Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/454

 440 GUSTAV SPILLER : Many years after the child studied the scriptorial art we meet a person who writes easily and well. This adult is the whilom child who found learning to write an arduous task. That accomplishment is no more a problem to him. He proceeds now without apparent effort of attention. How shall we account for the surprising change ? To this ques- tion we propose to seek a satisfactory reply. 2. Memorising the Facts. (a) In learning to write, various facts came to the child's notice, and these he was asked to remember. Through instruction, through both deliber- ate and chance observation, through reasoning, the facts were collected item by item. Committal to memory gradually made recollection of the material to be utilised perfectly easy. After the lapse of a certain period the child knew that which the man knows. As soon as any detail was required, it instantly presented itself. Having what is rele- vant firmly fixed in the memory, there is never or almost never a need to doubt, to suspect, to argue, to cast about, or to try and remember. (b) A variety of accidental difficulties embarrass the learner. There is a blot how is he to behave towards it ? The new pen refuses to take up the ink what is he to do ? The position of his body is ill-chosen for writing how is this to be remedied ? His shadow falls on the paper how shall it be prevented ? The pen scratches or spurts, the penholder or pen is one he is not used to how meet the difficulty ? Such are some of the obstacles which detain the intelligent learner. These queries come to him at first as problems demanding a solution, and some of them may require severe thinking before they are disposed of. But as practice proceeds new cases tend to be extremely rare ; for, once a difficulty is settled, the solution is soon well remembered, and the problem ceases to exist. Thus special instances which resemble problems do not present themselves as such ; they are now mere recalled facts. Just as we bring back from the stores of memory a normal constituent in a routine or organic process, so we remember these non-organic cases, for they have really become part of the normal order. Consider an experience. The country road along which a certain individual passes is too rough for comfortable progress. He shuns the flints. If one of them is in one position he steps beyond it ; in another position, he takes a shorter step ; in a third he steps to the right ; in a fourth, he steps to the left. By accident he may tread on an ugly piece of flint sideways, or on his heels, or sole, or tip, and in each instance he meets the difficulty in an intelligent manner. So with