Salem State University - Clipper Yearbook

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The Disposition of New Ideas,-A Lesson in Pedagogy. What happens to a new idea? That is, what is its experience when it makes its appearance in the mind of a human being? The answers to such questions have both interest and importance. They are interesting because they involve a careful observa- tion of one's mental processes and often disclose the striking, not to say radical differ- ences which exist in human minds. They are important, because upon the treatment accorded to new ideas depend the amount and the kind of movement which individuals make on the line of progress or retrogression. It thus affects, in the aggregate, the position of the race itself. Our faculties of observation are constantly coming into intimate relations with the external universe. That universe reacts upon the faculties. Sensations and percep- tions result. An idea which has hitherto been unknown makes its appearance and claims hospitality and even residence. In the first place, one would endeavor to put such a stranger into his scheme of thought as it actually exists. He would try to interpret it in the terms of a language with which he is already familiar. If this attempt appears to succeed, the attempt would then be made to ascertain the relations which the new-comer sustains to ideas already possessed. This, of course, is merely to push the first attempt a little further g it operates both as an exploration and as a test: it is a continuation of the effort to 'rind a common friend. The discovery of a mutual interest greatly promotes the pro- gress of acquaintance when one meets a stranger. So, if any relation, friendly or otherwise, can be discovered between the new idea and some previous possession of the mind, the quality of strangeness is reduced, even if it is not altogether removed, and the pathway to future intimacy is opened. Such an attempt may discover the family 01' class to which the stranger belongs. We may even find that it belongs to some family or class with which we are already acquainted. Thus its heredity, its relationships, its blood-kindred even, may be dis- closed. A successful attempt of this sort will greatly increase our feeling of acquain- tance with it. Then comes our estimation of its value. We are already far past the field of per- ception proper and we feel that the mechanical portion of our work is completed. Men may agree up to this point and yet take widely differing paths thereafter. A lion is to all men a lion,-but when several men estimate the value of a lion, wide diversity is the only possible result. Bunker Hill monument is a towering pile of cut granite, whoever be the gazer, but the value of the shaft is one to an Englishman and quite another to an American. A forest yields the same rays of light to the gaze of an artist, a lumber-dealer, a shepherd, or a lover, but the estimates of its value will great- ly vary. What men are, as determined by all they have known and felt and done determines and explains their answers to the question, what is the value of this idea? It is worth- less, indifferent, or valuable, according as it relates itself to our universe,-that uni- verse which each constructs, interprets, and inhabits for and by himself. The recognition of such a process, constantly going on in every human mind, ex- plains many things that are more or less perplexing. It explains, for instance, the 9

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Philip. It was a cold rainy day in the late fall. The wind was blowing furiously, and the men and women, as they hurried home after their day's work, were beaten about at the mercy of its cruel, cutting blast. The electric lights glimmered and flickered in the growing dusk. A boyish figure, pitifully thin and wan, passed along the crowded thoroughfare. One hand clasped a battered and frayed violin-case, the other was thrust into his pocket, not for warmth, but in order that it might grasp the money, the precious money, that was to buy so many good things for Grandad, to make him well again. His childish heart grew sad as he thought of the patient sufferer lying so still, in the unfurnished desolate room he called home. As the rain came down upon the upturned face of the child it mingled with bitter tears which told how hard was the struggle he was daily making. Suddenly rousinghimself from his revery he grasped the shabby case more tightly, pulled the tattered cap down farther on his head, and walked more swiftly. Threading his way through narrow streets overtopped by crowded tenement houses, along hyways and alleys, he came at last to a door which he quietly opened. The room was cheer- less and forlorn but the lad thought not of this, his only thought was of the figure lying on a rude eoueh in the corner. Rushing tothe bed and kneeling down he asked, H A re you better, dear Grandad? The weary eyes opened and rested with a look of deep love and tenderness on the boyish face. H Yes, Philip, much better 5 then with a sigh of contentment! Play. Slowly the boy took the instrument from its case and pressing it lovingly against his cheek began to play. Strains of music, earessingly sweet and tender, filled the room. Vueouseious of time or of his grandfather's presence the boy played on and on, soothed by the charm of his own melody, until he ceased and looked toward the couch for the smile which was his best reward. A twang from the instrument, a shriek from the boy, and he threw himself on the bed. -f U my firandad, my dear flrandad, I love youg come back to your Philip. Solis shook thi- frauu- of the lad. Slowly, and still more slowly the sobs came until at last the ohild was still. The lire went out, the room grew colder and Colder, and the only sound was the beating of the rain against the window-pane, and the sighing of the wuul. G. A. B. '05. Model Remarks by Model Children. .X magnet, if la-I loose, will turn north and south. Shi- had a diamond and it falu-re-cl in the sun. 'I'Iu-u- wwf- so many piuuavlos in the royal tower that in the distance it looked lilo- iugmy' spike-s on top of a rock. Au i-xf'lanuatm'y sc-nlmwe is a surprising sentence, that is, when you say it quickly. Nlaluer is a solid, liquid or gas which eauuot oem-upy the same space at once. N

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varying opinions of men who grow up in the same community, apparently under almost identical influences, attending the same schools, equally responsive to the dictates of reason and conscience. No two men can have precisely identical experiences. So no idea means precisely the same thing to two men, however they may be apparently pre- disposed to think or act alike. At some point or another, there has been a divergence of interpretation, and when an angular difference has once been established, the actual interval, according to linear measure, tends constantly to increase. The story of a good deed, or of a bad deed, is heard and judged, in one way or in another, according to our previous conception of the person to whom it is attributed. Especially is this judgment affected by the harmony or disagreement between that person and ourselves in matters of religion, politics, social relations, occupation, and the like. The difficul- ties which schools sometimes find in the study of certain periods of history, when their pupils are from families of varying shades of political or religious belief, furnish ex- cellent illustrations. The ff open mind, -and the open mind is not a merely empty mind,-which enables a man to seek only the truth, in whatsoever direction it may lead him, and to judge evidence according to its intrinsic value alone, is one of the rarest possessions of human beings. These matters, of course, go even further, and affecting men's opinions, determine their conduct also. The ditferenees are not merely academic, but they are expressed in our acts, such as our adherence to this or that religious com- munion, our votes, our discharge of social obligations, our alms-giving, our treatment of associates of all ranks and conditions. So those who in childhood played together with the utmost community of feeling and interest, sometimes find themselves in middle life far removed from each other in sympathy and in opinion,-perhaps even bitterly antagonistic. It is always ditlicult to resume an interrupted friendship. Again, the understanding of the process we have been discussing enables us to see the true value of so-called H forgotten knowledge. Because knowledge has apparently been forgotten,-that is, because it is not or perhaps cannot be recalled in the form in which it originally came to us, it does not follow that it has been lost, in any proper sense of that term. Our food does its work in allaying, for the time being, the craving of appetite, and then, subjected to the process of digestion, that which is useful is 1'e- tained for assimilation, and that which is waste is removed from the body. An analo- gous process goes on in the disposition of new ideas. Some of them are adjudged worthless by tho sifting activities of the mind to which they have presented themselves, and they leave practically no impress upon its nature or its life. The others are assim- ilated into its very being. They do not, perhaps, retain t.heil' identity, but they are worked into its fiber and bet-ome in very truth, a part of it. The body does not mere- ly receive, select und transform its foodg the food, in turn, becomes the body and peri- odically entirely renews it, although it remains the snlnc body. So the mind has its expo:-ieinvf-sg it knows, fe:-ls and wills. These experiences, in their turn, are not simply phenomena nf the mind, ---they are ultimately, in their sum, the inind, which, however, like the body, pro.'4erves its identity. W. P. Becklvith. Sober is a desi-ri :tire ad'oetire in the coin raratiro do free thus coin iared-- Josi- .la 1 tive nobr, colnpnrutive rwlwr, supvrlntiw,- uolwsl. io