Thinking and learning to think, Nathan C. Schaeffer [each kindness read aloud txt] 📗
- Author: Nathan C. Schaeffer
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In shaping the activity of thought, the artist-teacher makes the mind tarry long enough for clear apprehension, sometimes for thorough comprehension, upon the ideas, judgments, and conclusions which are the framework of a system of thought, but he does not neglect the transitions from one to the other, as if these were of little account or necessarily took care of themselves. The transitions in thought are aided by set phrases and forms of solution. As soon as these are mastered, there develops the tendency to think them as algebraic symbols, which do substitute duty in the absence of that for which they stand. For fear of this, the teacher sometimes fails to drill on them long enough to fix them in the mind,—certainly a radical mistake. Drill is a condition of the highest discipline in the school as well as in the army. The drill-master seeks to habituate the soldier to the word of command, so that he will obey in the face of danger without thinking of the consequences. The drill-master at school seeks to make it second nature for a pupil to go through the logical motions, but not without conscious thought of the process or the consequences. Whenever the learner uses forms of parsing, analysis, or solution, his mind should go through the movements of thought expressed by the language. Ask any ordinary class to give you a noun of the first person; they are almost sure to give you either a noun of the third person or a pronoun of the first person. Dictate a sentence with a noun in the first person, and ask the pupils to parse it in the customary way; in nearly all cases they will parse it as a noun of the third person. Ask them to tell why a personal pronoun is so called; frequently they say because it indicates a person,—a statement quite applicable to other kinds of pronouns. If the logical or customary forms of speech are employed, the stream of thought moves on, the mind often failing to perceive the new truth, or error, or nonsense inherent in the language employed. School-boys have tricks of their own which turn upon this peculiarity in the movement of thought. “Who killed Cain?” is suddenly asked. “Abel,” is the reply generally elicited by the question. Should you say, Nine times seven is or are forty-two? The boy who decides in favor of is or are gets a shock of surprise on being told that the product of nine times seven is not forty-two.
One day a teacher was lecturing upon education in the dark ages. To show how the energies of the common people were exhausted in the struggle for existence, the resolution of a synod in the south of France was cited. The resolution enjoined upon the bishops the duty of seeing to it that during a period of scarcity of food the peasants were at least provided with bread made of acorns. A few minutes later a reference was made to the autobiography of Thomas Platter, in which certain things are described as happening about the time of the Diet of Worms. On being asked in what period of history that was, a pupil promptly replied, “When the common people were fed on worms.”
Very much of the sermonizing of our day gives rise to the same kind of thinking. The mind is borne along by the customary flow of words. The phrases used have an orthodox sound; perhaps they are biblical in the sense that they occur in the Bible. It is impossible to tell whether any clear idea or real religious experience is suggested to the hearer’s mind by the words used. The ideas excited in the hearer should be those for which the words stand in the mind of the speaker. If the ideas of the speaker are not clear, how can his words suggest anything definite to the audience? Huxley relates an amusing story of an after-dinner orator who was endowed with a voice of rare flexibility and power, and with a fine flow of words, and who was called upon to speak without much preparation. The applause was terrific. When Huxley asked a neighbor who was especially enthusiastic what the orator had said, the latter could not tell. Nothing was lacking in the post-prandial speech save sense and occasionally grammar.[35]
The fuller consideration of the stream of thought in listening and lecturing, in reading, speaking, and composing, is deserving of separate chapters. The mental attitude in listening resembles that in getting thought from the printed page. Silent reading is for the reader’s own benefit; it comprises by far the larger proportion of our reading. In oral reading, the stream of thought is somewhat different, the aim being similar to that of public speaking,—namely, to suggest or convey to the hearer thoughts from some other mind. In the act of composing, the aim is to evolve thought from the mind’s own resources and activities. The thought process is very much the same, no matter whether we dictate to a stenographer, or speak to an audience, or use the pen in giving to it form and abiding shape. It will be most convenient to treat together the stream of thought in listening and in silent reading, and to reserve for separate consideration the activity of the mind in writing, speaking, and oral reading.
XIVTHE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN LISTENING AND READING
Reading is thinking along a prescribed line that lies goldenly beneath the flow of words.
Brumbaugh.
Whittier uses words as stepping-stones upon which with a light and joyous bound he crosses and recrosses at will the rapid and rushing stream of thought.
Longfellow.
To listen well is to think well,—the hearing ear must be attended by the alert mind, eager to seize upon incoming sensations and weave them into a garland of thought.
M. G. B.
Words, however well constructed originally, are always tending, like coins, to have their inscription worn off by passing from hand to hand; and the only possible mode of reviving it is to be ever stamping it afresh by living in the habitual contemplation of the phenomena themselves, and not resting in our familiarity with the words that express them.
J. S. Mill.
XIVTHE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN LISTENING AND READING
Two men engaged in speculative pursuits met after one had published a book. Let us speak of them as A and B.
A: I have just read your new book. Many things in it please me very much, but in it you say so and so, with which I do not find myself in full accord.
B: I say nothing of the kind in that book.
A: I surely read your book.
B: You never read a book in your life. You read some sentences or paragraphs; your mind begins to react upon what you have read; and ere long you imagine that your inferences are the conclusions of the author.
A: I have a notion to write a psychology, and to set forth my views in full.
B: Don’t you do it. You know no psychology. You have been of great service in stimulating others to think; you are a most delightful lecturer; but you have never mastered psychology.
If a third party could have listened to the conversation, what stream of consciousness would have started in his mind? Possibly surprise at the frankness of B and the composure of A, mingled with thoughts of what they were discussing. In other words, a strong tinge of feeling would be perceptible in the stream of thought. In the minds of the two engaged in the dialogue, feeling must have greatly modified the current of thought. The greatest kindness that can be shown to some men is to oppose or criticise their views. Opposition and criticism stimulate their thinking, and rouse their mental powers to the highest possible tension and activity. In men of the opposite temperament, feeling beclouds their thinking, and makes the stream of thought more sluggish. The common prejudice against appeals to feeling are due to the abuse of the right which every orator has of addressing the feelings through the intellect, and of thereby moving the will. To move the will is the essence and aim of all eloquence. In listening or lecturing, in reading or composing, some form of emotion always accompanies the stream of thought. The orator may move the hearer to tears or to laughter; he is not untrue to his mission if he can thereby win a vote, secure a verdict, or move the hearer to action. A lecture is addressed primarily to the understanding. It is greatly improved if the stream of thought which it starts and supplies is accompanied by feelings of interest and the pleasurable emotions attendant upon novelty, curiosity, or admiring approval. The consciousness that we understand a lecture is accompanied by pleasurable emotions which help to sustain the attention.
The writer once paid a shilling to hear Spurgeon. It was his purpose to get a good seat, so that he might study this famous preacher’s gestures and delivery, the quality of his voice, and the secret of his eloquence. The text was hardly announced before every one in the audience, including the writer, forgot all about Spurgeon, and thought only of his message to the thousands before him. The secret of his oratory lay in his ability to make the audience forget everything except the gospel he was preaching. If people, after hearing a speaker, talk of his fine delivery, his flowery language and beautiful figures of speech, or his peculiarities of pronunciation and other eccentricities, it is proof positive that he has failed. Instead of holding the attention to what he was saying, the audience was thinking of his manner and delivery. A well-printed book has the advantage of keeping the author’s personal characteristics from interfering with the stream of thought. It has the disadvantage of losing all the helps to listening and thinking which come from the tones of the voice and eloquent delivery.
The accusation of B against A, referred to at the beginning of this chapter, is applicable to many readers. For several sentences the mind is riveted upon the author’s meaning. Presently a train of thought starts; the eye runs along the sentences to the bottom of the page.
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