There are minds so dull that even the attempt merely to secure connection with definite portions of such thoughts as they have does not succeed. Easy questions intended to raise their ideas into consciousness only increase the resistance to be overcome. They are seized with embarrassment from which they seek to escape, sometimes by a simple, “I don’t know,” sometimes by the first wrong answer that comes to hand. Mental activity has to be enforced, yet remains feeble at best, and it is only in after years, under pressure of necessity, that they acquire some facility for a limited sphere. Others, whom one would be inclined to call contracted rather than generally limited, because by them reproduction is performed successfully but within a narrow compass, exhibit a lively endeavor to learn, but they learn mechanically, and what cannot be learned in that way they apprehend incorrectly. These undertake, nevertheless, to form and express judgments, but their judgments turn out to be erroneous; hence they become first discouraged and then obstinate. Again, there are those whose ideas cannot be dislodged, and still others whose ideas cannot be brought to a halt. These two classes call for a more detailed consideration.
[300.] Among the various masses of ideas ([29]) some necessarily acquire permanent predominance, others come and go. But if this relation reaches full development and becomes fixed too early, the controlling ideas no longer admit of being arrested to the extent necessary for the reception of the new material offered by instruction. This fact explains the experience that clever boys, notwithstanding the best intentions to receive instruction, yet frequently appear very unreceptive, and that a certain rigidity of mind, which in later manhood would not occasion surprise, seems to have strayed, as it were, into boyhood. No one should allow himself to be betrayed into encouraging such narrowness by commendatory terms such as pertain to strength and energy; just as little, however, should clumsy teaching and its sequel, listless learning, be left out of account, as having no bearing on this state of affairs.
For, rather may it be assumed that the fault mentioned might have been largely forestalled by very early instruction of all kinds, provided such instruction had been combined with a variety of attractive rather than of too difficult tasks. Where, on the other hand, mental nervousness has once taken root, it cannot be eradicated by all the art and painstaking effort of a multitude of teachers. When the questions of a child, six years old let us say, give rise to the apprehension that they proceed from a too contracted mental horizon, there should be no delay about resorting to manifold forms of stimulation, especially in the way of widening the pupil’s experience to the greatest practicable extent.
[301.] On the other hand, it is not rare to find boys, and even young men, in whose minds no one thought-mass attains to any very prominent activity. Such boys are always open to every impression and ready for any change of thought. They are wont to chat pleasantly, and to form hasty attachments. Here belong those who learn easily and forget as quickly.
This defect, too, when once confirmed, resists all skill and good intentions; strength of purpose, from the very nature of the case, is out of the question. The situation varies in gravity, however, according to the influences of the earliest environment. If these proved distracting, the fault mentioned assumes alarming proportions even in minds otherwise well endowed. But where some form or other of necessary respect has been steadily at work, the youth will raise himself to a higher plane than the boy gave promise of doing. Least of all, however, can the teacher allow himself to be betrayed into hoping for a future development of talent by superficial alertness, combined, it may be, with droll fancies, bold pranks, and the like. Talent reveals itself through persistent endeavor, sustained even under circumstances little favorable to it, and not until such endeavor clearly manifests itself is the thought of giving it support to be entertained.
The two faults under discussion may indeed come to light only in the course of time; nevertheless, they are inherent faults, and can be mitigated, to be sure, but not completely cured.
[302.] Far easier to deal with are the erratic movements of energetic characters capable of ardent enthusiasm. The mere thoroughness and many-sidedness of good instruction, which emphasizes and aims to effect rational connection and balance of mind, obviously supply the corrective.
[303.] Originally it would have been easier to have prevented those faults which are due to the mismanagement or to the omission of early government, instruction, or training. But with time, the difficulties of a cure grow in a very rapid ratio. In general, it is well to note that the teacher has every reason to congratulate himself, if, after early neglect, there appear under improved treatment some belated traces of those questions which belong to the sixth or seventh year of childhood ([213]).