Part 12
These were the men whom she chiefly saw in her dreams; these were the shocks which, aggravated by the more recent experiences of a not dissimilar sort with her brother-in-law, were the true determinants of her hysteria—as was proved by the fact that upon psychological disintegration of her subconscious memories of them, a speedy and lasting return to health resulted.
In like manner the seemingly epileptic attacks of a nineteen-year-old New York “street arab” were found to be nothing more than the external manifestation of subconscious memory-images, dating back to early childhood, of nights passed in a dark, damp, terror-inspiring cellar. The sight of the discoloured corpse of a man who had died from cholera left in the mind of a sensitive girl of ten such a painful impression that years afterward, quite unaccountably as it seemed, she developed an abnormal fear of contracting some deadly disease; and had she not fortunately been taken to a skilled medical psychologist (Doctor Pierre Janet) she would almost certainly have ended her days in an asylum. In the case of an over-worked Boston young man, thought to be suffering from “dementia praecox,” it was found that his morbid notion that he had committed an “unpardonable sin” was only a hysterical product of subconsciously remembered fears of childhood. The victim himself eventually recognised this, declaring, in an autobiographical statement made at his physician’s request:
“My abnormal fear certainly originated from doctrines of hell which I heard in early childhood, particularly from a rather ignorant elderly woman who taught Sunday-school. My early religious thought was chiefly concerned with the direful eternity of torture that might be awaiting me if I was not good enough to be saved.”
Whether or no all cases of functional nervous and mental disease are thus rooted in emotional stresses of youth, certainly this is often enough the fact to constitute a serious warning to all who have anything to do with the upbringing of the young. If fears of childhood can persist throughout life and can affect adult development so profoundly as to be causal agents in the production of disease, it is obvious that parents and educators should adopt every means in their power to prevent the growth of unreasonable fears in the little ones in their care. Yet, as matters are to-day, and not least in the home, most children are subject to influences that tend to foster, not inhibit, such fears.
In their presence, as was noted on a previous page, parents often discuss accidents, crimes, sensational doings of all sorts; they betray a fretfulness, an anxiety, an unrest, that cannot but react on the sensitive mind of the child, filling it with fears of it knows not what; they even utilise the fear impulse as a means of coercing the child into good behaviour; and, what is perhaps worst of all, many parents intrust their children to ignorant and superstitious nurses, who take a strange pleasure in “scaring them half to death” with tales of demons, ghosts and goblins.
Fortunately the majority of people, as a result of later training and experience, or by the exercise of will-power, are able to suppress the fears of childhood; but often only at the cost of great mental torture. Not so long ago I received a letter from a Detroit business man, Mr. John J. Mitchell, that may well be quoted in this connection. He wrote:
“As a child, as far back as memory goes, I was ‘afraid of the dark,’ intensely afraid.... At about eleven years of age I got a place in a country store, and perhaps two years later changed to the largest store in town. This concern did a large, old-fashioned country business, buying produce and selling all manner of merchandise in exchange or on credit. This involved the use of two old-time buildings (frame) with three stories each and a cellar under all. Owing to the character of the business and location, there were doors opening to the street and area on each side and rear from every floor, including the cellar, seven or eight in all, and widely apart, besides windows. It was my duty at dusk to see that all these doors were properly closed and barred for the night.... With my childish fear of the dark this daily task was an ordeal—at times a terrible ordeal.
“I never made complaint or confided my fears to a soul. But for some reason, the source of which was, and is, as obscure as my intangible fears, I resolved to cure myself of this terror.... My plan, adopted and unflinchingly carried out, was to compel myself—a slender, timid little kid—to go that round daily, in the shadowy dusk, without a light (which I was privileged to have, a lantern). I can only remember now the _pain_ of dread and unreasoning apprehension, and the resolution to ‘have it over and done with.’
“I cannot now fix the time when it was accomplished, but in the end I was completely cured, so that, at least since my majority, I have not only been relieved of this dread, but I often welcome the folds of darkness (of night), as if wrapped about with a comforting garment. It will be a certain qualification to state that, at very long intervals, and always after some physical or mental strain, I feel momentarily a fear of return of old impressions in ‘uncanny’ surroundings.”
And, beyond any question, no matter how effectually one may suppress such youthful fears, so far as relates to their survival in the upper consciousness, there will always be a subconscious remnant, a buried complex, ready to emerge and work mischief in one way or another. There is a world of truth in Professor Angelo Mosso’s emphatic declaration:
“Every ugly thing told to the child, every shock, every fright given him, will remain like minute splinters in the flesh, to torture him all his life long.”
If not in such an extreme form as a phobia, or other functional disease, the early fears will nevertheless make their presence felt in later life. In some men they may engender lack of self-confidence, and even a despicable cowardice; in others they may breed superstitious terrors and usages. Always, in some way, one may depend on it, they will affect the character, the intellect, the whole moral and mental make-up.
Nor will their influence be confined to the individual. Fear, as every psychologist knows, is one of the most contagious of the emotions. Socially, as well as individually, it has a useful function to perform. The presence in all civilised communities of police and fire departments, boards of health, and the like, testifies impressively to the influence of social fear working normally as a conserving agent. But there may be, and frequently is, social as well as individual abnormality of fear; as in panics, massacres, lynchings. In order to deal with this effectually, in order to keep social fear within the bounds of reason, it will always be necessary to recognise that, after all, society is made up of a mass of individuals, and can only think and feel and act as individuals think and feel and act. Train the individual properly, and society will be sane and healthy and efficient enough.
IX
A FEW CLOSING WORDS
We have now reviewed in some detail the principal results of recent psychological research and observation, so far as these bear directly on man’s mental and moral growth. Varied as is the mass of information thus brought together, we have found it pointing uniformly to one conclusion—the transcendent significance of the environmental influences of early life.
Again and again we have found confirmation of the view that what a man is and does depends, as a rule, not so much on the gifts or defects of his heredity as on the excellences or shortcomings of his childhood’s training and surroundings. If these are favourable, even the dead hand of a bad inheritance may be arrested, and he may develop surprising strength of intellect and character; if unfavourable, mental and moral inferiority may be looked for, no matter how good the heredity.
This, of course, emphasises the responsibilities of parenthood, chief among which, as would appear from the facts surveyed, are the beginning of formal education in the home, the providing of a carefully planned material environment, and the setting of a really good example. There can be no doubt, to return for a moment to the superlatively instructive case of Karl Witte, that by all odds the greatest force in the moral development of that splendid scholar and gentleman, was the unceasing inspiration he unconsciously drew from the lives of his father and mother—from their integrity, unselfishness, patience, sincerity, and courage. Parents cannot too soon learn that, to quote a cardinal clause in the elder Witte’s educational creed:
“Our children are what we are. They are good when we are good, and bad when we are bad. I would extend this assertion. With full conviction I would say, they become clever, magnanimous, modest, witty, agreeable, amiable, if these are our qualities. They become the opposite if we precede them with the opposite.”
Or, as Doctor Dubois has so admirably put it in one of his University of Berne addresses on moral education:
“You, madam, who complain of the irritability of your little girl, could you not suppress your own, which I have seen break out, in a few words exchanged with your dear husband, immediately afterward? You, sir, who bitterly reproach your son for his impulsiveness and instability of temper, have you not these faults yourself?... Remember the proverb, ‘The fruit does not fall far from the tree.’” (“Reason and Sentiment,” pp. 53-54.)
Personally, also, I am of Witte’s belief that intellectual training along the lines followed by him in his son’s upbringing is of itself an important adjunct to moral growth. Certainly, by developing the powers of observation, analysis, and inference, it makes it easier for the child to appreciate the force of any arguments advanced by the parent in the way of direct moral instruction. Besides this, by keeping the child’s mind occupied with wholesome and profitable matters, it saves him from the idleness and waste of energy which, in childhood as much as in adult life, favour the formation of bad habits. And assuredly the methods by which his mental education may best be carried on in the first years of existence are such that they may be readily applied by all parents.
It is by no means a difficult thing to begin, as Witte did, by naming to the little one various small objects in and about the home. These should be named over and over to him, slowly, clearly, impressively; and the attempt should next be made to convey to him a notion of their properties, by teaching him, for example, to detect differences in colour and in such qualities as hot and cold, round and square, hard and soft, rough and smooth. This can be done in any one of several ways, but the best method, it seems to me, is that developed within recent years by the noted Italian educator of little children, Maria Montessori.
Her plan with every child whose education is intrusted to her is to start by teaching it to distinguish between various touch sensations; and she does this so successfully that her pupils, aged from three to seven, are able, blindfolded, to state the differences in extremely fine gradations of cloths, papers, coins, and seeds. Any parent can do the same thing, beginning by drilling the child in distinguishing between massive sensations, and gradually developing delicacy of touch.
Two cards, one rough, one smooth, afford an excellent starting-point. The child touches the smooth card. “Smooth,” says the parent, and “Smooth” responds the child. The little fingers are then placed on the card with the rough surface. “Rough,” the child is told, and “Rough” he repeats. Only a few lessons of this sort will be found necessary to enable him to select at request the smooth or the rough card and hand it to the parent. Ideas of shape, size, etc., may be similarly imparted, with the triple advantage that the child will daily, and without mental stress, acquire a more and more retentive muscular memory, a more intimate acquaintance with the facts of the world in which he lives, and greater observational and reasoning ability.
Meanwhile, of course, the fertilisation of the child’s mind should also be continued by other educative measures—as the maintenance of an inspiring environment, ready and intelligent response to the child’s innumerable questions, and skilful guidance of his thoughts to subjects which it is especially desirable for him to study. The system of walks and talks, utilised alike by James Thomson, James Mill, and Pastor Witte, is particularly to be recommended in this connection, as also Witte’s practice of propounding to his son interesting problems, and then taking him to places—factories, mills, etc.—where he could observe for himself different stages in their solution.
Something of the same sort is possible to every parent, who can include in such voyages of discovery, if he be a city dweller, visits to botanical and zoölogical gardens, art and industrial museums, and similar institutions where his child can obtain entertainment, some insight into the workings of natural laws, and elementary instruction in subjects which will inevitably form part of his school curriculum at a later day.
But, it may be objected, does not all this mean that in order to make sure of results the father and mother will have to give the greater part of their time to the child’s education? Not at all. One hour or so a day will be quite enough in the way of direct, personal tuition. And even if the task of instruction were really burdensome, surely, in view of the findings of modern science, parents will do well to keep in mind, and recognize the profound truth of, Rousseau’s stern pronouncement:
“He who cannot fulfil the duties of a father has no right to be a father. Not poverty, nor severe labour, nor human respect can release him from the duty of supporting his children and of educating them himself. Readers, you may believe my words. I prophesy to any one who has natural feeling and neglects these sacred duties—that he will long shed bitter tears over this fault, and that for these tears he will find no consolation.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The passages quoted by me from Witte’s book have been made partly from Professor Wiener’s translation, and partly from the original.
[2] It is to the development of some vital interest—whether by parental training or the accident of a favourable environment—that is due the often observed absence of laziness in children that are handicapped by adenoids, eye trouble, etc. This does not mean that the parent should neglect to have such handicaps removed as soon as possible; no matter how “interested” a child may be, the correction of remediable physical defects is of importance to his welfare and progress.
[3] Since these lines were written Doctor Boris Sidis, in his “Psychology of Laughter,” has criticised the Bergson theory in more detail but on somewhat different grounds. Doctor Sidis’s own theory, briefly, is that the laughable is not the “mechanical” but the “stupid.” Or, as he himself expresses it, “Allusion to human stupidity is at the root of all comic.”
[4] The psychology of dreams and their practical significance will be dealt with in some detail in my forthcoming book on “Sleep and Sleeplessness.”
INDEX
Adenoids, and delinquency, 27; and laziness, 173-174.
Ampère, A., 84.
Baby talk, dangers of, 49-51, 136.
Bain, A., 199.
Balzac, H. de, 99, 166-167.
Berle, A. A., 49-50, 136.
Bidder, G., 84.
Binet, A., 62.
Boccacio, 99.
Brady, J. G., 16-18.
Bruns, Doctor, 241-242.
Burke, A. H., 15-16.
Buxton, J., 84, 85.
Chabaneix, P., 89.
Childhood, impressionability of, 30-35, 41-45, 60-63; mental activity in, 163-164; hysteria in, 221-245; results of fear in, 258-274.
Children’s Aid Society, 13-18.
Cicero, 106.
Colburn, Z., 82-84.
Coleridge, S. T., 78.
Colours, psychology of, 57-59.
Condillac, 79.
Coriat, I. H., 255-256, 266-268.
Coulter, E. K., 11.
Dante, 88, 99.
Darwin, C., 91, 165, 168, 180-183, 186, 201, 203, 250.
Dase, Z., 84.
Davy, H., 166.
Delinquency, chief factors in, 5-19; physical defects and, 19-27, 162.
Dental defects, and delinquency, 22-27; and laziness, 174-176.
Diderot, D., 89.
Dreams, and genius, 75-81; and disease, 260, 265, 267-268, 270-272.
Dubois, P., 28, 285.
Dugdale, R. L., 7, 10.
Education, suggestion in, 39-68; importance of early, 67-68, 114-117; instances of early, 119-157; helps in early, 286-289.
Eliot, C. W., 64-65.
Ellis, H., 57, 106.
Environment, and crime, 5-19; and ill-health, 52-55; and mental development, 60, 109, 136-137; and hysteria, 232-234; and general welfare, 283-284.
Eugenics, 5-6.
Eye trouble, and delinquency, 21-23; and laziness, 177-178.
Fear, function of, 250; abnormal, 251-256; as cause of nervous diseases, 257-274.
Fénelon, 106.
Fleury., M. de, 179, 183-185.
Franklin, B., 79.
Galileo, 91, 106.
Gauss, K., 84.
Genius, contrasting theories of, 71-75; and dreams, 75-81; the subconscious in, 86-94; and hard work, 95-101; interest and, 102; precocity of, 105-107; longevity of, 107-108.
Goethe, 87-88.
Gourmont, R. de, 89.
Habits, formation of, 42-43.
Hall, G. S., 196, 213.
Hallam, H., 106.
Hecht, D’O., 227-229.
Heine, H., 165.
Henry, P., 166.
Heredity, and delinquency, 5-19; and genius, 71; and hysteria, 264.
Heyne, C. G., 142.
Hobbes, T., 105-106, 198-199.
Holmes, A., 24.
Hysteria, in childhood, 221-247; characteristics of, 231-234; treatment, 237-243, 261, 269; prevention, 243-246, 274-278; as result of fear, 251-274.
Inaudi, J., 84.
Indy, V. d’, 89.
Interest, and intellectual development, 102-105; and longevity, 108; as antidote to laziness, 183-189.
Janet, P., 235, 273.
Johnson, S., 166.
Juke family, 6-11.
Keller, H., 32-34.
Kelvin, Lord, education of, 119-126.
King, E., 121.
Kirk, E. C., 23.
Lamartine, A., 88.
Lange, C. G., 197.
Languages, teaching foreign, 138-140.
Laughter, abnormal, 196-197; Hobbes’s theory, 198-199; Bain’s theory, 199; Spencer’s theory, 201; Mélinaud’s theory, 202; Bergson’s theory, 203-208; problem re-stated, 209-210; in childhood, 210-215; function of, 212-216; importance to parents, 217-218.
Laziness, contrasting theories of, 162-168; a pathological condition, 168-169; physical defects and, 172-178; treatment, 179-186; prevention, 187-189.
Left-handedness, 43-45.
Lightning calculators, 82-86.
Lombroso, C., 8, 71.
Lowell, J. R., 166.
Lyell, C., 165, 168.
Mangiamele, V., 84.
Mélinaud, C., 201-202.
Mill, J. S., education of, 126-132.
Minto, W., 131-132.
Mitchell, J. J., 276-277.
Mondeux, H., 84.
Montessori, M., 287.
Moral training, Witte’s method of, 145-152.
Mosso, A., 278.
Mozart, 89, 100-101.
Myers, F. W. H., 72, 74.
Napoleon, 90, 100, 105.
Newton, I., 90-91, 101.
Parsons, F. A., 53-54.
Perez, B., 43.
Phobias, 251-256, 261-263, 278.
Poltergeist, 223-227, 233-234.
Preyer, W., 214, 230.
Prince, M., 258-261.
Public school system, criticisms of, 64-66.
Ribot, T., 172.
Rousseau, J. J., 289-290.
Safford, T., 84.
Schiller, 88, 101.
Schoff, H. K., 12.
Sidis, B., 115, 208 _n_, 260-261, 269-272.
Shinn, M., 210, 214.
Stevenson, R. L., 79-81, 96-98.
Subconscious, nature of the, 73; memory, 31-35; perception, 40-41; in sleep, 75-81; in lightning calculation, 84-85; in genius, 86-94; in hysteria, 233.
Suggestion, characteristics of, 39, 41; in child training, 45-51; experiments in, 40-41, 61-63; in treatment of laziness, 185; as cause of hysteria, 231-234; in treatment of hysteria, 237-242, 261.
Sully, J., 214.
Swift, E. J., 165, 174.
Tartini, G., 78-79.
Thorndike, E. L., 102-104.
Upson, H. S., 26.
Voltaire, 89.
Waldstein, L., 32, 34, 43-44.
Wallace, A. R., 91-94.
Wallin, J. E. W., 175.
Westlake, E., 224-226.
Wickstead, P. H., 154-155.
Wiener, L., 137 and _n_.
Witmer, L., 19-22, 65.
Witte, K., education of, 133-153; career of, 154-157.
Wordsworth, W., 165.
End of Project Gutenberg's Psychology and parenthood, by H. Addington Bruce