For the actual experiments by Professor Davis the subject's key was removed to a distant room. Here there were three keys of this kind, any one of which would register. One key each was -arranged for tapping with the big toes; the third key could be tapped by either right or left index finger.
On the first day all four digits—right and left index fingers and right and left large toes—were carefully tested in tapping as rapidly as possible. Thereafter the right large toe was practiced daily in tapping for several weeks, the other digits being left unpracticed. At the end all four digits were again tested. Four of the six persons experimented upon showed a gain for the right large toe—that is, for the digit practiced; the other two showed a slight loss, due unquestionably to "over-practice," or "over-training." All of those who gained for the right large toe gained for the other digits also. Their average gains were: Right foot, thirty-three per cent; left foot, thirty-one per cent; right hand, twenty-one per cent; left hand, thirty-one per cent. Even both of the "over-trained" men gained for the left foot and one of them gained for the left hand. Thus we have reached the third step—the effects of practice are extended to various parts of the body.
Beyond the third step the experimental investigations have not yet advanced, but I believe that sooner or later we shall be able to establish the fact that development of those forms of the will involved in simple muscular activities does also develop the more complicated forms that express themselves in acts of a mental nature.
It has long been claimed that sports, games, and manual occupations are among the best developers of character. Football develops solidarity of feeling and action; running rapids or cross-country hunting develop coolness in danger and promptness and firmness of judgment; wood-turning requires boldness and foresight; forge work requires regulation and reserve of power, and so on. This is no place for an account of the psychology of sports and occupations, but if the reader has ever tried any of these things and failed he will easily recognize the lacking mental quality.
Yet there has never been but one attempt, as far as I can learn, to organize a system of manual occupations on the basis of this principle. The success of the attempt furnishes, I believe, the still-lacking laboratory proof of the principle itself. I refer to the remarkable experiment of Mr. Z. R. Brockway, Superintendent of the Elmira Reformatory.
Most of the young felons sent to the Elmira Reformatory are set to learning trades, by which they can support themselves on leaving. Those, however, who are too stupid to even learn the simplest trade are put into a manual-training school, in the hope that their brains can be sufficiently developed to enable them to keep out of the prison or the asylum. Those who are so stupid that they have difficulty in learning the alphabet or in counting their fingers are put into a kindergarten, where they practice on letter blocks and sticks and straws.
Those who are too stupid to learn a trade are the ones of interest here. Three main lines of defect are recognized in Superintendent Brockway's classification of them. Those who are intellectually weak, but of fair power of self-control, are classed as Group I; those who are reasonably bright, but are unable to get along because they can not control their impulses, are classed as Group II; those who fail on both sides are classed as Group III.
Group II is composed of those who are for the most part devoid of moral sense—those who fight, swear, assault officers, are licentious, and generally unresponsive to the usual reformatory measures. To this class belong some of the most intellectual inmates of the reformatory, but this intellectuality runs riot on account of weakness of character. How are their characters to be built up? They are required to devote most of their waking hours to athletics and calisthenics, wood-turning, making wooden patterns for castings, mechanical drawing, sloyd, clay modeling, and chipping and filing metal. These exercises have been selected on account of their character-building qualities.
The work is a great success. Nearly all inmates subjected to this building-up process finally graduate with sufficient self-control from the manual-training department into the trades school. A concrete example will give an idea of the change produced in the pupil. The record of No. 6,361 is instructive. The account is taken from a report by the manual-training instructor, R. C. Bates:
"The pupil, previous to his assignment to manual training, had earned for himself the sobriquet of 'dangerous man' among the officers and inmates. His offenses have been mostly threatening language, lying, contraband articles, talking, fooling, assaulting officers, and institutional crimes of that nature.