Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/107

 observe by observing, to remember by exercising memory, to create by training the imagination, to reason by acts of inference. Passions grow by indulgence and diminish by restraint; the finer emotions gain strength by use. Courage, endurance, firmness are established by frequently facing dangers and difficulties. By practice, disagreeable acts may become a pleasure.

It is by practice that the mind gets possession of the body, that the separate movements of the child become correlated, and the most complex acts are performed with ease and accuracy. Physiological psychology has confirmed and strengthened the doctrine of habit. The functions of the brain and mental actions are correlated. A nerve tract once established in the brain, and action along that line recurs with increasing spontaneity. New lines of communication are formed with difficulty. Each physical act controlled by lower nerve centres leaves a tendency in those centres to repeat the act.

The inference is obvious and important. Whatever we wish the adult man to be, we must help him to become by early practice. Childhood is the period when tendencies are most easily established. The mind is teachable and receives impressions readily; around those cluster kindred impressions, and the formation of character is already begun. The brain and other nerve centres are plastic, and readily act in any manner not inconsistent with their natural functions. As they begin they tend to act thereafter.

Dr. Harris called attention a few years ago to the ethical import of the ordinary requirements and prohibitions of the schoolroom. Promptness, obedi