St Stephens Episcopal School - Scroll Yearbook (Alexandria, VA)

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No one can tell another person in any definite way how he should think, any more than how he ought to breathe or to have his blood circulate. But the various ways in which men do think can be told and can be described in their general features. Some of these ways are better than others, the reasons why l they are better can be set forth. The person who understands what the better ways of thinking are and why they are better can, if he will, change his own ways until they become more effective, until, that is to say, they do better the work that thinking can do and that other mental operations cannot do so well. The better way of thinking that is to be considered in this book is called reflective thinking, the kind of thinking that consists in turning a subject over in the mind and giving it serious and consecutive consideration. Before we take up this main theme, we shall first take briefly the note of some other mental processes to which the name thought is given. The Stream of Consciousness. All the time we are awake and sometimes when we are asleep, something is, as we say, going through our heads. When we are asleep we call that kind of sequence dreaming We also have daydreams, reveries, castles built in the air, and mental streams that are even more idle and chaotic. To this uncontrolled coursing of ideas through our heads the name of ' dnb .dash thinking is sometimes given. It is automatic and .Y ,ink unregulated. Many a child has attempted to see mc whether he could not stop thinking - that is, stop ' . this procession of mental states through his mind - and in vain. More of our waking life than most of us would care to admit is whiled away in this inconsequential trifling with mental pictures, random recollections, pleasant but unfounded hopes, flirting, half-developed impressions. Hence it is that he who offers an offer is taken, he will only find out what happens to be going through the mind and what goes in this fashion rarely leaves much that is worth while behind. Reflective Thought Is a Chain. In this sense, silly folk and dullards think. The story is told ofa man in slight repute for intelligence, who, desiring to be chosen selectman in his New England town, addressed a knot of neighbors in this wise: I hear you believe that I don't know enough to hold office. I wish you to understand thatl am thinking about something or other most of the time. Now, reflective thought is like this random coursing of things through the mind in that it consists of a succession of things thought of but it is unlike in that the mere chance occurence of any chance something or other in an irregular sequence does not suffice. Reflection involves not simply a sequence of ideas, but a con-sequence - a consecutive ording in such a way that each determines the next as its proper outcome and in turn leans back, or refers to its predecessors. The sucessive portions of a reflective thought grow out of one another and support one another. They do not come and grow in a medley. Each phase is a step from something to something- technically speaking, it is a term of thought. Each term leaves a deposit that is utilized in the next term. The stream or flow becomes a train or chain. There are in any reflective thought definite units that are linked together so that there is a sustained movement to a common end. 2

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