Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/416

400 The general laws of retentiveness equally apply to emotional growths. There must be repetition and concentration of mind to bring about a mental association of pleasure or of pain with any object. But there are peculiarities in the case such as to demand for it a supplementary treatment. Perhaps the best way of bringing out the points is to indicate the modes or species of growths, coming under emotion and volition, that most obtrude themselves upon the notice of the educationist.

I. We may quote first the associations of pleasure and pain with the various things that have been present to us, during our experiences of delight and suffering. It is well known that we contract pleasurable regards toward things originally indifferent that have been often present to us in happy moments. Local associations are among the most familiar examples; if our life is joyous, we go on increasing our attachments to our permanent home and neighborhood; we are severely tried when we have to migrate; and one of our holiday delights is to revisit the scenes of former pleasures. A second class of acquired feelings includes the associations with such objects as have been the instruments of our avocations, tastes, and pursuits. The furnishings of our home, our tools, weapons, curiosities, collections, books, pictures—all contract a glow of associated feeling, that helps to palliate the dullness of life. The essence of affection, as distinguished from emotion, is understood to be the confirming and strengthening of some primary object of our regards. As our knowledge extends, we contract numerous associations with things purely ideal, as with historic places, persons, and incidents. I need only allude to the large field of ceremonies, rites, and formalities, which are cherished as enlarging the surface of emotional growths. The fine-art problem of distinguishing between original and derived effects consists in more precisely estimating these acquired pleasures.

The educationist could not but cast a longing eye over the wide region here opened up, as a grand opportunity for his art. It is the realm of vague possibility, peculiarly suited to sanguine estimates. An education in happiness pure and simple, by well-placed joyous associations, is a dazzling prospect. One of Sydney Smith's pithy sayings was, "If you make children happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence, by the memory of it." This referred, no doubt, to the home-life. It may, however, be carried out also in the school-life; and enthusiasm has gone the length of supposing that the school may be so well constituted as to efface the stamp of an unhappy home.

The growth of such happy associations is not the work of days; it demands years. I have endeavored to set forth the psychology of the case ("The Emotions and the Will," third edition, p. 89), and do not here repeat the principles and conditions that seem to be involved. But the thread of the present exposition would be snapped, if I were not to ask attention to the difference in the rate of growth when the