Page:Preparation of the Child for Science.djvu/50

46 cultivation of the unconscious and that of the conscious portions of the organism were kept properly balanced and adjusted to each other. In the old days of classical education the training of the unconscious mind was necessarily little connected with school subjects; one can learn nothing about a dead language except by reading books or being told things. Children learned Latin in school; and the unconscious informing of the mind was done in haphazard fashion and by means of quite other subjects. Much of it was called 'idling,' or 'mischief,' or 'naughtiness.' The educational profession has not quite shaken off the influence of this old state of things; it should not be blamed if it has not yet realized what needs doing in the direction of informing the unconscious mind. For the present generation, at least, it will be wise of parents to assume that teachers, on the whole, err in the direction of attending too exclusively to the conscious mental action, and that they, the parents, must compensate what is lacking.

The first thing we must do is to resolve seriously that a good deal of time before the age of ten, and of the vacations afterwards, shall be resolutely dedicated to the training of the unconscious mind. We must not only discourage the setting of holiday lessons by masters;