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Page 23
* * * * *
One more point, and I shall have said as much to you as seems necessary
about the process of association.
You just saw how a single exciting word may call up its own associates
prepotently, and deflect our whole train of thinking from the previous
track. The fact is that every portion of the field _tends_ to call up
its own associates; but, if these associates be severally different,
there is rivalry, and as soon as one or a few begin to be effective the
others seem to get siphoned out, as it were, and left behind. Seldom,
however, as in our example, does the process seem to turn round a single
item in the mental field, or even round the entire field that is
immediately in the act of passing. It is a matter of _constellation_,
into which portions of fields that are already past especially seem to
enter and have their say. Thus, to go back to 'Locksley Hall,' each word
as I recite it in its due order is suggested not solely by the previous
word now expiring on my lips, but it is rather the effect of all the
previous words, taken together, of the verse. "Ages," for example, calls
up "in the foremost files of time," when preceded by "I, the heir of all
the"--; but, when preceded by "for I doubt not through the,"--it calls
up "one increasing purpose runs." Similarly, if I write on the
blackboard the letters A B C D E F,... they probably suggest to you G H
I.... But, if I write A B A D D E F, if they suggest anything, they
suggest as their complement E C T or E F I C I E N C Y. The result
depending on the total constellation, even though most of the single
items be the same.
My practical reason for mentioning this law is this, that it follows
from it that, in working associations into your pupils' minds, you must
not rely on single cues, but multiply the cues as much as possible.
Couple the desired reaction with numerous constellations of
antecedents,--don't always ask the question, for example, in the same
way; don't use the same kind of data in numerical problems; vary your
illustrations, etc., as much as you can. When we come to the subject of
memory, we shall learn still more about this.
So much, then, for the general subject of association. In leaving it for
other topics (in which, however, we shall abundantly find it involved
again), I cannot too strongly urge you to acquire a habit of thinking of
your pupils in associative terms. All governors of mankind, from doctors
and jail-wardens to demagogues and statesmen, instinctively come so to
conceive their charges. If you do the same, thinking of them (however
else you may think of them besides) as so many little systems of
associating machinery, you will be astonished at the intimacy of insight
into their operations and at the practicality of the results which you
will gain. We think of our acquaintances, for example, as characterized
by certain 'tendencies.' These tendencies will in almost every instance
prove to be tendencies to association. Certain ideas in them are always
followed by certain other ideas, these by certain feelings and impulses
to approve or disapprove, assent or decline. If the topic arouse one of
those first ideas, the practical outcome can be pretty well foreseen.
'Types of character' in short are largely types of association.
X. INTEREST
At our last meeting I treated of the native tendencies of the pupil to
react in characteristically definite ways upon different stimuli or
exciting circumstances. In fact, I treated of the pupil's instincts. Now
some situations appeal to special instincts from the very outset, and
others fail to do so until the proper connections have been organized in
the course of the person's training. We say of the former set of objects
or situations that they are _interesting_ in themselves and originally.
Of the latter we say that they are natively uninteresting, and that
interest in them has first to be acquired.
No topic has received more attention from pedagogical writers than that
of interest. It is the natural sequel to the instincts we so lately
discussed, and it is therefore well fitted to be the next subject which
we take up.
Since some objects are natively interesting and in others interest is
artificially acquired, the teacher must know which the natively
interesting ones are; for, as we shall see immediately, other objects
can artificially acquire an interest only through first becoming
associated with some of these natively interesting things.
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