Part 5 (1/2)
So with reat portion of the fundamentals of our education must be made automatic--must become matters of habit We set out to learn the sye; associated with these words are ether, so that to think of the one is to call up the other--and language is learned We must learn numbers, so we practice the ”combinations,” and with 46, or 38 we associate 24 Habit secures this association in our hout the whole range of our learning We learn certain symbols, or facts, or processes, and habit takes hold and renders these automatic so that we can use theht free for reatest dangers is that we shall not h of the necessary foundationin this, we shall at best be but blunderers intellectually, handicapped because we failed to make proper use of habit in our development
For, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, there is a liy and also to the number of objects to which we are able to attend It is only when attention has been freed froht or done _in the same way_, that theand punctuation do not take care of the The mathematician whose number combinations, processes and formulae are not autoress in , has to think of his gestures, his voice or his enunciation will never sway audiences by his logic or his eloquence
HABIT SAVES EFFORT AND FATIGUE--We do ue that which we are accustoe task that tires us The horse that is used to the farm wearies if put on the road, while the roadster tires easily when hitched to the plow The experienced penue, while the man more accustomed to the pick and the shovel than to the pen, is exhausted by a half hour's writing at a letter Those who follow a sedentary and inactive occupation do not tire by , while children or others used to freedom and action may find it a wearisome task merely to remain still for an hour or two
Not only would the skill and speed demanded by modern industry be impossible without the aid of habit, but without its help none could stand the fatigue and strain The neorkh-speed machine is ready to fall from weariness at the end of his first day But little by little he learns to omit the unnecessary movements, the necessary h habit, and he finds the work easier We may conclude, then, that not only do consciously directed movements show less skill than the same movements made automatic by habit, but they also require ue
HABIT ECONOMIZES MORAL EFFORT--To have to decide each time the question comes up whether ill attend to this lecture or serh this piece of disagreeable hich we have begun; whether ill go to the trouble of being courteous and kind to this or that poor or unlovely or dirty fellow-mortal; whether ill take this road because it looks easy, or that one because we know it to be the one we ought to take; whether ill be strictly fair and honest e ht just as well be the opposite; whether ill resist the temptation which dares us; whether ill do this duty, hard though it is, which confronts us--to have to decide each of these questions every tie a proportion of our thought and energy on things which should take care of thes should early become so nearly habitual that they can be settled with the very y when they arise
THE HABIT OF ATTENTION--It is a noble thing to be able to attend by sheer force of hen the interest lags, or so appears, but far better is it so to have formed the habit of attention that we naturally fall into that attitude when this is the desirable thing To understand what I mean, you only have to look over a class or an audience and note the different hich people have of finally settling down to listening Some with an attitude which says, ”Now here I am, ready to listen to you if you will interest me, otherwise not” Others with ato listen, and you will have a large task if you interest me; I never listen unless I am compelled to, and the responsibility rests on you” Others plainly say, ”I really hts, and if I wander I shall not blaether; it is just my way” And still others say, ”When I am expected to listen, I always listen whether there is anything much to listen to or not I have formed that habit, and so have no quarrel with myself about it You can depend on me to be attentive, for I cannot afford to weaken my habit of attention whether you do well or not” Every speaker will clasp these last listeners to his heart and feed thehts of his soul; they are the ones to whom he speaks and to whom his address will appeal
HABIT ENABLES US TO MEET THE DISAGREEABLE--To be able to persevere in the face of difficulties and hardshi+ps and carry through the disagreeable thing in spite of the protests of our natures against the sacrifice which it requires, is a creditable thing; but it is more creditable to have so forreeable duty shall be done without a struggle, or protest, or question Horace Mann testifies of himself that whatever success he was able to attain was h the early habit which he for to inquire whether he _liked_ to do a thing which needed doing, but of doing everything equally well and without question, both the pleasant and the unpleasant
The youth who can fight out a ainst the allurehest honor and praise; but so long as he has to fight the saround rained in us that the right decision cole Otherwise the strain is too great, and defeat will occasionally come; and defeat means weakness and at last disaster, after the spirit has tired of the constant conflict And so on in a hundred lines Good habits are more to be coveted than individual victories in special cases, ood habitsthe line
HABIT THE FOUNDATION OF PERSONALITY--The biologist tells us that it is the _constant_ and not the _occasional_ in the environanism So also it is the _habitual_ in our lives that builds itself into our character and personality In a very real sense we _are_ e are in the habit of doing and thinking
Without habit, personality could not exist; for we could never do a thing twice alike, and hence would be a new person each succeeding ive us our own peculiar individuality are our habitual acts--the little things that do themselves moment by moment without care or attention, and are the truest and best expression of our real selves Probably no one of us could be very sure which arm he puts into the sleeve, or which foot he puts into the shoe, first; and yet each of us certainly fors in a certain way We ht not be able to describe just hoe hold knife and fork and spoon, and yet each has his own characteristic and habitual way of handling theet up in some characteristic way, and the very poise of our heads and attitudes of our bodies are the result of habit We get sleepy and wake up, becoh force of habit We for a certain chair, or nook, or corner, or path, or desk, and then seek this to the exclusion of all others We habitually use a particular pitch of voice and type of enunciation in speaking, and this becomes one of our characteristicbarbaris to us and become an inseparable part of us later in life
On theis as characteristic as our physical acts We ically, or of ju critically and independently, or of taking things unquestioningly on the authority of others We ood, sensible books, or of ski, ennobling coood conversationalist and doing our part in a social group, or of being a drag on the conversation, and needing to be ”entertained” We s about us and enjoying the beautiful in our environ to observe or to enjoy Wethe voice of conscience or of weakly yielding to te a reverent attitude of prayer in our devotions, or ofour prayers
HABIT SAVES WORRY AND REBELLION--Habit has been called the ”balance wheel” of society This is because reeable, or the inevitable, and cease to battle against it A lot that at first seems unendurable after a tinant to be borne in the course of time loses some of its sharpness Oppression or injustice that arouses the fiercest resentnation Habit helps us learn that ”what cannot be cured must be endured”
3 THE TYRANNY OF HABIT
EVEN GOOD HABITS NEED TO BE MODIFIED--But even in good habits there is danger Habit is the opposite of attention Habit relieves attention of unnecessary strain Every habitual act was at one time, either in the history of the race or of the individual, a voluntary act; that is, it was perforradually rendered unnecessary, until finally it dropped entirely out
And herein lies the danger Habit once for modified unless in some way attention is called to it, for a habit left to itself becorows deeper In very few, if any, of our actions can we afford to have this the case
Our habits need to be progressive, they need to grow, to be modified, to be i shell, fixed and unyielding, which will lirowth
It is necessary, then, to keep our habitual acts under some surveillance of attention, to pass them in review for inspection every now and then, that we may discover possible modifications which will make them more serviceable We need to be inventive, constantly to find out better ways of doing things Habit takes care of our standing, walking, sitting; but how e if he would? Our speech has becoht remove faults of enunciation, pronunciation or stress froht better our habits of study and thinking, our
THE TENDENCY OF ”RUTS”--But this will require so of heroism For to follow the well-beaten path of custom is easy and pleasant, while to break out of the rut of habit and start a new line of action is difficult and disturbing Most people prefer to keep doing things as they always have done the as they have long been in the habit of doing, not so much because they feel that their way is best, but because it is easier than to change Hence the great mass of us settle down on the plane of s passably well, cease to think about i theo on They make use of habit as the rest do, but they also continue to attend at critical points of action, and soit as a _tyrant_
4 HABIT-FORMING A PART OF EDUCATION
It follows from the importance of habit in our lives that no small part of education should be concerned with the develop but realize how soon they will becoive more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar” Any youth who is for no e of booksa large nu well educated, no e may be
YOUTH THE TIME FOR HABIT-FORMING--Childhood and youth is the great ti Then the brain is plastic and easily molded, and it retains its impressions more indelibly; later it is hard to modify, and the impressionsnew tricks; nor would he remember them if you could teach them to him, nor be able to perfor child will, within the first feeeks of its life, for Itin the dark, or requiring a light; of going to sleep lying quietly, or of insisting upon being rocked; of getting hungry by the clock, or of wanting its food at all ti else to do, and so on It is wholly outside the power of the mother or the nurse to deterely within their power to say what habits shall be forrows older, the range of his habits increases; and by the tireater number of his personal habits are formed It is very doubtful whether a boy who has not fore of fifteen will ever be entirely trustworthy in irl who has not, before this age, formed habits of neatness and order will hardly make a tidy housekeeper later in her life Those who in youth have no opportunity to habituate thees of society may study books on etiquette and employ private instructors in the art of polite behavior all they please later in life, but they will never cease to be aard and ill at ease None are at a greater disadvantage than the suddenly-grown-rich who attempt late in life to surround theh their habits were all for their earlier years
THE HABIT OF ACHIEVEMENT--What youth does not dreareat, or noble, or a celebrated scholar! And ho there are who finally achieve their ideals! Where does the cause of failure lie? Surely not in the lack of high ideals Multitudes of young people have ”Excelsior!” as their et started up theon to its top They have put in hours dreaun to cli that the only way to become ish or drea_ To form the habit of achievement, of effort, of self-sacrifice, if need be To for with drea_
Who of us has not at thisin wait for his convenience in the dis which he means to do just as soon as this term of school is finished, or this job of work is completed, or when he is not so busy as now? And how seldos at all! Darwin tells that in his youth he loved poetry, art, and music, but was so busy with his scientific work that he could ill spare the tie these tastes So he promised himself that he would devote his time to scientific work and s that he loved, and would cultivate his taste for the fine arts He ain to poetry, to music, to art But alas! they were all dead and dry bones to him, without life or interest He had passed the time when he could ever form the taste for them He had formed his habits in another direction, and noas forever too late to form new habits His own conclusion is, that if he had his life to live over again, he would each week listen to soallery, and that each day he would read some poetry, and thereby keep alive and active the love for them