272 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



constitutes organic memory, which may or may not be accompanied by 

 active consciousness. They may be good or bad habits. 



It is obvious that this store of working habits, mental and physical 

 automatisms, must be acquired as early and as correctly as possible, so 

 that the essentials of education shall be abundant, varied and precise; 

 and then we may combine and elaborate them as we grow in age and 

 facility. When the time comes to specialize in any direction we have 

 need for an equipment in all the simpler automatisms, that we may 

 group them unhesitatingly to form the basis of our later adaptations. 



It is in the last degree unfortunate if our early habits, dynamic as- 

 sociations, are not sufficiently varied and exact to confidently assume 

 precision in responses when we need them as conditions for those 

 specializations which later constitute our life-work. 



To attain useful facilities in any line of human endeavor the train- 

 ing of the senses should be systematically pursued from the earliest 

 manifestations of attention. Sense perception opens up the way to 

 form concepts of objects, but is of use only when supplemented by 

 motor impulse. Every normal sense impression tends to pass into 

 movement, and is of use only in so far as it does so ; in short, conditions 

 for motor development depend upon sensory impulses. 



Mental visualizations, interpretations of images, concepts of form, 

 can arise only through motor outflows. Ideas are of potency in pro- 

 portion as they include the elements of motion, the impulse to do. 



Thought is a word much in use, but the act of thinking is by no 

 means a constant process, even with the most intelligent. Much of 

 what is called thought is, in most instances, merely automatic action 

 aroused by some sensory impulse. To think deeply, to exert intel- 

 lectual force, is rarely needed in the day's work ; but every human being 

 has constant need of myriad accurate automatisms, the product of early 

 and varied associations of sense impressions along with muscular acts. 

 The product of these is the idea, the memory image. When rightly 

 formed, full reactions between observations and applications they be- 

 come unerring guides to conduct. They serve most of life's purposes 

 and are absolutely essential, are become, in the main, dependable. 

 Promptings must, of course, be incessantly modified by intelligent in- 

 hibition, the checking of over-action, judicious selection of courses of 

 action. 



Whatever the direction that life-work may take, that child is espe- 

 cially fortunate who is compelled to acquire a store of motor reactions 

 long before the reasons for them are understood. This essential equip- 

 ment is only to be secured during the period of plasticity, while the 

 tissues, brain-cells, nervous mechanisms, etc., are elastic, impression- 

 able. After this period, which slowly subsides, passing gradually into 

 varying degrees of adaptability, the formation of new yet efficient 

 automatisms becomes increasingly difficult. 



