Better Habits of Remembering Result. — The results of cultivating the memory under Scientific Management are cumulative. Ultimately, right habits of remembering result that aid the worker automatically so to arrange his memory material as to utilize it better.[38]
"Imagination" Has Two Definitions. — Professor Read gives definitions for two distinct means of Imagination.
1. "The general function of the having of images."
2. "The particular one of having images which are not consciously memories or the reproduction of the facts of experience as they were originally presented to consciousness." [39]
Scientific Management Provides Material for Images. — As was shown under the discussion of the appeals of the various teaching devices of Scientific Management, — provision is made for the four classes of imagination of Calkins[40] —
1. visual,
2. auditory,
3. tactual, and
4. mixed.
It Also Realizes the Importance of Productive Imagination. — Scientific Management realizes that one of the special functions of teaching the trades is systematic exercising and guiding of imaginations of apprentices and learners. As Professor Ennis says, — "Any kind of planning ahead will result in some good," but to plan ahead most effectively it is necessary to have a well-developed power of constructive imagination. This consists of being able to construct new mental images from old memory images; of being able to modify and group images of past experiences, or thoughts, in combination with new images based on imagination, and not on experience. The excellence of the image arrived at in the complete work is dependent wholly upon the training in image forming in the past. If there has not been a complete economic system of forming standard habits of thought, the worker may have difficulty in controlling the trend of associations of thought images, and difficulty in adding entirely new images to the groups of experienced images, and the problem to be thought out will suffer from wandering of the mind. The result will be more like a dream than a well balanced mental planning. It is well known that those apprentices, and journeymen as well, are the quickest to learn, and are better learners, who have the most vivid imagination. The best method of teaching the trade, therefore, is the one that also develops the power of imagination.