Mental Culture 113 



At the beginning of mental training there is 

 more of a tendency to do too much rather than 

 too little. One must first be sure that all the 

 senses can function properly from the posses- 

 sion of sound organs. They must all be 

 properly co-ordinated, — touch, taste, smell, 

 sight and hearing. As touch and muscle sense 

 are earliest developed, the manual part of train- 

 ing is important, and education first functions 

 along this line. The optic nerve is about eight 

 times larger than the auditory nerve and it is 

 certainly eight times easier to teach by sight 

 than by hearing. But while the eye is the best 

 channel for information, care must be taken that 

 there is no over-strain. We must always 

 remember that what is observed by the eye is 

 registered in the brain. Little children are 

 often allowed to see too much. All kinds of 

 exciting pictures are presented at the movies, 

 including warfare, scenes in foreign lands and 

 strange experiences of all kinds. These are all 

 projected on the sensitive brain of the child, 

 and too early forcing may mean a later reaction 

 in which the child pays up for impressions that 



