatic, but that have to be performed under the stress of compulsion and effort. We constantly meet situations where the necessity for action or restraint runs counter to our inclinations. We daily are confronted by the necessity of making decisions in which the mind must be compelled by effort to take this direction or that direction. Conflicting motives or tendencies create frequent necessity for coercion. It is often necessary to drive our bark counter to the current of our desires or our habits or to enter into conflict with a temptation. Volition acts in the making of decisions. Everyone knows for himself the state of inward unrest which we call indecision. A thought enters the mind which would of itself prompt an act, but before the act can occur a contrary idea appears and the act is checked. Another thought comes favoring the act and is in turn counterbalanced by an opposing one. The impelling and inhibiting ideas we call motives or reasons for and against the proposed act. While we are balancing the motives against each other we are said to deliberate. This process of deliberation must go on if we continue to think about the matter at all until one set of ideas has triumphed over the other and secured the attention. When this has occurred we have decided and the deliberation is at an end. We have exercised the highest function of the will and made a choice. Sometimes the battle of motives is short. The decision being reached as soon as there is time to summon all the reasons on both sides of the question. At other times the conflict may go on at intervals for days or weeks. Neither set of motives being strong enough to vanquish the other and dictate the decision. When the motives are somewhat evenly balanced we wisely pause in making a decision because when one line of action is taken the other cannot be and we hesitate to lose either opportunity. A state of indecision is usually highly unpleasant and no doubt more than one decision has been hastened in our lives simply that we might be done with the unpleasantness attendant on the consideration of two contrary and insistent sets of motives. It is of the highest importance when making a decision of any consequence that we should be fair in considering all the reasons on both sides of the question, allowing each its just wait. Nor is this as easy as it might appear, for as we saw in our study of the emotions, our feeling attitude toward any object that occupies the mind is largely responsible for the subjective value we place upon it. It is easy to be so prejudiced toward or against a line of action that the motives bearing upon it cannot get fair consideration. To be able to eliminate this personal factor to such an extent that the evidence before us on a question may be considered on its merits is a rare accomplishment. Types of decision. A decision may be reached in a variety of ways, the most important ones of which may now briefly be described after the general plan suggested by Professor James. The reasonable type. One of the simplest types of decision is that in which the preponderance of motives is clearly seen to be on one side or the other, and the only rational thing to do is to decide in accordance with the weight of evidence. Decisions of this type are called reasonable. If we discovered ten reasons why we should pursue a certain course of action, and only one or two reasons of equal weight why we should not, then the decision ought not to be hard to make. The points to watch in this case are a. That we have really discovered all the important reasons on both sides of the case, and b. That our feelings of personal interest or prejudice have not given some of the motives and undue weight in our scale of values. Accidental type. External motives. It is to be doubted whether as many of our decisions are made under immediate stress of volition as we think. We may be hesitating between two sets of motives unable to decide between them when a third factor enters which is not really related to the question at all. But which finally dictates the decision nevertheless. For example, we are considering the question whether we shall go on an excursion or stay at home and complete a piece of work. The benefits coming from the recreation and the pleasures of the trip are pitted against the expense which must be incurred and the desirability of having the work done on time. At this point, while as yet we have been unable to decide, a friend comes along and we seek to evade the responsibility of making our own decision by appealing to him, you tell me what to do. How few of us have never said any fact, if not in words, I will do this or that if you will. How few have never taken advantage of a rainy day to stay from church or shirk an undesirable engagement. How few have not allowed important questions to be decided by some trivial or accidental factor not really related to the choice in the least. This form of decision is accidental decision. It does not rest on motives which are vitally related to the case but rather on the accident of external circumstances. The person who habitually makes his decisions in this way lacks power of will. He does not hold himself to the question until he has gathered the evidence before him and then himself directs his attention to the best line of action and so secure its performance. He drifts with the tide, he goes with the crowd, he shirks responsibility. Accidental Type Subjective Motives A second type of accidental decision may occur when we are hesitating between two lines of action which are seemingly about equally desirable and no preponderating motive enters the field. When no external factor appears and no advising friend comes to the rescue, then with the necessity for deciding thrust upon us we tire of the worry and strain of deliberation and say to ourselves, this thing must be settled one way or the other pretty soon. I am tired of the whole matter. When we have reached this point we are likely to shut our eyes to the evidence in the case and decide largely upon the whim or mood of the moment. Very likely we regret our decision the next instant, but without any more cause for the regret than we had for the decision. It is evident that such a decision as this does not rest on valid motives but rather on the accident of subjective conditions. Habitual decisions of this type are an evidence of a mental laziness or a mental incompetence which renders the individual incapable of marshalling the facts bearing on a case. He cannot hold them before his mind and weigh them against each other until one side outweighs the other and dictates the decision. Of course the remedy for this weakness of decision lies in not allowing oneself to be pushed into a decision simply to escape the unpleasantness of a state of indecision or the necessity of searching for further evidence which will make the decision easier. On the other hand it is possible to form a habit of indecision, of undue hesitancy in coming to conclusions when the evidence is all before us. This gives us the mental dodler, the person who will spend several minutes in an agony of indecision over whether to carry an umbrella on this particular trip, whether to wear black shoes or tan shoes today, whether to go calling or to stay at home and write letters this afternoon. Such a person is usually in a stew over some inconsequential matter and consumes so much time and energy in fussing over trivial things that he is incapable of handling larger ones. If we are certain that we have all the facts in a given case before us and have given each its due way so far as our judgment will enable us to do, then there is nothing to be gained by delaying the decision. Nor is there any occasion to change the decision after it has once been made unless new evidence is discovered bearing on the case. Decision under effort. The highest type of decision is that in which effort is the determining factor. The pressure of external circumstances and inward impulse is not enough to overcome a calm and determined I will. Two possible lines of action may lie open before us. Every current of our being leads toward the one. In addition, inclination, friends, honors all beckon in the same direction. From the other course our very nature shrinks. Duty alone bids us take this line and promises no rewards except the approval of conscience. Here is the crucial point in human experience, the supreme test of the individual, the last measure of man's independence and power. Winning at this point man has exercised his highest prerogative, that of independent choice. Failing here he reverts toward the lower forms and is a creature of circumstance, no longer the master of his own destiny, but blown about by the winds of chance, and it behooves us to win in this battle. We may lose in a contest or a game and yet not fail, because we have done our best. If we fail in the conflict of motives we have planted a seed of weakness from which we shall at last harvest defeat. Jean Valjean, the galley slave of almost a score of years, escapes and lives an honest life. He wins the respect and admiration of friends. He is elected mayor of his town, and honors are heaped on him. At the height of his prosperity he reads one day that a man has been arrested in another town for the escaped convict, Jean Valjean, and is about to be sent to the galleys. Now comes the supreme test in Jean Valjean's life. Shall he remain the honored, respected citizen, and let an innocent man suffer in his stead? Or shall he proclaim himself the long-sought criminal, and again have the collar riveted on his neck and take his place at the oars? He spends one awful night of conflict in which contending motives make a battleground of his soul, but in the morning he has won, he has saved his manhood, his conscience yet lives, and he goes and gives himself up to the officers, nor could he do otherwise and still remain a man. 3. Strong and weak wills Many persons will admit that their memory or imagination or power of perception is not good, but few will confess to a weak will. Strength of will is everywhere lauded as a mark of worth and character. How can we tell whether our will is strong or weak? Not a will, but wills. First of all, we need to remember that, just as we do not have a memory but a system of memories, so we do not possess a will but many different wills. By this I mean that the will must be called upon and tested at every point of contact and experience before we have fully measured its strength. Our will may have served us reasonably well so far, but we may not yet have met any great number of hard tests because our experience and temptations have been limited. Nor must we forget to take into account both the negative and the positive functions of the will. Many there are who think of the will chiefly in its negative use, as a kind of a check or barrier to save us from doing certain things. That this is an important function cannot be denied, but the positive is the higher function. There are many men and women who are able to resist evil but able to do little good. They are good enough but not good for much. They lack the power of effort and self-compulsion to hold them up to the high standards and stern endeavor necessary to save them from inferiority or mediocrity. It is almost certain that for most who read these words the greatest test of their willpower will be in the positive instead of the negative direction. Objective tests a false measure of willpower. The actual amount of volition exercised in making a decision cannot be measured by objective results. The fact that you follow the pathway of duty while I falter and finally drift into the by-ways of pleasure is not certain evidence that you have put forth the greater power of will. In the first place the allurements which led me astray may have had no charms for you. Furthermore you may have so formed the habit of pursuing the pathway of duty when the two paths opened before you that your well-trained feet unerringly led you into the narrow way without a struggle. Of course you are on safer ground than I and on ground that we should all seek to attain. But nevertheless I, although I fell when I should have stood, may have been fighting a battle and manifesting a power of resistance of which you under similar temptation would have been incapable. The only point from which a conflict of motives can be safely judged is that of the soul which is engaged in the struggle. Four, volitional types. Several fairly well-marked volitional types may be discovered. It is, of course, to be understood that these types all grade by insensible degrees into each other and that extreme types are the exception rather than the rule. The impulsive type. The impulsive type of will goes along with a nervous organism of the hair-trigger kind. The brain is in a state of highly unstable equilibrium and a relatively slight current serves to set off the motor-centers. Action follows before there is time for a counter-acting current to intervene. Putting it in mental terms, we act on an idea which presents itself before an opposing one has an opportunity to enter the mind. Hence the action is largely or wholly ideomotor and but slightly or not at all deliberate. It is this type of will which results in the hasty word or deed, or the rash act committed on the impulse of the moment and repented of at leisure, which compels the frequent I didn't think or I would not have done it. The impulsive person may undoubtedly have credited up to him many kind words and noble deeds. In addition, he usually carries with him an air of spontaneity and whole-heartedness, which goes far to a tone for his faults. The fact remains, however, that he is too little the master of his acts, that he is guided too largely by external circumstances or inward caprice. He lacks balance. Impulsive action is not to be confused with quick decision and rapid action. Many of the world's greatest and safest leaders have been noted for quickness of decision and for rapidity of action in carrying out their decisions. It must be remembered, however, that these men were making decisions in fields well known to them. They were specialists in this line of deliberation. The motives for and against certain lines of action had often been dwelt upon. All possible contingencies had been imaged many times over, and evaluation placed upon the different decisions. The various concepts had long been associated with certain definite lines of action. Deliberation under such conditions can be carried on with lightning rapidity, each motive being checked off as worth so much the instant it presents itself, and action can follow immediately when attention settles on the proper motive to govern the decision. This is not impulse but abbreviated deliberation. These facts suggest to us that we should think much and carefully over matters in which we are required to make quick decisions. Of course, the remedy for the overimpulsive type is to cultivate deliberative action. When the impulse comes to act without consideration, pause to give the other side of the question an opportunity to be heard. Check the motor response to ideas that suggest action until you have reviewed the field to see whether there are contrary reasons to be taken into account. Form the habit of waiting for all evidence before deciding. Think twice before you act. The Obstructed Will The opposite of the impulsive type of will is the obstructed or bulky will. In this type there is too much inhibition, or else not enough impulsion. Images which should result in action are checkmated by opposing images, or do not possess vitality enough as motives to overcome the dead weight of inertia which clogs mental action. The person knows well enough what he should do, but he cannot get started. He cannot get the consent of his will. It may be the student whose mind is tormented by thoughts of coming failure in recitation or examination, but who yet cannot force himself to the exertion necessary safely to meet the ordeal. It may be the dissolute man who tortures himself in his sober moments with remorse and the thought that he was intended for better things, but who, waking from his meditations, goes on in the same old way. It may be the child undergoing punishment who is to be released from bondage as soon as he will promise to be good, but who cannot bring himself to say the necessary words. It not only may be, but is, man or woman anywhere who has ideals which are known to be worthy and noble, but which fail to take hold. It is anyone who is following a course of action which he knows is beneath him. One can doubt that the moral tragedies, the failures and the shipwrecks in life, come far more from the breaking of the bonds which should bind right ideals to action than from a failure to perceive the truth. Men differ far more in their deeds than in their standards of action. The remedy for this diseased type of will is much easier to prescribe than to apply. It is simply to refuse to attend to the contrary thoughts which are blocking action, and to cultivate and encourage those which lead to action of the right kind. It is seeking to vitalize our good impulses and render them effective by acting on them whenever opportunity offers. Nothing can be accomplished by moodly dwelling on the disgrace of harboring the obstructing ideas. Thus, brooding over them only encourages them. What we need is to get entirely away from the line of thought in which we have met our obstruction and approach the matter from a different direction. The child who is in a fit of sulks does not so much need a lecture on the disagreeable habit he is forming as to have his thoughts led into lines not connected with the grievance which is causing him the trouble. The stubborn child does not need to have his will broken, but rather to have it strengthened. He may be compelled to do what he does not want to do, but if this is accomplished through physical force instead of by leading to thoughts connected with the performance of the act, it may be doubted whether the will has in any degree been strengthened. Indeed, it may rather be depended upon that the will has been weakened for an opportunity for self-control through which alone the will develops has been lost. The ultimate remedy for rebellion often lies in greater freedom at the proper time. This does not mean that the child should not obey rightful authority promptly and explicitly, but that just as little external authority as possible should intervene to take from the child the opportunity for self-compulsion. The Normal Will The golden mean between these two abnormal types of will may be called the normal or balanced will. Here there is a proper ratio between impulsion and inhibition. Ideas are not acted upon the instant they enter the mind without giving time for a survey of the field of motives. Neither is action sick-lead or with the pale cast of thought to such an extent that it becomes impossible. The evidence is all considered, and each motive fully weighed. But this, once done, decision follows. No dilatory and obstructive tactics are allowed. The fleeting impulse is not enough to persuade to action. Neither is action unduly delayed after the decision is made. Training the Will The will is to be trained as we train the other powers of the mind through the exercise of its normal function. The function of the will is to direct or control in the actual affairs of life. Many well-meaning persons speak of training the will as if we could separate it from the interests and purposes of our daily living, and in some way put it through its paces merely for the sake of adding to its general strength. This view is all wrong. There is, as we have seen, no such thing as general power of will. Will is always required in specific acts and emergencies, and it is precisely upon such matters that it must be exercised if it is to be cultivated. Will to be trained in common round of duties. What is needed in developing the will is a deep moral interest in whatever we set out to do, and a high purpose to do it, up to the limit of our powers. Without this, any artificial exercises, no matter how carefully they are devised or how heroically they are carried out, cannot but fail to fit us for the real tests of life. With it artificial exercises are superfluous. It matters not so much what our vocation as how it is performed. The most commonplace human experience is rich in opportunities for the highest form of expression possible to the will. That of directing us into right lines of action, and of holding us to our best in the accomplishment of some dominant purpose. There is no one set form of exercise which alone will serve to train the will. The student pushing steadily toward his goal in spite of poverty and grinding labor. The teacher who, though unappreciated and poorly paid, yet performs every duty with conscientious thoroughness. The man who stands firm in the face of temptation. The person whom heredity or circumstance has handicapped, but who nevertheless courageously fights his battle. The countless men and women everywhere, whose names are not known to fame, but who stand in the hard places, bearing the heat and the toil with brave unflinching hearts. These are the ones who are developing a moral fiber and strength of will which will stand in the day of stress. Better a thousand times such training as this in the thick of life's real conflicts than any volitional calisthenics or priggish self-denials entered into solely for the training of the will. School Work and Will Training The work of the school offers as good an opportunity for training powers of will as a memory or reasoning. On the side of inhibition there is always the necessity for self-restraint and control so that the rights of others may not be infringed upon. Temptations to unfairness or insincerity in lessons and examinations are always to be met. The social relations of the school necessitate the development of personal poise and independence. On the positive side, the opportunities for the exercise of will power are always at hand in the school. Every lesson gives the pupil a chance to measure his strength and determination against the resistance of the task. High standards are to be built up, ideals maintained, habits rendered secure. The great problem for the teacher in this connection is so to organize both control and instruction that the largest possible opportunity is given to pupils for the exercise of their own powers of will in all school relations. Freedom of the will or the extent of its control We have seen in this discussion that will is a mode of control, control of our thoughts and through our thoughts of our actions. Will may be looked upon then as the culmination of the mental life, the highest form of directive agent within us. Beginning with the direction of the simplest movements, it goes on until it governs the current of our life in the pursuit of some distant ideal. Limitations of the will Just how far the will can go in its control, just how far man is a free moral agent has long been one of the mooted questions among the philosophers, but some few facts are clear. If the will can exercise full control over all our acts, it by this very fact determines our character, and character spells destiny. There is not the least doubt, however, that the will in thus directing us in the achievement of a destiny works under two limitations. First, every individual enters upon life with a large stock of inherited tendencies, which go far to shape his interests and aspirations, and these are important factors in the work of volition. Second, we all have our setting in the midst of a great material and social environment, which is largely beyond our power to modify, and whose influences are constantly playing upon us and molding us according to their type. These limitations, the conditions of freedom. Yet there is nothing in this thought to discourage us, for these very limitations have in them our hope of a larger freedom. Man's heredity, coming to him through ages of conflict with the forces of nature, with his brother man, and with himself, has deeply instilled in him the spirit of independence and self-control. It has trained him to deliberate, to choose, to achieve. It has developed in him the power to will. Likewise, man's environment in which he must live and work furnishes the problems which his life work is to solve, and out of whose solution will receives its only true development. It is through the action and interaction of these two factors, then, that man is to work out his destiny. What he is, coupled with what he may do, leads him to what he may become. Every man possesses in some degree a spark of divinity, a sovereign individuality, a power of independent initiative. This is all he needs to make him free, free to do his best in whatever walk of life he finds himself. If he will but do this, the doing of it will lead him into a constantly growing freedom, and he can voice the cry of every earnest heart. Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, as the swift seasons roll. Leave thy low vaulted past, let each new temple nobler than the last, shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, till thou at length art free, leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. 7. Problems in Observation and Introspection 1. Give illustrations from your own experience of the various types of action mentioned in this discussion. From your own experience of the last hour, what examples of impulsive action can you give? Would it have been better in some cases had you stopped to deliberate? 2. Are you easily influenced by prejudice or personal preference in making decisions? What recent decisions have been thus affected? Can you classify the various ones of your decisions which you can recall under the four types mentioned in the text? Under which class does the largest number fall? Have you a tendency to drift with the crowd? Are you independent in deciding upon and following out a line of action? What is the value of advice? Aught advice to do more than to assist in getting all the evidence on a case before the one who is to decide? 3. Can you judge yourself well enough to tell to which volitional type you belong? Are you overimpulsive? Are you stubborn? What is the difference between stubbornness and firmness? 4. Suppose you ask your instructor or a friend to assist you in classifying yourself as to volitional type. Are you troubled with indecision? That is, do you have hard work to decide in trivial matters even after you know all the facts in the case? What is the cause of these states of indecision? The remedy. 4. Have you a strong power of will? Can you control your attention? Do you submit easily to temptation? Can you hold yourself up to a high degree of effort? Can you persevere? Have you ever failed in the attainment of some cherished ideal because you could not bring yourself to pay the price in the sacrifice or effort necessary? 5. Consider the classwork and examinations of schools that you know. Does the system of management and control throw responsibility on the pupils in a way to develop their powers of will? 6. What motives or incentives can be used to encourage pupils to use self-compulsion to maintain high standards of excellence in their studies and conduct? 7. Does it pay to be heroic in one's self-control?