The food received into the
stomach is taken up by the organs of digestion, assimilated and
converted into blood. The process, however, takes its course without
our conscious effort or co-operation. Knowledge likewise enters the
mind, but how far will assimilation go on without conscious effort? If
kept in a healthy state the organs of digestion are self active. Not
so the mind. Ideas entering the mind are not so easily assimilated as
the food materials that enter the stomach. A cow chews her cud once,
but the ideas that enter our minds may be drawn from their receptacle
in the memory and worked over again and again. Ideas have to be put
side by side, separated, grouped, and arranged into connected series.
There is, no doubt, some tendency in the mind toward involuntary
assimilation, but it greatly needs culture and training. Many people
never reach the _thinking_ stage, never learn to survey and reflect.
The tendency of the mind to work over and digest knowledge should
receive ample culture in the schools. There is a mental inertia
produced by pure memory exercise that is unfavorable to reflection. It
requires an extra exertion to arrange and organize facts even after
they are acquired.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220