Thinking and learning to think

by Nathan Christ Schaeffer

Self-development.

On the other hand, if the maxim is interpreted to mean that any gifts or powers of the self are to be sacrificed in preparation for a given calling, say for the army or navy, it becomes a dangerous heresy. The true end of education is found in the harmonious development of all our faculties. Every man is in one sense the product of countless ages and generations, and from another point of view he is a new creation fresh from the hand of his Maker, and a distinct setting forth of the creative power of Him who said, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.” As such he has a claim upon immortality, as well as upon all the help which earth can give him towards a full realization of self. Every person feels that there are possibilities of his being which are never realized in this world; that it will require the ceaseless ages of eternity to unfold and mature his God-given powers and traits. Any unselfing of the will in the sense of sacrificing or checking the growth and fruition of the best of which the self is capable, is a violation of Spencer’s famous definition that education is a preparation for complete living.

Justice to others.

What, then, is the relation of the imaging power to the proper unselfing of the will and the full realization of the self? “A great deal of the selfishness of the world comes not from bad hearts, but from languid imaginations.”[31] To do justice to others, we must put ourselves in their place. This we cannot do except through the exercise of the imagination. The imagination is the creative power of the mind. By means of it we can create for our thinking the world in which our neighbor lives, and learn to understand his motives, aims, hopes, needs, and temptations. This will keep us from many a mistake in judging his conduct and estimating his character. Moreover, this thinking of ourselves into the life and surroundings of our fellow-men is a condition of success in dealing with them. It helps the merchant to sell his wares and the teacher to govern his pupils. It helps the orator to reach the hearts of the audience whom he is addressing, and the journalist to write editorials that will modify the views and mould the thinking of the reading public. Every profession and every occupation requires the constant exercise of the imagination so that we may see life from our neighbor’s point of view, and, in sympathizing with him or helping him, outgrow our innate selfishness. A hard, cruel, unforgiving man makes a failure of life even though he win riches, fame, and public position.

Ideals.

By means of the imagination we paint ideals of life and conduct, which hover before the mind in the hour of struggle and trial, luring us onward and upward, spurring us to greater effort, and giving to life added charms and glories. Without the power to imagine what is beyond the real, the workman sinks to the level of drudgery, and never rises to the plane of artistic production.

The child’s imagination.

Geography.

The imagination is very active in children. Watch their plays if you would see how they convert a stick into a horse, the play-house into a home, and mimic the drama of life in their games and contests. Their life is largely make-believe and thinking in images. This tendency to think in images can be utilized in the lessons in arithmetic, geometry, geography, and history. Without the combination of images into new forms and products, the pupil cannot think the thoughts peculiar to these branches. For instance, the lesson in geography starts with what the child has seen or can see at home, and proceeds to that which is away from home, using pictures, drawings, lantern-slides, and vivid descriptions to aid the imagination in picturing scenery, cities, countries, and forms of life in other parts of the globe. It may be a question what the mind should think in connection with the symbols and truths of that science. The form of a continent is without doubt best conceived as given on a map. For many practical purposes, cities may be thought as mere starting-points and halting-places in a journey. Many a river is for mature minds a winding black line on colored surfaces called maps. Nevertheless, if geography means for a pupil no more than this, it will be dry and uninteresting indeed. Out of the images of things observed the mind should be led to construct images of what it has not seen. These images are never an adequate picture of the foreign city or country, even after they have been supplemented or modified by visits to museums, conservatories, and zoological gardens, by excursions to the field, the forest, and the factory, or even by travel at home and abroad. The thoughts of a country that one has journeyed through, or lived in for a time, consist partly of images and partly of symbolic representations. Since thinking in images is easier for beginners than thinking in symbols, the instruction in geography should begin with child-life at home, with the things on the breakfast-table, with the garments worn and the means of transportation used, and proceed from these to the life, the home, the dress, and the sports of children living in other lands and other climes. The lessons in geography make constant appeals to the imagination, and call for thinking in images or mental-pictures in connection with map-symbols and the discussions of causes and laws.

History.