The Elements of General Method, Based on the Principles of Herbart

by Charles A. McMurry

CHAPTER VI.

APPERCEPTION.

We have now to deal with a principle of pedagogy upon which all the leading ideas thus far discussed largely depend for their realization. Interest, concentration, and induction set up requirements relative to the matter, spirit and method of school studies. Apperception is a practical principle, obedience to which will contribute daily and hourly to making real in school exercises the ideas of interest, concentration and induction.

We observe in passing that the important principles already discussed stand in close mutual relation and dependence. Interest aids concentration by bringing all kinds of knowledge into close touch with the feelings. Interest puts incentives into every kind of information so as to arouse the will, which, in turn, unifies and controls the mental actions. But concentration has a reflex influence upon interest, because unity and conscious mastery give added pleasure to knowledge. The culture epochs are expected to contribute powerfully to both concentration and interest; to the former by supplying a series of rallying-points for educative effort, to the latter by furnishing matter suited to interest children. Induction is a natural method of acquiring and unifying knowledge in an interesting way. Apperception, in turn, is a principle of mental action which puts life and interest into inductive and concentrating processes. Every hour of school labor illustrates the value of apperception and teachers should find in it a constant antidote to faulty methods.

Apperception may be roughly defined at first as the process of acquiring new ideas by the aid of old ideas already in the mind. It makes the acquisition of new knowledge easier and quicker. Not that there is any easy road to learning, but there is a natural process which greatly accelerates the progress of acquisition, just as it is better to follow a highway over a rough country than to betake one's self to the stumps and brush. For example, if one is familiar with peaches, apricots will be quickly understood as a kindred kind of fruit, even though a little strange. A person who is familiar with electrical machinery will easily interpret the meaning and purpose of every part of a new electrical plant. One may perceive a new object without understanding it, but to apperceive it is to interpret its meaning by the aid of similar familiar notions.

If one examines a typewriter for the first time, it will take some pains and effort to understand its construction and use; but after examining a Remington, another kind will be more easily understood, because the principle of the first interprets that of the second. Suppose the Steppes of Russia are mentioned for the first time to a class. The word has little or no meaning or perhaps suggests erroneously a succession of stairs. But we remark that the steppes are like the prairies and plains to the west of the Mississippi river, covered with grass and fed on by herds. By awakening a familiar notion already in the mind and bringing it distinctly to the front, the new thing is easily understood. Again, a boy goes to town and sees a banana for the first time, and asks, "What is that? I never saw anything like that." He thinks he has no class of things to which it belongs, no place to put it. His father answers that it is to eat like an orange or a pear, and its significance is at once plain by the reference to something familiar.

Again, two men, the one a machinist and the other an observer unskilled in machines, visit the machinery hall of an exposition. The machinist observes a new invention and finds in it a new application of an old principle. As he passes along from one machine to another he is much interested in noting new devices and novel appliances and at the end of an hour he leaves the hall with a mind enriched. The other observer sees the same machines and their parts, but does not detect the principle of their construction. His previous knowledge of machines is not sufficient to give him the clue to their explanation. After an hour of uninterested observation he leaves the hall with a confused notion of shafts, wheels, cogs, bands, etc., but with no greater insight into the principles of machinery. Why has one man learned so much and the other nothing? Because the machinist's previous experience served as an interpreter and explained these new contrivances, while the other had no sufficient previous knowledge and so acquired nothing new. "To him that hath shall be given."

In the act of apperception the old ideas dwelling in the mind are not to be regarded as dead treasures stored away and only occasionally drawn out and used by a purposed effort of the memory, but they are living forces which have the active power of seizing and appropriating new ideas. Lazarus says they stand "like well-armed men in the inner stronghold of the mind ready to sally forth and overcome or make serviceable whatever shows itself at the portals of sense." It is then through the active aid of familiar ideas that new things find an introduction to soul life. If old friends go out to meet the strangers and welcome them, there will be an easy entrance and a quick adoption into the new home.

But frequently these old friends who stand in the background of our thoughts must be awakened and called to the front. They must stand as it were on tiptoe ready to welcome the stranger. For if they lie asleep in the penetralia of the home the new comers may approach and pass by for lack of a welcome. It is often necessary, therefore, for the teacher to revive old impressions, to call up previously acquired knowledge and to put it in readiness to receive and welcome the new. The success with which this is done is often the difference between good and poor teaching.

We might suppose that when two persons look at the same object they would get the same impression, but this is not true at all. Where one person faints with fright or emotion another sees nothing to be disturbed at. Two travelers come in sight of an old homestead. To one it is an object of absorbing interest as the home of his childhood; to the other it is much like any other old farm house. What is the cause of this difference? Not the house. It is the same in both cases. It is remarkable how much color is given to every idea that enters into the mind by the ideas already there. Some visitors at the World's Fair can tell almost at a glance to what states many of the buildings belong; other visitors must study this out on the maps and notices. One who is familiar with the history, architecture, and products of the different states is able to classify many of the buildings with ease. His previous knowledge of these states interprets their buildings. Mt. Vernon naturally belongs to Virginia, Independence Hall to Pennsylvania, John Hancock's house to Massachusetts. In a still more striking manner, a knowledge of foreign countries enables the observer to classify such buildings as the French, the German, the Swedish, the Japanese, etc. Again, in viewing any exhibit our enjoyment and appreciation depend almost entirely upon our previous knowledge, not upon our eye-sight or our physical endurance. Many objects of the greatest value we pass by with an indifferent glance because our previous knowledge is not sufficient to give us their meaning.

If a dry goods merchant, a horse jockey, and an architect pass down a city street together, what will each observe? The merchant notices all the dry goods stores, their displays, and their favorable or unfavorable location. The jockey sees every horse and equipage; he forms a quiet but quick judgment upon every passing animal. The architect sees the buildings and style of construction. If in the evening each is called upon to give his observations for the day, the jockey talks of horses and describes some of the best specimens in detail; the merchant speaks of store-fronts and merchandise; the architect is full of elevations of striking or curious buildings. The architect and merchant remember nothing, perhaps, about the horses; the jockey nothing of stores or buildings. Three people may occupy the same pew in a church; the one can tell you all about the music, the second the good points in the sermon, and the third the style and becomingness of the bonnets and dresses. Each one sees what he has in his own mind. A teacher describes Yosemite Valley to a geography class. Some of the children construct a mental picture of a gorge with steep mountain sides, but no two pictures are alike; some have mental pictures that resemble nothing in heaven above or earth below; some have constructed——nothing at all! only the echo of a few spoken words. If the teacher, at the close of her description, could have the mental state of each child photographed on the blackboard of her schoolroom she would be in mental distress. In presenting such topics to children, much depends upon the previous content of their minds, upon the colors out of which they paint the pictures.

We are now prepared for a more accurate definition of apperception. "The transformation of a newer (weaker) concept by means of an older one surpassing the former in power and inner organization bears the name of apperception, in contrast to the unaltered reception of the same perception." (Lindner's Psychol. p. 124, trans. by De Garmo.) Lindner remarks further, "Apperception is the reaction of the old against the new—in it is revealed the preponderance which the older, firmer, and more self-contained concept groups have in contrast to the concepts which have just entered consciousness." Again, "It is a kind of process of condensation of thought and brings into the mental life a certain stability and firmness, in that it subordinates new to older impressions, puts everything in its right place and in its right relation to the whole, and in this way works at that organic formation of our consciousness which we call culture." (Lindner p. 126.) "Apperception may be defined as that interaction between two similar ideas or thought-complexes in the course of which the weaker, unorganized, isolated idea or thought-complex is incorporated into the richer, better digested, and more firmly compacted one." (Lange, Apperception, p. 13.)

Oftentimes, therefore, older ideas or thought masses, being clear, strong, and well-digested receive a new impression to modify and appropriate it. This is especially true where opinions have been carefully formed after thought and deliberation. A well-trained political economist, for example, when approaching a new theory or presentation of it by a George or Bellamy, meets it with all the resources of a well-stored, thoughtful mind; and admits it, if at all, in a modified form to his system of thought. Sometimes, however, a new theory, which strikes the mind with great clearness and vigor, is able to make a powerful assault upon previous opinions, and perhaps modify or overturn them. This is the more apt to be the case if one's previous ideas have been weak and undecided. In the interaction between the old and new the latter then become the apperceiving forces. Upon the untrained or poorly-equipped mind a strong argument has a more decisive effect than it may justly deserve. As we noticed above, new ideas, especially those coming directly through the senses, are often more vivid and attractive than similar old ones. For this reason they usually occupy greater attention and prominence at first than later, when the old ideas have begun to revive and reassert themselves. Old ideas usually have the advantage over the new in being better organized, more closely connected in series and groups; and having been often repeated, they acquire a certain permanent ascendency in the thoughts. In this interaction between similar notions, old and new, the differences at first arrest attention, then gradually sink into the background, while the stronger points of resemblance begin to monopolize the thought and bind the notions into a unity.

The use of familiar notions in acquiring an insight into new things is a natural tendency or drift of the mind. As soon as we see something new and desire to understand it, at once we involuntarily begin to ransack our old stock of ideas to discover anything in our previous experience which corresponds to this or is like it. For whatever is like it or has an analogy to it, or serves the same uses, will explain this new thing, though the two objects be in other points essentially different. We are, in short, constantly falling back upon our old experiences and classifications for the explanation of new objects that appear to us.

So far is this true that the most ordinary things can only be explained in the light of experience. When John Smith wrote a note to his companions at Jamestown, and thus communicated his desires to them, it was unintelligible to the Indians. They had no knowledge of writing and looked on the marks as magical. When Columbus' ships first appeared on the cost of the new world, the natives looked upon them as great birds. They had never seen large sailing vessels. To vary the illustration, the art of reading, so easy to a student, is the accumulated result of a long collection of knowledge and experience. There is an unconscious employment of apperception in the practical affairs of life that is of interest. We often see a person at a distance and by some slight characteristic of motion, form, or dress, recognize him at once. From this slight trace we picture to ourselves the person in full and say we saw him in the street. Sitting in my room at evening I hear the regular passenger train come in. The noise alone suggests the engine, cars, conductor, passengers, and all the train complete. As a matter of fact I saw nothing at all but have before my mind the whole picture. On Sunday morning I see some one enter a familiar church door, and going on my way the whole picture of church, congregation, pastor, music and sermon come distinctly to my mind. Only a passing glance at one person entering suggests the whole scene. In looking at a varied landscape we see many things which the sensuous eye alone would not detect, distances, perspective and relative size, position and nature of objects. This apperceptive power is of vast importance in practical life as it leads to quick judgment and action, when personal examinations into details would be impossible.

In apperception we never pass from the known to things which are entirely new. Absolutely new knowledge is gained by perception or intuition. When an older person meets with something totally new, he either does not notice it or it staggers him. Apperception does not take place. In many cases we are disturbed or frightened, as children, by some new or sudden noise or object. But most so-called new things bear sufficient resemblance to things seen before to admit of explanation. Strange as the sights of a Chinese city might appear, we should still know that we were in a city. In most "new" objects of observation or study, the familiar parts greatly preponderate over the unfamiliar. In a new reading lesson, for example, most of the words and ideas are well known, only an occasional word requires explanation and that by using familiar illustrations. The flood of our familiar and oft-repeated ideas sweeps on like a great river, receiving here and there from either side a tributary stream, that is swallowed up in its waters without perceptible increase.

So strong is the apperceiving force of familiar notions that they drag far-distant scenes in geography and history into the home neighborhood and locate them there. The imagination works in conjunction with the apperceiving faculty and constructs real pictures. Children are otherwise inclined to substitute one thing for another by imagination. With boys and girls, geographical objects about home are often converted by fancy into representatives of distant places. It is related of Byron that while reading in childhood the story of the Trojan war, he localized all the places in the region of his home. An old hill and castle looking toward the plain and the sea were his Troy. The stream flowing through the plain was the Simois. The places of famous conflicts between the Trojans and Greeks were located. So vivid were the pictures which these home scenes gave to the child, that years later in visiting Asia Minor and the sight of the real Troy, he was not so deeply impressed as in his boyhood. A German professor relates that he and his companions, while reading the Indian stories of Cooper, located the important scenes in the hills and valleys about Eisenach in the Thuringian mountains. Many other illustrations of the same imaginative tendency to substitute home objects for foreign ones are given. But whether or not this experience is true of us all, it is certain that we can form no idea of foreign places and events except as we construct the pictures out of the fragments of things that we have known. What we have seen of rivers, lands, and cities must form the materials for picturing to ourselves distant places.

Since the old ideas have so much to do with the proper reception of the new, let us examine more closely the interaction of the two. If a new idea drops into the mind, like a stone upon the surface of the water, it produces a commotion. It acts as a stimulus or wakener to the old ideas sleeping beneath the surface. It draws them up above the surface-level; that is, into consciousness. But what ideas are thus disturbed? There are thousands of these latent ideas, embryonic thoughts, beneath the surface. Those which possess sufficient kinship to this new-comer to hear his call, respond. For in the mind "birds of a feather flock together." Ideas and thoughts which resemble the new one answer, the others sleep on undisturbed, except a few who are so intimately associated with these kinsmen as to be disturbed when they are disturbed. Or, to state it differently, certain thought-groups or complexes, which contain elements kindred to the new notion, are agitated and raised into conscious thought. They seem to respond to their names. The new idea may continue for some time to stimulate and agitate. There appears to be a sort of telegraphic inquiry through the regions of the mind to find out where the kindred dwell. The distant relatives and strangers (the unrelated or unserviceable ideas) soon discover that they have responded to the wrong call and drop back to sleep again. But the real kindred wake up more and more. They come forward to inspect the new-comer and to examine his credentials. Soon he finds that he is surrounded by inquisitive friends and relatives. They threaten even to take possession of him. Up to this point the new idea has taken the lead, he has been the aggressor. But now is the time for the awakened kindred ideas to assume control and lead the stranger captive, to bring him in among themselves and give him his appropriate place and importance. The old body of ideas, when once set in motion, is more powerful than any single-handed stranger who happens to fall into their company. The outcome is that the stranger, who at first seemed to be producing such a sensation, now discovers that strong arms are about him and he is carried captive by vigorous friends. New ideas when first entering the mind are very strong, and, if they come through the senses, are especially rich in the color and vigor of real life. They therefore absorb the attention at first and seem to monopolize the mental energies; but the older thought masses, when fully aroused, are better organized, more firmly rooted in habit, and possess much wider connections. They are almost certain, therefore, to apperceive the new idea; that is, to conquer and subdue it, to make it tributary to their power.

Let us examine more closely the effect of the process of apperception upon the new and old ideas that are brought in contact. First, observe the effect upon the new: Many an idea which is not strong enough in itself to make a lasting impression, upon the mind would quickly fade out and be forgotten were it not that in this process the old ideas throw it into a clear light, give it more meaning, associate it closely with themselves, and thus save it. Two persons look at the sword of Washington; one examines it with deep interest, the other scarcely gives it a second glance. The one remembers it for life, the other forgets it in an hour. The sense perception was the same in both persons at first, but the reception given to the idea by one converts it into a lasting treasure. A little lamp-black, rolled up between finger and thumb, suggested to Edison his carbon points for the electric light. A piece of lamp-black would produce no such effect in most peoples minds. The difference is in the reception accorded to an idea. The meaning and importance of an idea or event depend upon the interpretation put upon it by our previous experience. "Many a weak, obscure, and fleeting perception would pass almost unnoticed into obscurity, did not the additional activity of apperception hold it fast in consciousness. This sharpens the senses, i.e., it gives to the organs of sense a greater degree of energy, so that the watching eye now sees, and the listening ear now hears, that which ordinarily would pass unnoticed. The events of apperception give to the senses a peculiar keenness, which underlies the skill of the money-changer in detecting a counterfeit among a thousand bank-notes, notwithstanding its deceptive similarity; of the jeweler who marks the slightest, apparently imperceptible, flaw in an ornament; of the physicist who perceives distinctly the overtones of a vibrating string. According to this we see and hear not only with the eye and ear, but quite as much with the help of our present knowledge, with the apperceiving content of the mind." (Apperception, Lange, De Garmo, p. 21.)

Some even intelligent and sensible people can walk through Westminster Abbey and see nothing but a curious old church with a few graves and monuments. To a person well-versed in English history and literature it is a shrine of poets, a temple of heroes, the common resting-place of statesmen and kings.

Secondly, what is the effect on the old ideas? Every idea that newly enters the mind produces changes in the older groups and series of thought. Any one new idea may cause but slight changes, but the constant influx of new experiences works steadily at a modification and rearrangement of our previous stores of thought. Faulty and incomplete groups and concepts are corrected or enlarged; that is, changed from psychical into logical notions. Children are surprised to find little flowers on the oaks, maples, walnuts, and other large forest trees. On account of the small size of the blossoms, heretofore unnoticed, they had not thought of the great trees as belonging to the flowering plants. Their notion of flowering plants is, therefore, greatly enlarged by a few new observations. The bats flying about in the twilight have been regarded as birds; but a closer inspection shows that they belong to another class, and the notion bird must be limited. As already observed in the discussion of induction, most of our psychical notions are thus faulty and incomplete; e.g., the ideas fruit, fish, star, insect, mineral, ship, church, clock, dog, kitchen, library, lawyer, city, etc. Our notions of these and of hundreds of other such classes are at first both incomplete and faulty. The inflow of new ideas constantly modifies them, extending, limiting, explaining, and correcting our previous concepts.

Sometimes, however, a single new thought may have wide-reaching effects; it may even revolutionize one's previous modes of thinking and reorganize one's activities about a new center. With Luther, for instance, the idea of justification by faith was such a new and potent force, breaking up and rearranging his old forms of thought. St. Paul's vision on the way to Damascus is a still more striking illustration of the power of a new idea or conviction. And yet, even in such cases, the old ideas reassert themselves with great persistence and power. Luther and St. Paul remained, even after these great changes, in many respects the same kind of men as before. Their old habits of thinking were modified, not destroyed; the direction of their lives was changed, but many of their habits and characteristics remained almost unaltered.

Apperception, however, is not limited to the effects of external objects upon us, to the influence of ideas coming from without upon our old stores of knowledge. Old ideas, long since stored in the mind, may be freshly called up and brought into such contact with each other that new results follow, new apperceptions take place. In moments of reflection we are often surprised by conclusions that had not presented themselves to us before. A new light dawns upon us and we are surprised at not having seen it before. In fact, it makes little difference whether the idea suggested to the mind comes from within or from without if, when it once enters fairly into consciousness, it has power to stimulate other thoughts, to wake up whole thought complexes and bring about a process of action and reaction between itself and others. The result is new associations, new conclusions, new mental products—apperceptions.

This inner apperception, as it has been sometimes called, takes place constantly when we are occupied with our own thoughts, rather than with external impressions. With persons of deep, steady, reflective habits, it is the chief means of organizing their mental stores. The feelings and the will have much also to do with this process.

The laws of association draw the feelings as much as the intellectual states into apperceptive acts. I hear of a friend who has had disasters in business and has lost his whole fortune. If I have never experienced such difficulties myself, the chances are that the news will not make a deep impression upon me. But if I have once gone through the despondency of such a crushing defeat, sympathy for my friend will be awakened, and I may feel his trouble almost as my own. The meaning of such an item of news depends upon the response which it finds in my own feelings. It is well known that those friends can best sympathize with us in our trouble who have passed through the same troubles. Even enemies are not lacking in sympathy with each other when an appeal is made to deep feelings and experiences common to both.

The feeling of interest, which we have emphasized so much, is chiefly, if not wholly, dependent upon apperceptive conditions. Select a lesson adapted to the age and understanding of a child, present it in such a way as to recall and make use of his previous experience, and interest is certain to follow. The outcome of a successful act of apperception is always a feeling of pleasure, or at least of interest. When the principle of apperception is fully applied in teaching, the progress from one point to another is so gradual and clear that it gives pleasure. The clearness and understanding with which we receive knowledge adds greatly to our interest in it. On the contrary, when apperception is violated, and new knowledge is only half understood and assimilated there can be but little feeling of satisfaction. "The overcoming of certain difficulties, the accession of numerous ideas, the success of the act of knowledge or recognition, the greater clearness that the ideas have gained, awaken a feeling of pleasure. We become conscious of the growth of our knowledge and power of understanding. The significance of this new impression for our ego is now more strongly felt than at the beginning or during the course of the progress. To this pleasurable feeling is easily added the effort, at favorable opportunity, to reproduce the product of the apperception, to supplement and deepen it, to unite it to other ideas, and so further to extend certain chains of thought. The summit or sum of these states of mind we happily express with the word interest. For in reality the feeling of self appears between the various stages of the process of apperception (inter esse); with one's whole soul does one contemplate the object of attention. If we regard the acquired knowledge as the objective result of apperception, interest must be regarded as the subjective side." (Lange, Apperception, page 19.)

Finally, the will has much to do with conscious efforts at apperception. It holds the thought to certain groups; it excludes or pushes back irrelevant ideas that crowd in; it holds to a steady comparison of ideas, even where perplexity and obscurity trouble the thinker. When the process of reaching a conclusion takes much time, when conflict or contradiction have to be removed or adjusted, when reflection and reasoning are necessary, the will is of great importance in giving coherency and steadiness to the apperceptive effort. A conscious effort at apperception, therefore, may include many elements, sense perceptions, ideas recalled, feeling, will.

"Let us now sum up the essentials in the process of apperception. First of all, an external or internal perception, an idea, or idea-complex appears in consciousness, finding more or less response in the mind; that is, giving rise to greater or less stimulation to thought and feeling.

"In consequence of this, and in accordance with the psychical mechanism or an impulse of the will, one or more groups of thoughts arise, which enter into relation to the perception. While the two masses are compared with one another, they work upon one another with more or less of a transforming power. New thought-combinations are formed, until, finally, the perception is adjusted to the stronger and older thought combination. In this way all the factors concerned gain in value as to knowledge and feeling; especially, however, does the new idea gain a clearness and activity that it never would have gained for itself. Apperception is, therefore, that psychical activity by which individual perceptions, ideas, or idea-complexes are brought into relation to our previous intellectual and emotional life, assimilated with it, and thus raised to greater clearness, activity, and significance." (Lange, Apperception, page 41.)

Important conclusions drawn from a study of apperception:

1. Value of previous knowledge. If knowledge once acquired is so valuable we are first of all urged to make the acquisition permanent. Thorough mastery and frequent reviews are necessary to make knowledge stick. Careless and superficial study is injurious. It is sometimes carelessly remarked by those who are supposed to be wise in educational matters that it makes no difference how much we forget if we only have proper drill and training to study. That is, how we study is more important than what we learn. But viewed in the light of apperception, acquired knowledge should be retained and used, for it unlocks the door to more knowledge. Thorough mastery and retention of the elements of knowledge in the different branches is the only solid road to progress. In this connection we can see the importance of learning only what is worth remembering, what will prove a valuable treasure in future study. In the selection of material for school studies, therefore, we must keep in mind knowledge which, as Comenius says, is of solid utility. Having once selected and acquired such materials, we are next impelled to make constant use of them. If the acquisition of new information depends so much upon the right use of previous knowledge, we are called upon to build constantly upon this foundation. This is true whether the child's knowledge has been acquired at school or at home. In order to make things clear and interesting to boys and girls we must refer every day to what they have before learned in school and out of school.

Again, if we accept the doctrine that old ideas are the materials out of which we constantly build bridges across into new fields of knowledge, we must know the children better and what store of knowledge they have already acquired. Just as an army marching into a new country must know well the country through which it has passed and must keep open the line of communication and the base of supplies, so the student must always have a safe retreat into his past, and a base of supplies to sustain him in his onward movements. The tendency is very strong for a grade teacher to think that she needs to know nothing except the facts to be acquired in her own grade. But she should remember that her grade is only a station on the highway to learning and life. In teaching we cannot by any shift dispense with the ideas children have gained at home, at play, in the school and outside of it. This, in connection with what the child has learned in the previous grades, constitutes a stock of ideas, a capital, upon which the teacher should freely draw in illustrating daily lessons.

2. The use of our acquired stock of ideas involves a constant working over of old ideas, and this working-over process not only reviews and strengthens past knowledge, keeping it from forgetfulness, but it throws new light upon it and exposes it to a many-sided criticism. In the first place familiar ideas should not be allowed to rest in the mind unused. Like tools for service they must be kept bright and sharp. One reason why so many of the valuable ideas we have acquired have gradually disappeared from the mind is because they remained so long unused that they faded out of sight. The old saying that "repetition is the mother of studies" needs to be recalled and emphasized. By being put in contact, with new ideas, old notions are seen and appreciated in new relations. Facts that have long lain unexplained in the mind, suddenly receive a new interpretation, a vivid and rational meaning. Or the old meaning is intensified and vivified by putting a new fact in conjunction with it.

Where the climate and products of the British Isles have been studied in political geography, and later on, in physical geography, the gulf stream is explained in its bearings on the climate of western Europe, the whole subject of the climate of England is viewed from a new and interesting standpoint. In arithmetic, where the sum of the squares of the two sides of a right-angled triangle is illustrated by an example and later on in geometry the same proposition is taken up in a different way and proved as a universal theorem, new and interesting light is thrown upon an old problem of arithmetic. In United States history, after the Revolution has been studied, the biography of a man like Samuel Adams throws much additional and vivid light upon the events and actors in Boston and Massachusetts. The life of John Adams would give a still different view of the same great events; just as a city, as seen from different standpoints, presents different aspects.

3. We have thus far shown that new ideas are more easily understood and assimilated when they are brought into close contact with what we already know; and secondly, that our old knowledge is often explained and illuminated by new facts brought to bear upon it. We may now observe the result of this double action—the welding of old and new into one piece, the close mingling and association of all our knowledge, i.e., its unity. Apperception, therefore, has the same final tendency that was observed in the inductive process, the unification of knowledge, the concentration of all experience by uniting its parts into groups and series. The smith, in welding together two pieces of iron, heats both and then hammers them together into one piece. The teacher has something similar to do. He must revive old ideas in the child's mind, then present the new facts and bring the two things together while they are still fresh, so as to cause them to coalesce. To prove this observe how long division may be best taught. Call up and review the method of short division, then proceed to work a problem in long division calling attention to the similar steps and processes in the two, and finally to the difference between them.

The defect of much teaching in children's classes is that the teacher does not properly provide for the welding together of the new and old. The important practical question after all is whether instructors see to it that children recall their previous knowledge. It is necessary to take special pains in this. Nothing is more common than to find children forgetting the very thing which, if remembered, would explain the difficult point in the lesson. Teachers are often surprised that children have forgotten things once learned. But, in an important sense, we encourage children to forget by not calling into use their acquisitions. Lessons are learned too much, each by itself, without reference to what precedes or what follows, or what effect this lesson of to-day may have upon things learned a year ago. Putting it briefly, children and teachers do not think enough, pondering things over in their minds, relating facts with each other, and bringing all knowledge into unity, and into a clear comprehension. The habit of thoughtfulness, engendered by a proper combining of old and new, is one of the valuable results of a good education. It gives the mind a disposition to glance backward or forward, to judge of all old ideas from a broader, more intelligent standpoint. Thinking everything over in the light of the best experience we can bring to bear upon it, prevents us from jumping at conclusions.

The general plan of all studies is based upon this notion of acquiring knowledge by the assistance of accumulated funds. In Arithmetic it would be folly to begin with long division before the multiplication table is learned. In Geometry, later propositions depend upon earlier principles and demonstrations. In Latin, vocabularies and inflections and syntactical relations must be mastered before readiness in the use of language is reached. And so it is to a large degree in the general plan of all studies. In spite of this no principle is more commonly violated in daily recitations than that of apperception. Its value is self-evident as a principle for the arrangement of topics in any branch of study, but it is overlooked in daily lessons. Instead of this new knowledge is acquired by a thoughtless memory drill.

In this welding process we desire to determine how far an actual concentration may take place between school studies and the home and outside life of children. The stock of ideas and feelings which a child from its infancy has gathered from its peculiar history and home surroundings is the primitive basis of its personality. Its thought, feeling, and individuality are deeply interwoven with home experience. No other set of ideas, later acquired, lies so close to its heart or is so abiding in its memory. The memory of work and play at home; of the house, yard, trees, and garden; of parents, brothers, and sisters, and in addition to this the experiences connected with neighbors and friends, the town and surrounding country, the church and its influence, the holidays, games, and celebrations, all these things lie deeper in the minds of children than the facts learned about grammar, geography, or history in school. Any plan of education that ignores these home-bred ideas, these events, memories, and sympathies of home and neighborhood life, will make a vital mistake. A concentration that keeps in mind only the school studies and disregards the rich funds of ideas that every child brings from his home, must be a failure, because it only includes the weaker half of his experience. Home knowledge itself does not need to be made a concentrating center, but all its best materials must be drawn into the concentrating center of the school. But children bring many faulty, mistaken, and even vicious ideas from their homes. It is well to know the actual situation. It is the work of the school, at every step, while receiving, to correct, enlarge, or arrange the faulty or disordered knowledge brought into the school by children. We unconsciously use these materials, and depend upon them for explaining new lessons, more constantly than we are aware of. In fact, if we were wise teachers, we would consciously make a more frequent use of them and, in order to render them more valuable, take special pains to review, correct, and arrange them. We would teach children to observe more closely and to remember better the things they daily see.

We shall appreciate better the value of home knowledge if we take note of the direct and constant dependence of the most important studies upon it. We usually think of history as something far away in New England, or France, or Egypt. History is mainly the study of the actions, customs, homes, and institutions of men in different countries. But what an abundance of similar facts and observations a child has gathered about home before he begins the study of history. From his infancy he has seen people of all sorts and conditions, rich and poor, ignorant and learned, honorable and mean. He has seen all sorts of human actions, learned to know their meaning and to pass judgment upon them. He has seen houses, churches, public buildings, trade and commerce, and a hundred human institutions. The child has been studying human actions and institutions in the concrete for a dozen years before he begins to read and recite history from books. Without the knowledge thus acquired out of school, society, government, and institutions would be worse than Greek. Geography as taught in the books would be totally foreign and strange but for the abundance of ideas the child has already picked up about hills, streams, roads, travel, storms, trees, animals, and people.

Natural science lessons must be based on a more careful study of things already seen about home—rocks and streams, flowers and plants, animals wild and tame. These with the forests, fields, brooks, seasons, tools, and inventions, are the necessary object lessons in natural science which can serve daily to illustrate other lessons. How near then do the natural science topics, geography and history, stand to the daily home life of a child! How intimate should be the relations which the school should establish between the parts of a child's experience! This is concentration in the broadest sense. A proper appreciation of this principle will save us from a number of common errors. Besides constantly associating home and school knowledge, we shall try to know the home and parents better, and the disposition and surroundings of each child. We shall be ready at any time to render home knowledge more clear and accurate, to correct faulty observation and opinion. While the children will be encouraged to illustrate lessons from their own experience, we shall fall into the excellent habit of explaining new and difficult points by a direct appeal to what the pupils have seen and understood. In short, there will be a disposition to draw into the concentrating work of the school all the deeper but outside life-experiences which form so important an element in the character of every person, which, however, teachers so often overlook. No other institution has such an opportunity or power to concentrate knowledge and experience as the school.

4. Another valuable educative result of apperception, cultivated in this manner, is a consciousness of power which springs from the ability to make a good use of our knowledge. The oftener children become aware that they have made a good use of acquired knowledge, the more they are encouraged. They see the treasure growing in their hands and feel conscious of their ability to use it. There is a mental exhilaration like that coming from abundant physical strength and health.

"Let us look back again at the results of our investigation. We observed first what essential services apperception performs for the human mind in the acquisition of new ideas, and for what an extraordinary easement and unburdening the acquiring soul is indebted to it. Should apperception once fail, or were it not implied in the very nature of our minds, we should, in the reception of sense-impressions, daily expend as much power as the child in its earliest years, since the perpetually changing objects of the external world would nearly always appear strange and new. We should gain the mastery of external things more slowly and painfully, and arrive much later at a certain conclusion of our external experience than we do now, and thereby remain perceptibly behind in our mental development. Like children with their A B C, we should be forced to take careful note of each word, and not, as now, allow ourselves actually to perceive only a few words in each sentence. In a word, without apperception our minds, with strikingly greater and more exhaustive labor, would attain relatively smaller results. Indeed, we are seldom conscious of the extent to which our perception is supported by apperception; of how it releases the senses from a large part of their labor, so that in reality we listen usually with half an ear or with a divided attention; nor, on the other hand, do we ordinarily reflect that apperception lends the sense organs a greater degree of energy, so that they perceive with greater sharpness and penetration than were otherwise possible. We do not consider that apperception spares us the trouble of examining ever anew and in small detail all the objects and phenomena that present themselves to us, so as to get their meaning, or that it thus prevents our mental power from scattering and from being worn out with wearisome, fruitless detail labors. The secret of its extraordinary success lies in the fact that it refers the new to the old, the strange to the familiar, the unknown to the known, that which is not comprehended to what is already understood and thus constitutes a part of our mental furniture; that it transforms the difficult and unaccustomed into the accustomed and causes us to grasp everything new by means of old-time, well-known, ideas. Since, then, it accomplishes great and unusual results by small means, in so far as it reserves for the soul the greatest amount of power for other purposes, it agrees with the general principle of the least expenditure of force, or with that of the best adaptability of means to ends.

"As in the reception of new impressions, so also in working over and developing the previously acquired content of the mind, the helpful work of apperception shows itself. By connecting isolated things with mental groups already formed, and by assigning to the new its proper place among them, apperception not only increases the clearness and definiteness of ideas, but knits them more firmly to our consciousness. Apperceiving ideas are the best aids to memory. Again, so often as it subordinates new impressions to older ones, it labors at the association and articulation of the manifold materials of perception and thought. By condensing the content of observation and thinking into concepts and rules, or general experiences and principles, or ideals and general notions, apperception produces connection and order in our knowledge and volition. With its assistance there spring up those universal thought complexes, which, distributed to the various fields to which they belong, appear as logical, linguistic, aesthetic, moral, and religious norms or principles. If these acquire a higher degree of value for our feelings, if we find ourselves heartily attached to them, so that we prefer them to all those things which are contradictory, if we bind them to our own self, they will thus become powerful mental groups, which spring up independent of the psychical mechanism as often as kindred ideas appear in the mind. In the presence of these they now make manifest their apperceiving power. We measure and estimate them now according to universal laws. They are, so to speak, the eyes and hand of the will, with which, regulating and supplementing, rejecting and correcting, it lays a grasp upon the content as well as upon the succession of ideas. They hinder the purely mechanical flow of thought and desire, and our involuntary absorption in external impressions and in the varied play of fancy. We learn how to control religious impulses by laws, to rule thoughts by thoughts. In the place of the mechanical, appears the regulated course of thinking; in the place of the psychical rule of caprice, the monarchical control of higher laws and principles, and the spontaneity of the ego as the kernel of the personality. By the aid of apperception, therefore, we are lifted gradually from psychical bondage to mental and moral freedom. And now when ideal norms are apperceivingly active in the field of knowledge and thought, of feeling and will, when they give laws to the psychical mechanism, true culture is attained." (Lange's Apperception, edited by DeGarmo, p. 99, etc.)

NOTE.—The freedom with which we quote extensively from Lange is an acknowledgement of the importance of his treatise. We are indebted to it throughout for many of the ideas treated.