Part 4 (2/2)

2 Which has the better opportunity for sensory training, the city child or the country child? For social training? For h play? It is said by specialists that country children are not as good players as city children Why should this be the case?

3 Observe carefully so (Interest in sensory objects, skill in observation, etc) For lack of(Failure in motor control, aardness, lack of skill in play, etc) Do you find that general mental ability seems to be correlated with sensory andcan be had fro? What lines of eneral, (2) for the hand, (3) in the grace and poise of carriage or bearing, (4) in any other line? Make observation tests of these points in one or more school rooms and report the results

5 Describe what you think must be the type of mental life of Helen Keller (Read ”The World I Live In,” by Helen Keller)

6 Study groups of children for signs of deficiency in brain power froue From worry From lack of sleep

CHAPTER V

HABIT

Habit is our ”best friend or worst ene bundles of habits” Habit is the ”fly-wheel of society,” keeping reeable lot which some must fill Habit is a ”cable which we cannot break” So say the wise men Let me know your habits of life and you have revealed your moral standards and conduct

Let me discover your intellectual habits, and I understand your type of ely a daily round of activities dictated by our habits in this line or that Most of our movements and acts are habitual; we think as we have for; we decide as we are in the habit of deciding; we sleep, or eat, or speak as we have grown into the habit of doing these things; we ious exercises as matters of habit But while habit is the veriest tyrant, yet its good offices far exceed the bad even in the most fruitless or depraved life

1 THE NATURE OF HABIT

Many people when they speak or think of habit give the ter They have in mind only certain moral or personal tendencies usually spoken of as one's ”habits” But in order to understand habit in any thorough and coraph, broaden our concept to include every possible line of physical and mental activity Habit may be defined as _the tendency of the nervous system to repeat any act that has been performed once or many times_

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HABIT--Habit is to be explained from the standpoint of its physical basis Habits are forthe effects of this modification that the sa ti repeated instead of a new one being selected, and hence the old act is perpetuated

Even dead and inertars to the shape of the body better than when it was new; there has been a change in the tissue, and this change is a new habit of cohesion; a lock works better after having been used some time; at the outset hness in theof this resistance is a phenomenon of habituation It costs less trouble to fold a paper when it has been folded already This saving of trouble is due to the essential nature of habit, which brings it about that, to reproduce the effect, a less amount of the outward cause is required The sounds of a violin improve by use in the hands of an able artist, because the fibers of the wood at last contract habits of vibration conforives such inestireat , hollows out for itself a channel, which grows broader and deeper; and, after having ceased to flow, it resuain the path traced for itself before Just so, the impressions of outer objects fashi+on for themselves in the nervous system more and more appropriate paths, and these vital phenomena recur under similar excitements from without, when they have been interrupted for a certain time”[2]

ALL LIVING TISSUE PLASTIC--What is true of inani tissue The tissues of the human body can be molded into almost any form you choose if taken in tie, and the bones of his legs for bent The Flathead Indian binds a board on the skull of his child, and its head for bodily postures produce curvature of the spine, and pernicious modes of dress deform the bones of the chest Thethe shoulders straight or letting them droop; those of the back, to keep the body well up on the hips, or to let it sag; those of locoy step, or to allow a shuffling carriage; those of speech, to give us a clear-cut, accurate articulation, or a careless, halting one; and those of the face, to give us a cheerful cast of countenance, or a glum and morose expression

HABIT A MODIFICATION OF BRAIN TISSUE--But the nervous tissue is the most sensitive and easily molded of all bodily tissues In fact, it is probable that the real _habit_ of our characteristic walk, gesture, or speech resides in the brain, rather than in the anization of the brain structure and so unstable its molecules, that even the perfume of the flohich assails the nose of a child, the song of a bird, which strikes his ear, or the fleeting dreaers but for a second in his sleep, has so ain be as if these things had not been experienced Every sensory current which runs in from the outside world; every ht that we think, has so h which it acts, that a tendency remains for a like act to be repeated

Our brain and nervous syste by our thoughts and deeds, and thus becoister of all we do

The old Chinese fairy story hits upon a fundamental and vital truth

These celestials tell their children that each child is accoht, every moment of his life, by an invisible fairy, who is provided with a pencil and tablet It is the duty of this fairy to put down every deed of the child, both good and evil, in an indelible record which will one day rise as a witness against hi actmay ever know that we perforive it; but the inexorablethe record, and the history of that act is inscribed forever in the tissues of our brain It may be repented of bitterly in sackcloth and ashes and be discontinued, but its effects can never be quite effaced; they will re day, and in soer of defeat frootten act

WE MUST FORM HABITS--We _must_, then, form habits It is not at all in our power to say whether ill for theht, steadily and relentlessly Habit is, therefore, one of the great factors to be reckoned with in our lives, and the question becomes not, Shall we form habits? but _What habits we shall forely in our oer, for habits do not just happen, nor do they come to us ready h the acts we perform, and in so far as we have control over our acts, in that far we can determine our habits

2 THE PLACE OF HABIT IN THE ECONOMY OF OUR LIVES

Habit is one of nature'stireater skill and efficiency This is easily seen when it is remembered that habit tends towards _autooverned by the lower nerve centers and taking care of itself, so to speak, without the interference of consciousness

Everyone has observed how much easier in the performance anda piano, painting a picture, or driving a nail, when the movements involved have ceased to be consciously directed and become automatic

HABIT INCREASES SKILL AND EFFICIENCY--Practically all increase in skill, whether physical or mental, depends on our ability to form habits Habit holds fast to the skill already attained while practice or intelligence makes ready for the next step in advance Could we not for things, no ed to go through the sa ourselves as e first learned it as children Our writing would proceed as aardly in the high school as the pri as adults would be as messy and wide of the mark as ere infants, and we should miss in a thousand ways the hly skilled occupations, and those dereatpower for the accurate and automatic movements required