The Science of Human Nature Part 10

=Habit and Moral Training.= By moral training, we mean that training which prepares one to live among his fellows. It is a training that prepares us to act in our relations with our fellow men in such a way as to bring happiness to our neighbors as well as to ourselves. Specifically, it is a training in honesty, truthfulness, sympathy, and industry. There are other factors of morality but these are the most important. It is evident at once that moral training is the most important of all training. This is, at any rate, the view taken by society; for if a man falls short in his relations with his fellows, he is punished. If the extent of his falling is very great, his liberty is entirely taken away from him. In some cases, he is put to death. Moral training, in addition to being the most important, is also the most difficult. What the public schools can do in this field is quite limited. The training which the child gets on the streets and at home almost overshadows it.

=Nature of Moral Training.= A good person is one who does the right social thing at the right time. The more completely and consistently one does this, the better one is. What kind of training can one receive that will give a.s.surance of appropriate moral action? Two things can be done to give a child this a.s.surance. The child can be led to form proper ideals of action and proper habits of action. By ideal of action, we mean that the child should know what the right action is, and have a desire to do it. Habits of action are acquired only through action. As has been pointed out in the preceding pages, continued action of a definite kind develops a tendency to this particular action. One's character is the sum of his tendencies to action. These tendencies can be developed only through practice, through repet.i.tion. Moral training, therefore, has the same basis as all other training, that is, in habits. The same procedure that we use in teaching the child the multiplication table is the one to use in developing honesty. In the case of the tables, we have the child say "fifty-six" for "eight times seven." We have him do this till he does it instantly, automatically. Honesty and truthfulness and the other moral virtues can be fixed in the same way.

=Home and Moral Training.= The home is the most important factor in moral training. This is largely because of the importance of early habits and att.i.tudes. Obedience to parents and respect for authority, which in a large measure underlie all other moral training, must be secured and developed in the early years of childhood. The child does not start to school till about six years old. At this age much of the foundation of morality is laid. Unless the child learns strict obedience in the first two or three years of life, it is doubtful whether he will ever learn it aright. Without the habit of implicit obedience, it is difficult to establish any other good habit.

Parents should understand that training in morality consists, in large measure, in building up habits, and should go about it in a systematic way. As various situations arise in the early life of a child, the parents should obtain from him the appropriate responses. When the situations recur, the right responses should be again secured. Parents should continue to insist upon these responses till tendencies are formed for the right response to follow when the situation arises. After continued repet.i.tion, the response comes automatically. The good man or woman is the one who does the right thing as the situation presents itself, does it as a matter of course because it is his nature. He does not even think of doing the wrong thing.

One of the main factors in child training is consistency. The parent must inflexibly require the right action in the appropriate situation.

Good habits will not be formed if parents insist on proper action one day but on the next day allow the child to do differently.

Parents must plan the habits which they wish their children to form and execute these plans systematically, exercising constant care. Parents, and children as well, would profit from reading the plan used by Franklin. Fa.r.s.eeing and clear-headed, Franklin saw that character is a structure which one builds, so he set about this building in a systematic way. For a certain length of time he practiced on one virtue, allowing no exceptions in this one virtue. When this aspect of his character had acquired strength, he added another virtue and then tried to keep perfect as to both.[4]

[4] See _Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin_.

=The School and Moral Training.= In this, as in all other forms of training, the school is supplementary to the home. The teacher should have well in mind the habits and ideals that the home has been trying to develop and should a.s.sist in strengthening the bonds. The school can do much in developing habits of kindness and sympathy among the children.

It can develop civic and social ideals and habits. Just how it can best do this is a question. Should moral ideals be impressed systematically and should habits be formed at the time these ideals are impressed, or should the different ideals be instilled and developed as occasion demands? This is an experimental problem, and that method should be followed which produces the best results. It is possible that one teacher may use one method best while a different teacher will have better success with another method.

More important than the question of a systematic or an incidental method is the question of making the matter vital when it is taken up. Nothing is more certain than that mere knowledge of right action will not insure right action. In a few hours one can teach a child, as matters of mere knowledge, what he should do in all the important situations of life; but this will not insure that he will henceforth do the right things.

There are only two ways by which we can obtain any a.s.surance that right action will come. The first way is to secure right habits of response.

We must build up tendencies to action. Tendencies depend upon previous action. The second way is to help the child to a.n.a.lyze moral situations and see what results will follow upon the different kinds of action.

There can be developed in a child a desire to do that which will bring joy and happiness to others, rather than pain and sorrow. But this a.n.a.lysis of moral situations is not enough to insure right moral action; there must be practice in doing the right thing. The situation must go over to the right response to insure its going there the next time. The first thing in moral training is to develop habits. Then, as soon as the child is old enough he can strengthen his habits by a careful a.n.a.lysis of the problem why one should act one way rather than another.

This adds motive; and motive gives strength and a.s.surance.

SUMMARY. Habits are acquired tendencies to specific actions in definite situations. They are fixed through repet.i.tion. They give us speed, accuracy, and certainty, they save energy and prevent fatigue. They are performed with less attention and become pleasurable. The main purpose of education is to form the habits--moral, intellectual, vocational, cultural--necessary for life. Habits and ideals are the basis of our mature life and character. Moral training is essentially like other forms of training, habit being the basis.

CLa.s.s EXERCISES

1. Practice on the formation of some habit until considerable skill is acquired. Draw a learning curve similar to the one on page 95, showing the increase in skill. A cla.s.s experiment can be performed by the use of a subst.i.tution test. Take letters to represent the nine digits, then transcribe numbers into the letters as described on page 192. Keep a record of successive five-minute periods of practice till all have practiced an hour. This gives twelve practice periods for the construction of a learning curve. The individual experiments should be more difficult and cover a longer period. Suitable experiments for individual practice are: learning to operate a typewriter, pitching marbles into a hole, writing with the left hand, and mirror writing. The latter is performed by standing a mirror vertically on the table, placing the paper in front and writing in such a way that the letters have the proper form and appearance when seen in the mirror. The subject should not look at his hand but at its reflection in the mirror. A piece of cardboard can be supported just over the hand so that only the image of the hand in the mirror can be seen.

2. A study of the interference of habit can be made as follows: Take eight small boxes and arrange them in a row. Number each box plainly. Do not number them consecutively, but as follows, 5, 7, 1, 8, 2, 3, 6, 4.

Make eighty cards, ten of each number, and number them plainly. Practice distributing the cards into the boxes. Note the time required for each distribution. Continue to distribute them till considerable skill is acquired. Then rearrange the order of the boxes and repeat the experiment. What do the results show?

3. Does the above experiment show any transfer of training? Compare the time for each distribution in the second part of the experiment, _i.e._ after the rearrangement of the boxes, with the time for the corresponding distribution in the first part of the experiment. The question to be answered is: Are the results of the second part of the experiment better than they would have been if the first part had not been performed? State your results and conclusions and compare with the statements in the text.

4. A study of the effects of spreading out learning periods can be made as follows: Divide the cla.s.s into two equal divisions. Let one division practice on a subst.i.tution experiment as explained in Exercise 1, for five ten-minute periods of practice in immediate succession. Let the other division practice for five days, ten minutes a day. What do the results indicate? The divisions should be of equal ability. If the first ten-minute practice period shows the sections to be of unequal ability, this fact should be taken into account in making the comparisons. Test sheets can be prepared by the teacher, or they can be obtained from the Extension Division of the University of Missouri.

5. An experiment similar to No. 4 can be performed by practicing adding or any other school exercise. Care must be taken to control the experiment and to eliminate disturbing factors.

6. Try the card-distributing experiment with people of different ages, young children, old people, and various ages in between. What do you learn? Is it as easy for an old person to form a habit as it is for a young person? Why?

7. If an old person has no old habits to interfere, can he form a new habit as readily as can a young person?

8. Cite evidence from your own experience to prove that it is hard for an old person to break up old habits and form new ones which interfere with the old ones.

9. Do you find that you are becoming "set in your ways?"

10. What do we mean by saying that we are "plastic in early years"?

11. Have you planned your life work? Are you establis.h.i.+ng the habits that will be necessary in it?

12. Is it an advantage or a disadvantage to choose one's profession or occupation early?

13. Attention often interferes with the performance of a habitual act.

Why is this?

14. If a man removes his vest in the daytime, he is almost sure to wind his watch. On the other hand if he is up all night, he lets his watch run down. Why?

15. Do you know of people who have radically changed their views late in life?

16. Try to teach a dog or a cat a trick. What do you learn of importance about habit-formation?

17. What branches taught in school involve the formation of habits that are useful throughout life?

18. Make a list of the moral habits that should be formed in early years.

19. Write an essay on _Habit and Life_.

20. Make a complete outline of the chapter.

REFERENCES FOR CLa.s.s READING

COLVIN AND BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapters XI and XVII.

PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, pp. 48-59; also Chapter XV.

PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapters X, XI, and XII.

ROWE: _Habit Formation_, Chapters V-XIII.

t.i.tCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, p. 169, par. 37.

CHAPTER VII

MEMORY

=Perceptions and Ideas.= In a previous chapter, brief mention was made of the difference between perceptions and ideas. This distinction must now be enlarged upon and made clearer. Perceptions arise out of our sensory life. We see things when these things are before our eyes. We hear things when these things produce air vibrations which affect our ears.

We smell things when tiny particles from them come into contact with a small patch of sensitive membrane in our noses. We taste substances when these substances are in our mouths. Now, this seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, etc., is _perceiving_. We perceive a thing when the thing is actually at the time affecting some one or more of our sense organs. A perception, then, results from the stimulation of a sense organ.

Perception is the process of perceiving, sensing, objects in the external world.

Ideas are our _seeming_ to see, hear, smell, taste things when these things are not present to the senses. This morning I saw, had a _perception_ of, a robin. To-night in my study, I have an _idea_ of a robin. This morning the robin was present. Light reflected from it stimulated my eye. To-night, as I have an idea of the robin, it is not here; I only seem to see it. The scene which was mine this morning is now revived, reproduced. We may say, therefore, that ideas are the conscious representatives of objects which are not present to the senses. Ideas are revived experiences.