words; they are the only track upon which thought glides along smoothly. That being the case, it is evident that if all words signified individuals, as proper nouns, thought would be very much limited. Without general terms, i.e. without common nouns and the other seven parts of speech, all general notions, rules, maxims, laws, etc., would fail us. Argument would be impossible, and logical conclusions could not be drawn. But when general terms are allowed, and when the concepts for which they stand are abundant, thought becomes free. Not only that, but when concepts are well developed, a great impetus is given to thought. For example, if the general truths are well established in one's mind that heat expands and cold contracts, or that everything that happens has an adequate cause, one is prompted to make many applications of this law to practical affairs. Philosophers, scientists, etc., who have reached a large number of such generalizations, are continually occupied in using them as the basis for new hypotheses. Thus great mental activity is secured and valuable conclusions are reached. The free expression of thought to others is also involved in the existence of concepts. If two persons were continually seeing different objects and having different experiences, while general terms were wanting, there would be no way for one to communicate his ideas to the other. Any word employed would signify only the particular experience How general notions are related to the of a certain individual. But with an abundance of concepts and terms for the same, thoughts can be readily communicated; then, even though people be not acquainted with the same individual objects, the common use of the same terms allows any word to signify essentially the same thing to each mind. A third important consideration is that the possession of carefully developed generalizations signiorganization fies a good classification of one's knowledge. In of knowl edge. order to be of practical use the books in a library must be carefully classified or arranged in groups, those of a kind being placed together. This is a matter of so much importance that in any large library several men devote all of their time to this work. Without such care books are forgotten or cannot be found, and hence they prove useless. The mind is practically a great library in which ideas need likewise to be carefully grouped. It is of little value for a man to collect a large number of precious experiences if they cannot be found when wanted. Chaos is as utterly opposed to utility in the case of ideas as in the case of household furniture, toilet articles, books, etc. As already seen, nature compels some degree of classification of our notions, for the essential characteristics of an object are presented to us in each individual of a class, while the non-essentials are likely to appear only once, or a few times. Consequently the class notions are especially impressed upon the mind. But this help of nature, or this natural tendency to classify, is not sufficient. Special effort must be made to harmonize and rightly group our ideas; otherwise they will be often contradictory to one another, or poorly defined; and those which are quite unrelated will be found in the same group, just as books under widely varying titles may by accident be placed together. But proper classification involves more than the careful separation of experiences into groups; it involves the ranking of the same according to their relative worth. Some facts are of far more value than others, just as the officers of an army are far more important than an equal number of common soldiers. Unless one's generalizations have been carefully developed, one is likely to overlook this matter of relative worth and to neglect the higher and especially important notions. Teachers who have had no professional training show this tendency plainly. Their minds are so occupied with the details of teaching that they fail to distinguish more important from less important matters, and the idea of supreme importance, namely, the chief aim of instruction, is the one most neglected in their daily thought. It is, on the whole, the organization of knowledge that is here involved. In this age of unbounded faith in the efficiency of organization in all fields, the organization of thoughts should not be neglected. How general notions aid the acquisition of knowledge. It is the most economical means of caring for one's knowledge. Ideas that exist in a chaotic state are wasted; the more valuable the collection of them, the greater the waste. Until they are assorted according to their essential characteristics, and ranked according to their worth, it is impossible to retain them in memory, to survey them easily, and to find them at the moment of need. Since to generalize means to sort and rank notions, the reason is plain why instruction should culminate in generalizations. There is a fourth reason for regarding generalizations of supreme importance. They are the means of apperceiving new experiences of any kind. It is through them that it becomes possible to acquire knowledge quickly and easily. Just as a new book readily finds its proper place in a well-classified library, so strange ideas readily find classification in a mind whose contents have been carefully arranged. This is seen in the reading of books on education. One who approaches a pedagogical work with an organized or systematized body of educational thought has a framework into which to place the ideas. He knows quickly where each idea belongs, so that even if the arrangement of points in the book is poor, it need not be poor in the mind of the reader. Also, as in an army the relative rank of men can be quickly determined, so the relative worth of the many thoughts can be recognized. The system of thought (or the organized generali zations) already at hand is both the framework in which all ideas can be pigeonholed, and also the standard according to which their value can be measured. Thus, the profit from reading, from sight-seeing, and from conversation is directly dependent upon the extent to which one's ideas are brought into order and ranked. It is only through classification that much confusion and loss of time in the acquisition of knowledge can be avoided. Generalizations are, then, to the thinker what the compass is to the seaman: they enable him to keep his bearings, to remain free from confusion in new regions. That generalizations play such an important part in the acquisition and organization of knowledge, suggests an important requirement bearing on the selection of leading topics in each study of the school course. We are getting into the way of thinking out large topics as units of instruction in many of the school studies. In reading and literature we treat whole poems, stories, and even the longer masterpieces as units of thought. In history we select biographical stories and commanding topics, like the Puritan emigration or the growth of our territory, or internal improvements as units of instruction. The study of geography and natural science by types is also a distinct movement toward the use of large units of study. How generthe basis for division of alizations are studies into large topics. |
