General Aims of Nature Study 43 



to look to the ideas that become prominent in con- 

 sciousness. With the ethical and aesthetic elements 

 in the child's mind developed, the imagination will 

 doubtless take care of itself. Yet it is true that the 

 teacher has to deal with certain phases of imagination 

 with a view to overcoming them. Much of what is 

 taken to be imagination in the child is mgre fancy or 

 fantasy; for it lacks that element of analysis and ab- 

 straction, and final integration under the guidance of 

 judgment and of the aesthetic and ethical sense to 

 wKIcn reference has been made. iTo call a broom a 

 horse; to put the head of a man tm the body of an ox;, 

 or the head of a woman on the body of a fish, as was 

 common among the earliest peoples, and is so fre- 

 quently seen in children's games, requires no true 

 imagination, but merely an arbitrary manipulation 

 of objects of sense. No natural law sustains such a 

 combination, and no analysis and abstraction neces- 

 sarily precedes it. 



This vulgar representation of incongruous com- 

 binations of sense elements may be the natural prelim- 

 inary steps in the growth of the true imagination. It is, 

 therefore, not to be wholly repressed; but it should be 

 recognized by the teacher as something which the 

 child should outgrow. The pupil should be taught to 

 distinguish between the purely imaginary and the real. 

 Failure in this respect is often responsible for many 

 children's dishonesty in words and deeds. 



The imagination is not now considered to be an 

 isolated department of the mind, but rather a mode of 

 activity of the whole mind, in which all powers are 

 involved. Consequently normal development of the 

 whole mind is necessary to a cultivated and refined 

 imagination. Such a cultivated and refined imagina- 

 tion does not make itself vulgar by display, but is 

 guided and controlled by a sane judgment, which 

 must ever be the guiding element in any cultivated 



