Thoughts that are to regulate conduct and life may be remembered in the form in which a nation has treasured them for ages. If thoughts are to become seed-thoughts, their form must be changed through the process of growth; otherwise no crop of new thoughts can mature. The expression, seed-thoughts, is a figure of speech based upon vegetable life. The mind may be likened unto soil that has become fertile through the labor and skill of the husbandman. The mind grows fertile and productive by cultivation. Like the sower going forth to sow, the good teacher deposits in the youthful mind ideas which germinate and bring forth a harvest of thought, sentiment, and purpose. If the grain of wheat be cut in pieces, and then put into the soil, there can be no growth, because the life has been destroyed. The ideas which the teacher instils into the minds of the pupils should be living ideas. Their vitality should not be destroyed by dissection into fragments from which all life has departed. Sunshine and moisture are conditions of growth. Lack of sympathy is lack of sunshine. Cold natures have an Arctic effect in stunting and preventing growth. Again, instruction may be so dry that nothing can thrive under its influence. Like a drought, it may speedily evaporate the child’s love of school and interest in study. Weeds may choke the growing crop. These the husbandman removes and destroys, so that the good seed may have a chance to ripen. With equal solicitude the faithful teacher watches the development of the seed-thoughts which are sprouting in the mind. For a time the seed is hid in the earth. Seed-thoughts disappear in the unconscious depths of the soul. They are not lost. By processes which we cannot explain, they sprout and grow and ripen. That such mysterious processes are going forward in the hidden depths of the soul cannot be doubted. A process of growth may be unseen; its visible results are evidence that it exists and is going forward. If the soil be barren or the conditions of growth be wanting, no harvest is possible. Unfortunately, the unskilful husbandman always blames the soil and the weather when he himself is at fault. Unfortunate is the pupil whose teacher is a fossil, devoid of life and the power to infuse life. Under such a teacher the pupil always gets the blame.
XII
IMAGING AND THINKING
Things more excellent than any image are expressed through images.
Jamblichus.
An unimaginative person can neither be reverent nor kind.
Ruskin.