Show 1 NORMAL SCHOOL t The articles published in this department are written by students of the Normal School They are the unaided t sa productions of students and and neither the he Normal i School nor the CH CHRONICLE is 5 authority for any e 1 statements they contain i Mind Studies BY far th the most wonderful thing ij about the mind is its power of reproducing reproducing reproducing its past states end and utilizing them in the production of new ones Upon this power depend all possibilities ties of mental education so that in inthe w t the science of pedagogy too m much uch importance cannot be given to the study o of f memory It shall be the aim of this paper and those that are to follow to point out a afew few truths regarding memory which 0 seem seem to be often disregarded or over- over 1 1 L looked by teachers and by writers on pedagogy These truths may be elucidated elucidated elucidated elu elu- by answering as nearly as we weare weare are able ahle the following questions 1 To what extent is the act of memory voluntary 2 Does a reproduced mental state retain in any degree its identity 3 Is repetition the law of memory Of these three questions the last is of course of most practical interest to educators but it will be found that its answer depends largely upon the answers to the two first therefore we shall proceed to consider them in the order given Let us suppose a child to be for the first time taken to the seashore and that in its wanderings along the shore it discovers a particularly bright shell which at once claims its whole atten atten- tion Let us suppose further that the child after tiring somewhat of its beautiful toy begins to take notice of the pools along the shore of let us say shrimps or other small animals in inthe inthe inthe the pools and that from this he is led to notice other children who are playing playing playing play play- ing about the pools and to become with them Let us suppose that upon returning home the child is asked what did you see at the beach Since the chain of incidents of experiences experiences ex ex- 0 of f shells pools srim ps c children children chil chil- hildren hil- hil dren etc is as yet unbroken in the childs child's mind it will undoubtedly begin with what has impressed it as being of most interest and recount all of its experience upon the excursion All this is said to be in the ordinary sense voluntary on the part of the child but butis butis butis is it so in reality Or rather what is the nature of this volition To answer this question it will be necessary to state the principle of memory as given under the generally accepted law of the association of ideas which is in substance as follows When any group or groups of ideas have once been associated in the mind and any anyone one of these ideas or groups of ideas recur it has a tendency to bring up some or all of the ideas or groups of ideas with which it was formerly associated This definition is enough to be sure but is it possible to give a better And is this not in fact actually what constitutes an act of memory Recurring to our illustration from whence comes the one of the whole plexus of ideas which induces the child to recall the experiences of his excursion In this case directly from fron without so that so far as the initiation of the process is concerned there is no element of volition present But how with ith regard to he connection of the whole of the experiences The Theone Theone Theone one element of the association given is it possible for the child by a pure act of will to inhibit some and call up other elements or to inhibit all Obviously Obviously Obviously Ob Ob- he cannot do this for the act of voluntary inhibition presupposes the presence in consciousness of the elements to be inhibited inhibited-i. i. i e. e they must be remembered before they can be discarded The associated ideas will therefore appear in consciousness in necessary connection those most nearly related with the given idea appearing first and acting as media through which the others appear in their order and those previously of most importance importance importance tance because of their interest other things being equal retaining their rank of importance in the represented represented represented association We say other things equal The reason for this reservation will appear in the answer to the second question when it will also appear appear- that the given element of a previous always contains new ingredients which largely determine determine determine deter deter- mine the nature of the representative tive act The answer to the first of our three Ii questions is that there is in an act of off f memory no element of volition in the commonly accepted meaning of the term The acts of willing to remember and remembering are simultaneous and identical R. R |