Thinking and learning to think

by Nathan Christ Schaeffer

If the food remains in the stomach unchanged, it produces dyspepsia and a long train of bodily ills. If the knowledge which the mind appropriates is retained unchanged, it produces mental dyspepsia, and there is no real assimilation. From this point of view we can easily see why Montaigne said that to know by heart is not to know at all. Just as the food which is taken into the body must be transformed into chyme and chyle and blood before it can be assimilated, so the knowledge which is taken up by the mind must be transformed if it is to be assimilated. The best illustration of the transformation of knowledge is that given by an anecdote of Gough, which has now become classic. In a Pullman car a crying child was disturbing the slumbers of every passenger. At last a gruff miner, whose patience was exhausted, stuck his head out of his berth and exclaimed, “I should like to know where that child’s mother is?” “In the baggage car in a coffin,” was the reply of the person in charge of the child. The knowledge imparted by that phrase was immediately transformed into new thought and sentiment and purpose. There was not another word of complaint throughout the entire journey; every passenger was thinking of the unfortunate child in the light of an orphan. Their hearts were stirred with feelings of sympathy, which, in the case of the old miner, issued into will and purpose, for he got up, began to carry the little one, and did his best to make it feel contented in the new surroundings. If the lessons in civil government and history of the United States remain in the memory a mere tissue of dates, names, and events, the teacher has failed, no matter how brilliant the answers in class or at the examination. If these lessons do not issue in new thoughts, sentiments, and purposes, if they do not enlarge the mental vision of the pupils, beget in them the sentiment of patriotism and cause them to resolve that they will support the government by paying a just share of its taxes and by insisting on a pure ballot,—in a word, if these lessons do not make the pupil say that he will live for his country and even die in its defence,—then the teacher has failed because there has been no adequate assimilation of knowledge.

Another figure of speech is sometimes used to describe the transformation of knowledge. “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.”[28] If the knowledge which enters the mind remains unchanged, it abideth by itself alone. But if it perish in its original form, if it is changed through the process of growth so as to enter into new relations, it brings forth a harvest of thought and sentiment and purpose. The last two should be the concomitants of the crop of new thoughts which spring from seed-thoughts implanted in the soul.

That the ancients understood the use and abuse of the memory is evident from their method of teaching law.

Teaching the law.

The Roman school-boy learned by heart the Twelve Tables of the Law. His teachers were not satisfied with a mere knowledge of the words; they insisted that he should understand the meaning of the law, and apply it in regulating his own conduct and in passing judgment upon the conduct of others. Is it any wonder that the Roman people became the exponents of law and order throughout the civilized world, and that Roman jurisprudence still exerts a moulding influence upon the legislation of the Latin races, if not of the entire civilized world?

There is still another nation of antiquity whose youth were instructed in the law with the most scrupulous care. The Ten Commandments of the Mosaic Law were committed to memory. In Chapter VI., 6-9, of Deuteronomy, we read: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.” Verse 18 of Chapter XI. is still more explicit: “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.”

The exact words of the law were to be fixed in the memory, and kept both before the bodily and mental eye until they passed into the deeds and conduct of every-day life. In John vii. 49 we find the same thought: “This people who knoweth not the law are cursed.” This was the universal conviction of the Jewish people after the Babylonian exile, if not before. The reading of the Talmud has been likened unto travelling through endless galleries of lumber, where the air is darkened and the lungs are well-nigh asphyxiated with the rising dust. On one point, however, the Jewish Rabbis speak with the authority and earnestness of those who know whereof they affirm. “To the Law!” is the exhortation sounded abroad in every key. “Let your house,” says one, “be a house of assembly for those wise in the law; let yourself be dusted by the dust of their feet, and drink eagerly their teaching.” “Make the study of the law thy special business,” says another. “The more teaching of the law,” says a third, “the more life; the more school, the more wisdom; the more counsel, the more reasonable action. He who gains a knowledge of the law gains life in the world to come.”

Maxims like the following show the stress that was laid upon exercises designed to bring out the full force and import of the law: “When two sit together and do not converse about the law, they are an assembly of scorners, of which it is said, ‘Sit not in the seat of the scorners.’ When, however, two sit together and converse about the law, the Shechinah (the Divine Presence) is present among them.” “When three eat together at one table, and do not converse about the law, it is as though they ate of the offerings of the dead. But when three eat together at one table and converse about the law, it is as though they ate at the table of God.” “The following are things whose interest is enjoyed in this world, while the capital remains for the world to come; Reverence for fathers and mothers, benevolence, peacemaking among neighbors, and the study of the law above them all.”

It is very apparent that the chosen people were not satisfied with mere memorizing of the law. Their teachers sought to make it a living, regulative force in all the relations of man. Their practice emphasized a phase of memory work which should be borne in mind whenever pupils are requested to learn by heart any form of words or selection of literature. Words have no value so long as they remain mere words. When words convey the intended meaning, the more perfect the form in which they are joined together the deeper and more lasting is the impression made upon the mind of the learner. The thoughts which have been transmitted in forms fixed for ages may not produce a harvest of new thought and linguistic expression, but may issue in feeling and will, in lofty emotions and noble purposes, in heroic deeds and unselfish devotion, in righteousness and right conduct far more valuable than mediocre effusions of prose and poetry, or many of the speculations of scientists and philosophers.

Seed-thoughts.