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LEE, Joseph, Plays in Education (New York, Macmillan Co., 1915), Chaps. i, xix, xxx, xxxviii.

MARTIN, Herbert, Formative Factors in Character (New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1925), Chap. xvi.

NORSWORTHY, Naomi, and WHITLEY, Mary T., Psychology of Childhood (New York, Macmillan Co., 1923), Chap. xii.

PATRICK, G. T., Psychology of Relaxation (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916), Chap. ii.

SEASHORE, C. E., Introduction to Psychology (New York, Macmillan Co., 1923), Chap. xix.

THOMSON, Godfrey H., Instinct, Intelligence and Character (New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1925), Chap. iv.

THORNDIKE, E. L., Educational Psychology (New York, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1921), Vol. I, pp. 144-146.

WADDLE, C. W., Introduction to Child Psychology (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918), Chap. vi.

CHAPTER XVIII

DELIBERATION AND DECISION

Will as a faculty has no place in modern psychology. On the other hand, there is no escaping the fact that good teaching and a good environment will enable the normal individual to replace the bondage of infancy with increasing liberty. In other words, education makes possible more ways of responding. The readings have been chosen from the writings of the leading authorities. The development of character and the training of the "will" are equivalent to training the entire man. Much can be accomplished by the teacher by direct attack. The experiment performed by Voelker, while not free from certain criticisms, shows quite definitely that ideals are acquired best when the teacher makes definite attempts to build them into the children.

The way actions are "willed" is described by Pillsbury. The relation between will and attention is described by Colvin. Training the will means training the attention. The methods whereby ideals and social attitudes may be acquired effectively as concomitant learnings are described in the Iowa Plan and by Voelker. The building of character is primarily a matter of building ideals and the habit of living up to them.

1. Ideo-Motor Action

[JAMES, William, Talks to Teachers, pp. 170-171. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1899.]

There is no sort of consciousness whatever, be it sensation, feeling, or idea, which does not directly and of itself tend to discharge into some motor effect. The motor effect need not always be an outward stroke of behavior. It may be only an alteration of the heart-beats or breathing, or a modification in the distribution of blood, such as blushing or turning pale; or else a secretion of tears, or what not. But, in any case, it is there in some shape when any consciousness is there; and a

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belief as fundamental as any in modern psychology is the belief at last attained that conscious processes of any sort, conscious processes merely as such, must pass over into motion, open or concealed.

The least complicated case of this tendency is the case of a mind possessed by only a single idea. If that idea be of an object connected with a native impulse, the impulse will immediately proceed to discharge. If it be the idea of a movement, the movement will occur. Such a case of action from a single idea has been distinguished from more complex cases by the name of ideo-motor' action, meaning action without express decision or effort. Most of the habitual actions to which we are trained are of this ideo-motor sort.

2. Ideo-Motor Action

[THORNDIKE, E. L., Educational Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 176-177, 289. New York, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913.]

Next, and even more orthodox, is the theory of ideo-motor action, that the idea of an act or of the result of an act, or some part of such result, tends, in and of itself, to produce or connect with that act. . . .

The classic statement of the power to bind acts to situations by so linking ideas of them is given by James. . . .

Against this orthodox opinion, I contend that the idea of a movement (or of any response whatever), is, in and of itself, unable to produce it. I contend that an idea does not tend to provoke the act which it is an idea of, but only that which it connects with as a result of the laws of instinct, exercise and effect.

In particular I contend that any idea, image, sensation, percept, or any other mental state whatever, has, apart from use, disuse, satisfaction, and discomfort, no stronger tendency to call up any other movement. . . . .

Many thinkers about moral education have assumed the truth of the ideo-motor theory and so have trusted that presenting stories of noble acts was such a universal means of ennobling conduct. . . .

This confidence that an idea will be realized in behavior if only we can get it into the mind and keep the opposite ideas out, has as its consequence, in turn, the expectation of vast moral improvement from the study of literary descriptions of virtue and in the end the deliberate insertion in the cur

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riculum of subject-matter chosen because it gives impressive ideas of good acts, and so, supposedly, creates them. . .

It is, of course, my contention that the theory itself is wrong.

3. Release of Movement

[PILLSBURY, W. B., Essentials of Psychology, p. 345. Copyright, 1915, by the Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission.]

One of the best places to study the play of these forces and considerations is in getting up in the morning, which is made much of by Professor James, and which, for its difficulty, seems to have universal appeal. When the alarm goes off, one intends to get up, one even thinks of the movements that are to be made in their order, but nothing happens. Sometimes one suddenly recalls the task that must be finished early in the morning. That gives the required impetus, and the various habitual movements are begun. Often, however, one thinks of nothing new; there seems no particular incentive to the movements just before they begin; one finds one's self dressing and that is all that there is to the whole matter. In such cases it is probable that the act begins when some inhibiting or blocking idea disappears or is forgotten, that the movement is due to the removal of a check rather than to the appearance of a new force. In brief, the movement is induced, not merely by the idea regarded as the motive, but by the entire mental context at the moment, by a large number of elements that constitute the situation and the attitude toward the situation. In any case the release of the movement does not follow upon any definitely assignable mental content, but is the outcome of the whole mass of considerations that combine to make the act desirable.

4. A Biologist's View of Will and Freedom

[CONKLIN, E. G., Heredity and Environment, revised, second edition, p. 482. Princeton University Press, 1916.]

Freedom is the more or less limited capacity of the highest organisms to inhibit instinctive and non-rational acts by intellectual and rational stimuli and to regulate behavior in the light of past experience. Such freedom is not uncaused activity, but freedom from the mechanical responses to external or instinctive stimuli, through the intervention of internal stimuli due to experience and intelligence.

5. Definition of Will

[HORNE, H. H., Idealism in Education, p. 96. Copyright, 1910, by the Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission.]

By "will". . . we mean the part the individual himself plays in his own making and in the making of society. . . . Especially are we to avoid the idea "the will" is a "faculty" of mind distinct from other so-called "faculties," such as intellect, memory, reason, and emotion. All the functions of consciousness are interrelated-and "the will" is the name for the fact that consciousness is an agent. Consciousness is a knowing, sensitive agent. . . . Knowledge may be shared; one's deed remains his very own. Thus it is the active aspect of consciousness that we call "will."

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6. Definition of Will

(HORNE, H. H., Philosophy of Education, p. 219. Copyright, 1904, by the Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission.]

And the will of man is that disciplined activity which pursues purposes steadily, and realizes great ends. Self-control and self-direction are its characteristic qualities. Attention is voluntarily given to the uninteresting present task for the sake of the important future accomplishment. The inclinations of heredity and the influences of environment are but helping or hindering forces in the will's masterful achievement of life's plan.

7. Importance of the Will

[HORNE, H. H., Idealism in Education, pp. 122-123. Copyright, 1910, by the Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission.]

Within the limitations of inherited capacities and environing opportunities, man becomes what he will. . . . We cannot by willing enlarge our boundaries; we can by willing cultivate and improve our soil. We cannot by willing enlarge our capacities, but only develop them. We cannot by willing create opportunities, but only utilize them and help them arise.

8. Choice and Deliberation

[DEWEY, John, Human Nature and Conduct, pp. 192-198. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1922.]

Deliberation proceeds. To say that at last it ceases is to say that choice, decision, takes place. What then is choice?

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