342 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



he shall become released from all bonds as the teachings of Brahma 

 make possible. This is what the Froebelian conception leads to. 



Action is the key-note to habit and character. Good habits make for 

 progress. Habits are definite actions resulting from sensations, motor 

 modifications in nervous matter which have become stable through 

 repetitions of actions. They are thus more easily performed. At first 

 there is friction between sensory and motor nerve cells and this must 

 be decreased by work. Memory is thus the same as habit; the nerve 

 cells continuing to act in the way they have been induced to act before. 

 We remember most easily things or acts which have been most often 

 performed ; new paths are thus ploughed Qut in nervous matter. When 

 actions have been repeated often enough there are then almost no new 

 paths to be formed. Hence habits acquired become fundamental courses 

 of action, they constitute organic memory, which may or may not be 

 accompanied with consciousness. To form these there must be accu- 

 rate repetitions of dynamic associations between nerve cells in early 

 life, during the plastic period. After plasticity of these cells has passed 

 away guiding habits can only be acquired imperfectly, and if at all 

 at enormous expense of energy. Hence the imperative need to form 

 correct early habits, which are bundles of memories or tendencies en- 

 abling us to act again in the way we acted before. They become parts 

 of our essential nature. A man does in middle life what he began to 

 do in childhood — it may be good or bad — it is imperative. The boy 

 unconsciously molds and trains his nervous mechanisms in such fashion 

 that they will continue to act and react in the same way. At the start 

 he is master, after a time habits master him. When these facts are 

 more clearly appreciated there will be broader acceptance of the truth 

 of the principle that dogmatic authoritative training in early life is 

 best, provided always parents and teachers can be trusted to initiate 

 action judiciously. Many a man is a failure in some direction, because 

 he omitted to acquire the habit of courtesy, self-restraint, correct 

 diction, punctuality, dexterity, accuracy in fundamental motions, even 

 truth-telling. What evil may follow from the acquirement of vicious 

 habits, however heroically resented, can readily be imagined. Habit is 

 the process of associating a definite muscular action with a sense im- 

 pression or with an idea. A child properly trained gives the right motor 

 response with unerring accuracj^. Sensation must be associated so 

 often with action that one shall flow automatically into the other. An 

 image is a revised sensation leading to mental conceptions, impulses, 

 etc. No image can be formed without causing a more or less intense 

 motor outflow. Movements can be checked by the introduction of cause, 

 and counter cause. Thus the will is invited to oppose a movement 

 through the function of inhibition, whereby it is modified in accordance 

 with judgment. 1 



1 See Reuben Post Halleck, ' The Education of the Central Nervous System.' 



