VI. SENSE-PERCEPTION, OR SENSE-INTUITION VII.-CONSCIOUS PERCEPTION, OR SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS XIX. THE PHYSICAL FEELINGS-THE APPETITES XX. THE EMOTIONS-EGOISTIC EMOTIONS XXI.-THE EMOTIONS-ALTRUISTIC EMOTIONS XXII. THE EMOTIONS-TRUTH EMOTIONS SUGGESTIONS TO THE PRIVATE STUDENT. MANY young people, teachers of common schools and others, greatly desire to study the mind, but are compelled to struggle upward without the aid of the living teacher. Each line of this work was written in view of helping this large and deserving class. These hints, though given directly to teachers, apply equally to others. 1. Look within. What object-lessons are to children, subject-lessons are to you. Observe the workings of your own mind, and verify each statement by your own experience. 2. Study the child. You have the key, for the child knows, feels, and wills, just as you do. Put yourself in its place. Study intently child-effort. These subject-object lessons will be invaluable to you as well as to your pupils. 3. Hasten leisurely. You can well afford to devote a week to each chapter. Gradually the wonders of the soul-world will open to you. Select some interested friend with whom you can talk the lesson over. 4. Work out your own definitions and illustrations. This is essential. Build on your own experience. Work out everything for yourself, just as you do in arithmetic and algebra. 5. Write the letters. Select an appreciative friend who will respond. Try to make each subject clear to this friend. Above all, tell just how the subject looks to you. Writing these letters will greatly benefit you. 6. You will work in the light. You are painfully aware that you are now liable to blunder at every step because you are ignorant of child-mind and of the laws of child-growth. As you advance, all will become clear, and you will begin to feel the inspiration of the artist. To rightly direct the development of an immortal soul is the grandest of all work. TEACHING ELEMENTARY PSYCHOLOGY. The experienced teacher needs no suggestions, but a page from the book of experience may assist one who teaches psychology for the first time: 1. Oral lessons. I have found it necessary to give one or more oral lessons on each subject to prepare the student to study the lesson in the book. Then, the text needs to be supplemented by much oral work. Illustrate from students' daily work. 2. Clearness. It is marvelous how crude and confused are the psychological and educational notions of most of the persons we meet. But our stupid methods of teaching this subject are largely to blame. Here and everywhere we must build on personal experience, and manage to have the student grasp fully the elementary facts of mind. The suggestions to the private student may benefit all students. 3. Reviews. Each lesson should in some way involve all the previous lessons. No other branch requires such constant reiteration and review. All possible combinations of the facts of mind must be woven into the warp and woof of the learner's mental economy. 4. Troublesome questions. Psychology touches and to some extent underlies all other departments of knowledge. Questions involving philosophy and theology and sociology can not be ignored. I have found it best to frankly answer these questions as best I could, avoiding alike all semblance of either dogmatism or mysticism. But no time or energy must be wasted in discussing these questions. Young people will understand that such discussions belong in the advanced work. Then the learner has Usually it will be best The work can thus be not been able to secure 5. Short lessons. The student enters a new field of inquiry. The terms, as well as the ideas, are new. to learn the new art of introspection. to give about three pages for a lesson. completed in twenty weeks. I have satisfactory results in a shorter period. Short book-lessons and long oral lessons is the true policy. 6. Reference books. A few choice volumes are indispensable. |