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LESSON XXXIX.

APPERCEPTION.

(Continued.)

IN the last lesson we saw that perception, memory, imagination, conception, judging, and reasoning are processes of discrimination and assimilation, exercised on different materials, and that these different materials are themselves products of a more fundamental mode of mental activity, of which discrimination and assimilation are forms.

How can Knowledge Best be Imparted? - This being so, the question, How can I impart knowledge most clearly? may be put in another form. From the point of view we have now reached, we are able to see that the question is, How can I supply the conditions of appercep tion? or, to put it more definitely, though not so accurately, How can I enable my pupils to discriminate and assimilate most perfectly?

This activity of apperception in any of its forms consists in the establishment of relation. If, then, a new fact is to be apperceived, it must be brought into relations with old facts. The unknown must be related to the known. Now, in order that this may take place in order that this relation may be established - it is not enough that

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the mind have in the storehouse of memory concepts to which the known may be related; these concepts must be brought out; and the more completely the whole of one's past experience is ransacked for related concepts, the more perfect will be the apperception or assimilation.

We can easily illustrate the truth of this by appealing to our own experiences. Sometimes we read books to "inform our minds," or "to get general information "; sometimes to get definite answers to definite questions. Which do you find the more profitable reading? The last, I am sure; and the reason is that your whole knowledge of the subject to which your question relates is brought to bear on everything you find related to it. Your "apperceiving conceptions . . . stand, like armed soldiers, within the strongholds of consciousness, ready to pounce upon" everything they can bring within their grasp. Read the same book with no question in mind, and those apperceiving conceptions are like soldiers asleep, who let their enemy go by them undisturbed. You get illustrations of the same truth when you re-read a book after a considerable interval. If the book is thoughtful-worth re-reading-you are almost sure to find some suggestive or striking observation that escaped your notice the first time. I have read Bagehot's Physics and Politics many times, but I do not remember that my attention was ever attracted to the paragraph quoted some pages back until I read it a couple of weeks ago. When I read it before, I had "no receptivity" for it, either because I had no related concepts in my mind, or because they were in the background of consciousness, and therefore, like soldiers asleep, unserviceable. But when I read it two weeks ago, my attention had been attracted to the subject of the paragraph by my

own observations, and so my mind pounced upon it with great eagerness.

When you select a subject for an essay that interests you very much, three or four months before the time you expect to write it, your experience gives you illustrations of the same truth. You scarcely read a single newspaper, or a magazine article, or a novel, that does not suggest some idea on your subject. You suddenly become aware that there is a universe of thought as well as a material universe, and you find your subject "opening out" into it in every direction. Without that subject in mind, your reading would have had no such result; your apperceiving conceptions would have been asleep; their natural prey would have escaped.

Preparation. These illustrations enable us to realize that the Herbartians are right when they say that “the first great function of the teacher is to prepare the way for the rapid and efficient assimilation of that knowledge which the study hour or the recitation period is to furnish," and that this function consists in causing "to appear in the consciousness" of the pupil "those interpreting ideas" that enable him to assimilate what is presented to him.1

Before the "presentation," then, of the matter of the lesson, the pupil's mind should be prepared for it. We have seen already how much the value of our reading is increased when we read to get a definite answer to a definite question. Let us bear this in mind when we are preparing the minds of our pupils for the apperception of

1 De Garmo's Essentials of Method, p. 32.

concepts. Let us put a definite question before them which it is the aim of the lesson to answer.

When we have stated clearly the object of the lesson, we can help him still further by helping him to array in consciousness his apperceiving conceptions, so that he will be most fully prepared to accomplish the work. We see the connection between this lesson and some preceding lesson. We should recall the previous lesson to his mind; we should help him to bring out of the storehouse of his memory.everything that bears on the lesson. We can, of course, do this most successfully by asking questions, because in this way we secure from him the greatest amount of mental activity.1

Presentation.

When in such ways the mind of the pupil is prepared for the efficient assimilation of the lesson, the matter of the lesson should be presented — the teacher, of course, requiring as much of this to be done by the pupil as possible. This subject of presentation has already been discussed in connection with the Objective Method. Presentation is nothing but a process of getting "reality" before the mind of the pupil.

Play of the Mind. But we have seen that the "play of the mind" there spoken of is, for the most part, a form of apperception or assimilation. If we bear this in mind, we can better supply the conditions for it by bringing his mind into contact with those phases of the reality in question that present the most salient features for the activity of assimilation.

1 See on this whole subject the book already cited.

Pedagogical Principle. To this end, it will be useful for us to remember the following principle: "Objects and wholes of any kind are more easily discriminated and assimilated apperceived in general — than qualities and parts." The ground of it is evident. Objects and wholes of any kind differ from each other in more marked and striking ways than qualities and parts, and consequently can be more easily discriminated. Since they also resemble each other in a greater number of particulars, they can be more easily assimilated.

Proof.

You can prove its truth by appealing to your own experience. Which do you recognize more easily and certainly your friends as wholes, or their individual features? Try to describe the features of your most intimate friends in their absence, and you will see. You will often find yourself ludicrously uncertain as to the shape of the nose, the color of the eyes and hair, to say nothing of less prominent features. All of us likewise recognize a rose when we see it, but it requires the training of the botanist to point out the qualities which distinguish it from all other flowers.

Assuming the truth of this principle, it is evident that we can best assist our pupils to discriminate and assimilate by presenting to them wholes and objects before parts and qualities.

Material Wholes and Thought Wholes. We must not limit the application of this principle to material objects and material wholes. It applies to thought wholes : as well. Indeed, strictly speaking, all wholes are thought wholes― wholes made by thought, wholes that are wholes