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heredity a stock of motor impulses. Many of them are random, while others are quite definite. Then through being carried about, being fed, washed, and dressed, thousands of positions are assumed. Thus many movements, accidental so far as the child is concerned, are experienced. Each one of these is of definite value in trying a new movement, as they can be recombined in countless ways. Trial and error and trial and success are the usual ways of developing definite voluntary actions.

In order to understand fully developed volitional acts let us examine the genesis of a voluntary act; for example, throwing at a mark. We throw at the mark and do not succeed. But in doing so we have gained certain experiences-muscular, auditory, and others. Each of these experiences leaves a memory. It may be a visual memory of the appearance of the mark and of the distance, or it may be the kinesthetic memory of the position of the arm when it was raised, as the missile was hurled, of the position of the hand and the fingers as the missile was released. All of these memories are taken account of in gauging the next trial. We know, for example, how wide of the mark we came and how much muscular tension was exerted, at what height the object was released. These memories we compare with our ideas of the amount of force that ought to be exerted, the modified positions to be taken by the arm and hand, and other conditions which we think ought to bring about the desired end. We try again and possibly err in the opposite direction. The memories of this experience are now compared with the former ones and also with the imagined necessary ones, and we repeat the trial, attempting to correct all the former errors. If perchance we have accidentally hit the mark the first time, the case is fundamentally the same. In either case we try to remember the sensations and perceptions gained under these conditions and then endeavor to repeat them. It takes many trials before we can perform the action purposively, because our memories of the movement are so fleeting and imperfect, and our ideas of what is necessary are so indefinite. At first we cannot know just what to do, because we can have no accurate idea of the end until we have actually accomplished the end.

From this analysis we see that in order to perform an act voluntarily we must have (a) an idea (not necessarily a conscious idea) of the end to be accomplished, and (b) a stock of memories of former experiences from which a suitable selection can be used in guiding action toward the ideal end. This idea

of the end to be accomplished includes not only an idea of what is to be done, but also the idea of how to do it. On first consideration this may seem a startling statement. The inquiry will at once be raised as to how we can ever perform an act voluntarily if we must first know definitely how to accomplish the act and if that knowledge can only be gained by actual performance of it. Paradoxical as it may seem, however, no act can be performed voluntarily until it has been first performed non-voluntarily. This does not mean that as a whole it must have been performed non-voluntarily, but that the elements which enter into it must have been performed non-voluntarily. In the case of reaching for a book, for example, we do it at once without difficulty, although we have never reached for the identical book or in that particular place. But we have moved the arm and the hand in countless directions previously, and each of these reaching has been recorded in memory. When we reach for a particular book in a particular place we select from all the past experiences certain elements and combine those elements into a new whole and perform the new action with ease.

James writes that "no creature not endowed with divinatory power can perform an act voluntarily for the first time." But as we are not endowed with prophetic power we must wait for the movements to be performed involuntarily before we can frame ideas of what they are. "We learn all our possibilities by the way of experience. When a particular movement, having once occurred in a random, reflex, or involuntary way, has left an image of itself in the memory, then the movement can be desired again, proposed as an end, and deliberately willed. But it is impossible to see how it could be willed before. A supply of ideas of the various movements that are possible left in the memory by experience of their involuntary performance is thus the first prerequisite of the voluntary life" (James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 487, 488).

13. Maxims for Acquiring Decision

[FOSTER, J., Essay on Decision of Character, Bohn's Standard Library. New York, Macmillan Co.] (Adapted.)

Some of the most important rules for acquiring stability and firmness of decision include the following: (1) Gain an adequate knowledge of the enterprises which are to be undertaken. This gives confidence in the justness of one's deci

sions and makes it unlikely that facts will be encountered that will make it necessary to reverse them. (2) Form the habit of thinking through all questions which come up for decisions by following out a connected train of thought to a conclusion. Do not be swayed by the consideration which happens by chance to be uppermost at the moment. (3) After forming a decision promptly commit yourself to it by definite action, which if possible, makes a reversal of the decision difficult. Knit together resolution and action so closely that no gap between them appears.

14. Brain Set

[ROYCE, Josiah, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 68-69. Copyright, 1904, by the Macmillan Co.] (Adapted.)

How the brain reacts at any moment is determined both by its entire past history and by its inherited type of structure. It is especially significant for our higher mental life that brain patterns once formed tend to become henceforth more easily reëxcited thereafter. In other words, mental habits tend to become fixed. . . . A brain set may thus become a matter of relatively or of entirely fixed habit.

15. The Educated Mind

The trained judgment is accurate in the reporting of facts. It comprehends their meanings, foresees their consequences and sees their relation to the whole of which they are a part. The educated mind performs tasks with great facility because it has accustomed itself to the performance of such tasks. The habit of giving continuous attention has developed through long practice. In this way the educated individual is able to plan and perform mental labor with the minimum of waste and worry. The trained mind quickly perceives the best way to perform a task. It does this with a feeling of self-confidence and satisfyingness. The educated mind is relatively free in comparison with the uneducated. Ignorance means bondage. Education means freedom. The ignorant man is able to react in one way only to a given situation. The educated man is able to weigh and consider

several possible alternatives and then make his choice in accordance with his ability to perceive the future; that is to say, the educated mind is more controlled by the future than the uneducated.

16. Moral Deliberation

[JAMES, William, Talks to Teachers, pp. 187-188. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1899.]

The hackneyed example of moral deliberation is the case of an habitual drunkard under temptation. He has made a resolve to reform, but he is now solicited again by the bottle. His moral triumph or failure literally consists in his finding the right name for the case. If he says that it is a case of not wasting good liquor already poured out, or a case of not being churlish and unsociable when in the midst of friends, or a case of learning something at last about a brand of whisky which he never met before, or a case of celebrating a public holiday, or a case of stimulating himself to a more energetic resolve in favor of abstinence than any he has ever yet made, then he is lost. His choice of the wrong name seals his doom. But if, in spite of all the plausible good names with which his thirsty fancy so copiously furnishes him, he unwaveringly clings to the truer bad name, and apperceives the case as that of "being a drunkard, being a drunkard, being a drunkard," his feet are planted on the road to salvation. He saves himself by thinking rightly.

Thus are your pupils to be saved: first, by the stock of ideas with which you furnish them; second, by the amount of valuntary attention that they can exert in holding to the right ones, however unpalatable; and, third, by the several habits of acting definitely on these latter to which they have been successfully trained.

17. Love of the Good versus Fear of the Evil [JAMES, William, Talks to Teachers, pp. 194-195. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1899.]

It is clear that in general we ought, whenever we can, to employ the method inhibition by substitution. He whose life is based upon the word 'no,' who tells the truth because a lie is wicked, and who has constantly to grapple with his envious and cowardly and mean propensities, is in an inferior situation in every respect to what he would be if the love of truth and

magnanimity positively possessed him from the outset, and he felt no inferior temptations. Your born gentleman is certainly, for this world's purposes a more valuable being than your "Crump, with his grunting resistance to his native devils," even though in God's sight the latter may, as the Catholic theologians say, be rolling up great stores of 'merit.'

Spinoza long ago wrote in his Ethics that anything that a man can avoid under the notion that it is bad he may also avoid under the notion that something else is good. He who habitually acts sub specie mali, under the negative notion, the notion of the bad, is called a slave by Spinoza. To him who acts habitually under the notion of good he gives the name of freeman. See to it now, I beg you, that you make free men of your pupils by habituating them to act whenever possible, under the notion of a good. Get them habitually to tell the truth, not so much through showing them the wickedness of lying as by arousing their enthusiasm for honor and veracity. Wean them from their native cruelty by imparting to them some of your own positive sympathy with an animal's inner springs of joy. And, in the lessons which you may be legally obliged to conduct upon the bad effects of alcohol, lay less stress than the books do on the drunkard's stomach, kidneys, nerves, and social miseries, and more on the blessings of having an organism kept in lifelong possession of its youthful elasticity by a sweet, sound blood, to which the stimulants and narcotics are unknown, and to which the morning sun and air and dew will daily come as sufficiently powerful intoxicants.

18. Foundation Principles of Character Education [Character Education Methods: "The Iowa Plan," Chap. i. Washington, Character Education Institution, 1922.] (Abridged.)

1. Have a Goal.-Character education must keep before parents and instructors an end as distinct as that before a traveler who would take a journey or a factory manager who would turn out a finished product or an artist who would create a work of art. It should be consciously purposeful, not haphazard. The methods herein outlined move towards a definite goal.

II. Measure the Progress and the Product.-The flower of moral culture eludes scales and measuring sticks. But there are fundamental attitudes that are as measurable as are the "points" in stock judging, or the "skills" in arithmetic, writing and music. Character development promises to be able to know

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