THE MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING. 59 



tant motor elements. Dr. Browne says further that " the muscles 

 not only by the locomotion which they make possible enormously 

 widen the field from which our sense impressions are gathered, 

 but also, by the experience which their own activities involve, ex- 

 pand our mental resources a thousandfold." 



How does this come about ? it will be asked. Let one reach 

 out his hand in any fashion, and he knows exactly what move- 

 ment he has made. Does he know because he saw what he did ? 

 Then let him close his eyes and move his hand in any other 

 fashion, and he knows just as well what the movement was as if 

 the act were performed with eyes open. Did he know it because he 

 had willed to move the hand thus ? Not so. It must be granted 

 that he willed to do it, and pictured in his mind previously the 

 movement to be made ; but that was the end of it in one particu- 

 lar. From that point it disappeared from his consciousness. The 

 picturing of the movement with the intention to make it was the 

 last thing he was conscious of so far as the movement is con- 

 cerned. Because of that willing a discharge was set off from the 

 motor centers, and the next thing in his consciousness was a per- 

 ception coming from the sensations which arose from the move- 

 ment. He then compared that perception with the previous image 

 of the willed movement. They agreed, and he knew just the 

 movement he had made. 



But it will now be asked, How do sensations arise from the 

 movement ? Such a question is most pertinent at this point. 

 Sensations arise from movement because there are distributed 

 through the muscles, the joints, ligaments, and tendons, even the 

 skin itself, sensory nerve ends which are affected by the move- 

 ment and convey to the brain sensations of that movement. Out 

 of these sensations the mind perceives what has been done. There 

 is, then, connected with the motor or muscular side an important 

 sensory side. We may go further than to say it is connected 

 with the motor side; it is really imbedded in it. This important 

 sensory side, it will therefore be seen, can not perform its func- 

 tion and carry information to the brain unless the motor side is 

 used ; and the more various the employment of the motor side, 

 the larger the knowledge stored up in the brain from its sensory 

 counterpart. The motor and the related sensory are developed 

 hy and ivith each other. The ideas resulting therefrom are 

 sensory-motor ideas ; and we have at last come to have some 

 scientific appreciation of the far-reaching importance of these 

 sensory-motor ideas as a part of the structure of the mind and as a 

 means of producing fuller as well as higher mental development. 



Ideas of time and place and position in their basic and most 

 important elements are motor. Ideas of form involve more of 

 motor impressions than of optical impressions. By the use of 



