THE PROBLEM OF LEARNING I95 



deaf cannot be made to hear nor the near sighted 

 given normal eyes. 



Because of man's biological origin and relation 

 to the fundamental laws of protoplasm, he is gov- 

 erned by the same laws as are all other animals. 

 No new methods of procedure that are essen- 

 tially fundamental have ever been discovered for 

 man. We must postulate for him, then, the same 

 methods of learning that Nature has always used 

 with animals. New devices will be employed 

 from time to time and the elimination of material 

 that was once held to be important will be made 

 but in the training of the mind in all of its early 

 stages, there will be the simple reward and 

 punishment suggestion during which time defi- 

 nite synapses are becoming accustomed to a given 

 reaction. These once established, the training of 

 a new set can be begun. Thoroughness takes on 

 a new meaning according to this hypothesis. It 

 grows out of the biological necessity of training 

 synapses to respond similarly each time and no 

 one can predict in advance how many times the 

 process must be gone through with a given indi- 

 vidual nor how adjustable and flexible an 

 individual will become until training has been 

 applied. 



The old adage that we are creatures of habit 

 comes thus to have a significant meaning in this 



