PSYCHOLOGY AND CHILD LIFE

New Zealand Tablet, 3 July 1919, Page 33

PSYCHOLOGY AND CHILD LIFE

»—- [Paper read! before the Auckland r Teachers' ; Conference •£■■:' 1 %y a Sister of Notre Dame des Missions.] «J ; - I ■'.•,"-.*'. "~ (Concluded from last week.)'. V ." g. Under the modern obsession, of physical, .hygiene, I classrooms,, as a rule, have black desks, and grey walls more devoid of ornament than those : of r a -mortuary chamber; and this to the end, not only that '-microbes" may be kept in their 'place,' but' also' that the starved and famishing spirit of the child may not be distracted while the*teacher by means of oratorical art and laborious expedients -endeavors to obtain from his petrified pupils what only Our Lord 5 Himself seems to have been able to donamely, entrance their attention for hours at a 'time. We-read; that even when on one occasion the fiery St. Paul preached for some length of time, one man at least went to sleep, and consequently fell out of the window and. was killed. Now, modern psychology teaches that beauty of surroundings both promotes concentration of thought and offers refreshment to the tired spirit. Indeed, our churches, which are jxrr e-xceUe.nce places of meditation and repose for the life of the "soul, have called upon ""the highest inspirations of genius to gather, every beauty within their precincts. No ornament! distracts a child really absorbed'in his: task; nay, if we wish to keep in touch with the principles of science. we should say that the place best adapted to the.full life of man is an artistic environment. Moreover, if we are to do justice to our children we* must be.prepared to : lavish money in obtabling for them books in which' the illustrations are all beautiful and attractive, as well as inspiring: and the printing and paper of the best. The day of cheap books, unillustrated and badly printed, has gone indeed ; but we do not yet realise how defective we are in our supply of books for supplementing our teaching of such subjects as history and geography, and how much our. teaching of these subjects suffers in consequence. I do not mean by this text books of dry facts —they are plentiful enoughbut books for illustration and amplification. Such books are one of the most serious wants of the day. As regards religious pictures, the idea carried out in the Auckland acholic Magazine of reproducing our masterpieces and giving a description of them is for this reason excellent. It is said that one picture a child holds in his hand as his own property is worth more to him than a. hundred masterpieces hung on the wall. Only the best pictures should adorn the school walls. But in this matter of environment we have another factor to consider. Furniture for children, their tables and chairs, should be light, .not only that they may be easily carried about by childish arms, but because their very fragility is of educational value. The same consideration should lead us to give children china plates and glass drinking vessels, for these objects become the denouncers of rough, disorderly, and undisciplined movements. Thus the child is led to correct himself, and he accordingly trains himself not to knock against, overturn, and break things; softening his movements more and more, he gradually 'becomes'.their perfectly free and self-possessed director. He becomes, we say, "well bred." In the same way the child will" accustom himself to do his utmost not to soil the beautiful things which enliven his surroundings. Thus he makes progress in his own perfection, or, in other words, it is thus he achieves a perfect. co-ordination of his voluntary movements. . It is the same process by which, having enjoyed 7 silence and music, he will do all in his power to avoid discordant noises, which will have become unpleasant to his educated; ear. On the other hand, when a child comes into collision a hundred times a day with an enormously heavy iron-bound desk which a porter would have difficulty in moving, when he makes thousands of. invisible ink-stains on a black bench, when he lets a tin or enamel plate fall to the ground a hundred times without breaking^ it, J" he remains "immersed' in his sea of defects without perceiving them ; his environment, , meanwhile, is so constructed as ? to hide and

therefore to encourage his errors, with Mephistophelian hypocrisy: ;? --.-'=•- ! --=-- r • '-.£>&'rZ rV-J. .■-:..". :' ' . ■ " Coming now to the child himself we . shall take as our first point the /psychical basis of attention? Just as there is in f every child a primitive internal which moves him" to endeavor to obtain the satisfaction S of his physical needs, so there is in every normal child a hunger and thirst of the soul and mind; in other words, psychical activities which must : be satisfied :j. To quench thirst, it is not sufficient to see or to sip"' water; the thirsty man must drink his fill—that is to say, must take in the quantity his organism requires; so- to satisfy a child's psychical hunger and thirst, it is not sufficient merely to see things ,cursorily, much less merely "to hear them described" it is necessary to possess them and to use them to the full, if the needs of the inner life are to be satisfied. In modern psychology this fact stands revealed as the basis of all psychical construction, the sole secret of education.. The paramount object in) all lessons, in the planning out of all our programmes, is not that knowledge may be acquired, except indeed as a secondary and necessary result, but that the child may have scope for the exercise and development of the. powers of his mind and soul. The great proof that .much of our former teaching was not fulfilling this essential function was only too plainly manifested by the difficulty we experienced in securing J the attention of our pupils, together "with, the wasted '-energy they expended on what we termed.- "wrong" .: objects. There is in each individual a special attitude towards external things: which responds to'the:meeds of his inner life. Thus the .artist sees a preponderance of colors in the world, the musician will be attracted by sounds. .Thai, this is so is obvious from the fact that people brought, up in the same environment may develop on totally different lines, each taking from his environment as far as possible what suited his intimate individual aptitude's, just as various plants in a garden obtain different nourishment from the same soil. As a result, of the rpcos-iiition of this interior-spiritual force working within the child as the basis of all the problems of securing attention, the work of,'--the teacher now consists, not, in a vain endeavor to make all his rose bushes dandelions, or vice verm; but in bestowing a sufficient, variety of exercises to meet the • psychical needs of his various pupils, granting, them at the same time sufficient liberty to exercise their powers accordin? to the needs of their particular^nature. ■ When, however: the child's power of .fixing his attention has been developed by suitable exercises, it will'be found that he has far greater capacity for attending even to uncongenial objects. ' ■"-..-;.

The following instance is an illustration of the f possibility of transferrin? the power of attention culti- ' vated by one kind of object to that of another.. In a - certain school there was a little girl who could not control her attention sufficiently -to- carry .' a glass -"-of i wafer, even only half full, without spilling it so much so that she turned from such a task, knowing that she I could not, accomplish it. ' One day she "became absorbed in work of another kind: then, rising suddenly from it, f as though she felt she had developed a. hew power, she [ began carrying glasses of water with the greatest ease; • and has found a special pleasure in doing soever since. i The Will.— The .unanimous:,reports of the educa- i tionalists from all parts of the world who attended the \ last, pedagogic and psychological ;international con- f gresses lamented the "lack of character" in. the young, 1 as constituting the greatest danger to the race. Now, \ character is essentially a; question^ of -,will; and the truth ■ .of the great maxim that''to will'' is "to do" impresses I us more and more as we grow older and' gives that : de- * cision of character- that makes for success in any walk of life. - Here again the (doctrine of liberty preached Sby V: the new psychology offers the great remedy heeded; for it is only by exercite that the will can be developed and strengthened.jg It-would- certainly never occur difm anyone that in order ;: to develop';/ right and graceful >-: movements in our children it would be well first of 5 all ;iS to keep them absolutely motionless, covering their limbs, so to speak, with cement until the muscles become -

atrophied and almost paralysed, not to say broken and that then ■ it. would - suffice to read to them wonderful stories of "•> clowns, acrobats, 7 champion ' boxers and wrestlers, to fire them by such examples c with '' the' desire and the-power to emulate these feats. And yet we do something <of < this kind when ; order to educate the child's will we first of all attempt' to 1 annihilate it, or as. ; we say, "break it," and I thus l hamper - the development' of '?every "factor of "* the will, substituting in a'l things our will for that of the child's will. He is kept motionless in his seat not by his own will/ but/by ours; it we.who ! make him l act, we who choose and decide for-him in j. almost 1 every little e detail. And then in order to make his character all it should be we think it-sufficient to treat him' to a lecture oh : the necessity of ; a strong and flexible ' will : and' ; for his emulation we tell him tales of heroic men-—giants of will! And strangest part of all we. then marvel at our own lack of success in gaining the desired result. ' '■■'./ ny; Perhaps it is in" the domain of the will that we are apt to do, our. children the greatest wrong of all. . We can find around us in' plenty people "of intelligence and of v imagination, but alas,- how many also do we find wasting b- their powers of ' mind or body, wrecking, or at least lessening their own happiness and usefulness;; as" well as that of others-simply because they have not the power to make right decisions at the right moment, b;*. jriyjh'i"- ■=.-'-•- - ■■ "" '"■":.■■'

; Like the man in the Gospel who sold all he had to. obtain the pearl of great price, we should be prepared to make any sacrifice, to introduce methods into our teaching which will afford the right training and sufficient /exercise for the will. We all know instances of persons almost illiterate who are yet more . truly educated and more useful members of society than many" of their intellectual superiors simply -because the force of circumstances or a good home training has developed in them decision of will and a good practical judgment. . ■ i Imagination.lt is a very common belief that the young; child ' is characterised by vivid imagination, and? that .therefore a special education should be adop-" ted to cultivate this valuable gift of nature.' It should be, remarked however, that the tendency of the child to wander into the fascinating worlds of unreality is simply ■ due to the immaturity of his organism, and it is in fact a: tendency markedly characteristic to savage and primitive peoples. Far from developing this savage ...or./immature state, or keeping the child therein, the educational training of the' imagination consists, above all, in bringing the mind of the child back to the realities of the world around him. We are told that ; Michelangelo-would spend entire evenings gazing up into, the vault of Heaven, and when asked "at what he .was; gazing, he replied, "I see a dome." It was after this form so marvellously created within his mind that!the. famous cupola of St. Peter's in Rome was fashioned. i Put it could never have been born, even in the mind of Michelangelo had the intensity of his imagination, instead of being fixed on the wonderful reality above him, been dissipated in a world of sterile fancies. It has been said that nothing would sooner reform Christendom than to train v people- to exercise their imagination on the realities of their every-day life. The insane and the delirious talk of fantastic things, but we do not therefore .say that they have a great deal of '.'imagination." The true basis of the imagination is reality, and its perception is related to exactness of observation. / : : : , ; ; . >- ■ ; -' Genius has been described as the capacity to take infinite pains; hence the metaphors of .our.great writers are profuse and marvellous, simply because every great writer and every lofty orator perpetually links the fruits of the imagination with the observation of fact and then we say he is a genius and that-'.his thought is clear and vital. Our Lord Himself continually illustrated' His teaching by what He saw around Him. We, however, suppose that we are developing " the imagination of children by making them ■ accept fantastic non- - sense ; reality. a - There are indeed 'men who really take a tree for a throne .and issue royal commands; others

who f imagine they are 3 kings A great personages ;, ands quite logically^ we say they are mad. j. iT - ■...,-.;. y 4 :& , -.1 The custom prevalent in many countries of repre-; senting Christmas ;■; as an old man n coming down the chimney/with toys is r supposed to obtain its value from - its "appeal ',[ to the <.child's imagination. i'?.■ Now, either: the child, does believe it, or he does not. vj If ■. the latter. is '; the V case, ' , his ~; mind ~... instinctively i accuses •:> us v of ' untruth; . but v if the i; :former..,- is Ir ,the case, it ■is ] the , child's '.'.; credulity V j and, not V; his imagination ", that is being ; exercised.., . ,It ..is" we ; -who; imagine; the child believes. .j It is we who are < amused by the illusions, the ignorance, and the errors of the immature mind. . We arelike the fine lady who took a superficial interest, in a hospital for poor children, -but: who kept on declaring: "If ,there. were to be no more sick children I do riot know what I should do." r It is the living among real possessions of his own which really develops the imagination jof the .child and assuages - those desires . ' which < consume his precious powers in the vanity of illusions. The child who has nothing is the one who dreams of things the most impossible; of attainment; but he who has something., attaches himself i to that which he. possesses to preserve and ; increase jit reasonably. The destitute dream. of millions, a person without employment dreams of becoming a .prince but an assistant, teacher in a school dreams of becoming a head master, and the prosperous farmer dreams of becoming still more prosperous. The child who has a table or desk of his own, who possesses- pottery, soap, dressing tables, and furniture, is happy in the care of all these things. His desires are moderated, and the peace he derives from them opens up a life of expansion to his internal creative ; activities. How much time and strength man has dost'and is losing because he his not been directed to develop -the powers of his imagination on truth and reality. Just as vice, which is an exercise of function without, purpose, wastes the body until it becomes diseased, 'so, imagination- unsustained by truth consumes the intelligence until the mental balance is lost. : - . ' ; .-• • ■-'•'.- •-<■'■

The great change in. the face of the modern world was brought about, when, under the influence of the positive researches of science, the mind; of man turned from the world of mere speculations to the living realities around him. We all know the story of Volta's marvellous discovery of electricity, which is literally as well as figuratively "the gleam of an immense progress." He was hanging up some dead frogs on the iron bars of the window when he noticed that their legs contracted. Laying due weight upon a little fact such as that of a dead being having moved, considering it soberly without any fanciful conditions, and refusing to believe, but that the movement was due to some natural cause, in other words was caused by some' reality such was the lengthy process by which ; one of the greatest conquests of civilisation was achieved. Akin to this was the result of Galileo's observation of the oscillations of a hanging lamp in the Pisa Cathedral. How simple, too, is the story of Newton, whose imagination stirred by the sight of an apple falling to the ground, eventually discovered the theory of the gravity, of bodies and that of universal gravitation. Similar instances of the- wonderful effects of training the imagination ■ • to exercise itself on its surroundings could be recounted indefinitely - : When in ordinary life someone praises, us for qualities we do not possess, 'or; distorts or exaggerates our true attributes, we are-re-pelled and disgusted. -But if the compliment is founded upon our real qualities we feel legitimate satisfaction, because what has been said' is relevant and we conclude that the person has observed us: We accordingly think of such a person as being subtle and intellectual. I shall; relate one more incident relative to the necessity of basing all our teaching I on absolute truth and reality. . Two | girls : of noble family had 'been brought up in great seclusion, and to safeguard them from the seductions and vanities of the life -for which they were destined it had been 'impressed upon them that the world is full of deceit and. that when people praise us, if we could but conceal ourselves and listen

to what : -they, say when _we-have-disappeared r we-"should : - hear something very different!.." When they were, of '_ an age to -he; presented* in society the two girls made their first appearance at an evening reception to which their mother had invited a great many f guest sr ) :) _ All lavished praises on the r charming young girls. r 'ln the drawingroom there was an 7 alcove concealed' by -a large curtain. ; Curious to hear what would be said of them in ; their '- absence, the two agreed to slip out and hide behind : the curtain. Scarcely-had' the attractive objects of the general admiration- vanished than the* praise which had ■ been kept within due bounds l in their presence was' redoubled.'-' The two girls admitted afterwards that they [ experienced ? an ;r indescribable revulsion of feeling; they thought that everything they had been made to believe must be false, and they determined to throw themselves headlong to. the pleasures of; the world. They even renounced 1 religion" altogether for the time being; and had afterwards, as they said, to reconstruct their lives * afresh, learn for themselves the emptiness of social brilliance, : and ' embrace the truth of religion anew. : " It ' has been frequently! said that the education of the imagination on a basis of fancy prepares the soul of the child for religious education; and that an edu-cation-based on "'reality" is too arid and tends to dry up the founts of spiritual life. Now every truly religious person-knows well that faith and fable are "as the T poles apart," since fable is in itself a thing without truth, and faith is the very sentiment of truth. Religion is not a product of fantastic imagination, it is the greatest of realities; the great danger of fables and fairy tales 1 is' not that they are harmful in themselves but that they spoil 1 the relish the child should have for truth and reality. THE : RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT IN CHILDREN. ."Very, lately a series of experiments into the existence of religious sentiment in the native heart of the child has been made with surprising results. In this as in every other psychical investigation the truth continues to be : brought home,, that it is never the function of the educator to create; his work is but to develop what God has already implanted, and no teacher can put into a child what is not there already. One of the most remarkable manifestations of the spontaneous. religious sentiment inherent in every child was the case of "Little Nelly of Holy God," who, of her own accord when scarcely five years of age, asked for the Holy Eucharist on her death-bed—a fact which greatly influenced Pius X. to allow Holy Communion to very young children. Madam Montessori tells of many remarkable instances in her own experience of children whose parents were hostile to religion and endeavored to bring them up "neutral." In every case "she found that such. children, in spite of every inducement to the contrary, were unhappy and restless, and devoured such scraps of religious instruction as came their, way, in the same manner as a famishing man devours food. She tells of a rich child whose parents lavished on her every mark of affection and devotion but were, determined to keep her altogether free from religious influences. Wonderful children's parties were arranged for her which were veritable works of art, but. they seemed to make her only more restless and cynical, as if she were suffering from some disillusionment. One day, however, she was found with-her face aglow, and unable to conceal her agitation. . She had been talking. to an orphan child who happened to be brought to her home and the child had .repeated to her. the Lord's Prayer. The girl's heart had at last found what it wanted. Children have repeatedly said "I. like this subject or that subject very much, but I like religion best." •■-. ■ <* .'. The conclusion drawn from all these - experiences is that in the heart of every child there, is an insatiable longing for Godabyss calleth unto abyss-;—and without true religious, training no human being will reach the full development of his \ powers •of \ mind and soul. "As the hart panteth after , the living waters" so does the soul,of man after the living God. ■'■-■ i" rise -;-.::• •

-" : '"A reign OP LAW?" ~: : -^V f jlJ'^ ........ ■■•-;-:,. .::■.- \ »iuqo/iuS , ' '.-■ '• JciLj ba "' ; ' Thus F. O'D, in An (Sao ghat Gaedheaiach:—. ' 1 i,-l .;'.The f air is clearing. The • Peace,-s Conference bubble is burst, and we had better ; .rub our eyes lof the transient glitter of it, \ and take stock of b the cold, ugly, facts:" For the framework of the j social system that-is being created is , ugly and menacing s for' Ireland, 'and. for " the masses of the people everywhere. Our rulers are clever' and efficient, terribly, mercilessly efficient; and they. are J callously planning a cold-blooded scheme of world and wealth domination, labor exploitation, n and robbery i everywhere of the people's rights and ,the fruits of their j toil. And all this with tears in. their eyes for the sorrows of the suffering; peoples, and the polished phrases of hypocrisy flowing ; like : poisoned honey from 5 - their lips ! They have used the great words Rights and Jusi tice, and they are proving apt pupils at learning the meaning of themthe Imperial ? meaning > of ;: them.te Truly this is a great thing for, which millions of men have died— great thing for the men's masters! o-J dq-s Hitherto the world was governed by groups of wealthy capitalists who exploited the people, and robbed and ruled them by controlling their -labor and their ; " brains, playing off one class against another,' and maintaining an unrelenting mastery over all." Now all that is to be changed to meet the. higher aspirations of aworld which has drawn new ideals of right and justice;' from its recent welter of blood. The ; isolated groups of robbers are entering, into a holy partnership, that 1 they may more effectively exploit the people, and deprive them of the fruits of their labor, thereby. -'S-J V?\ Ireland, for instance, instead of being exploited" and robbed by one Empire as in the past, will under the new scheme of things be accorded the privilege ofbeing robbed by a combination of Empires. Injustice - and tyranny will permanently assume the mask of law, national and international. "Small nations" will be- * come mere geographical expressions; existing: by a- : special dispensation of Providence in the shape of a League of Nations, to be protected andb saved from -'' turning into painted savages by the civilising hand of one of the great ones of the earth. The : business :of • governing in the interests of the governors will become ; the chiefest art in the new world which is to arise."-": Once in the better past the light of Irish civilisation shone steady and constant in the northern ocean, and the brilliance of her culture illumed a darkened world. That destiny which shapes the ends of -nations, seems likely to place Ireland again in the van of the world, a leader, a prophet, a martyr too, mayhap. < For Ireland will not, could not, sobmit to this indignity with which it is sought to enslave humanity.: Ireland has ever resisted, defended her birthright against, the armies of a merciless oppressor.; Shall she cease to resist now, shall she be silent and passionless in:! her ; strength when she was defiant in her weakness ? A trialis coming at which the wisest may waver, ; the bestleaders falter; but the Ireland of the O'Neills, the land that nursed Mitchel and Tone and Emmet, that cradled Pearse and Connolly, will know her duty again, and go out to it unfaltering. .. - . .--..- ■'■