Imagination and its place in education

Front matter

AND I IN ED kirkpat:

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Preface

Science embodies universal truths. Literature expresses truth as seen or exemplified by individuals. Neither literature nor the science of psychology alone can adequately deal with the subject of imagination. Psychology seeks to present what is true of all minds, but in no type of mental activity is there greater individuality than in the exercise of the imagination.

The writer, in his many years of teaching psychology, has enjoyed this subject because tests given students and their reports of introspective studies show that the same laws govern all minds, though they are partly disguised by an infinite variety of image combinations. No topic reveals to students more clearly their mental processes and at the same time shows them that other persons arrive at the same results by different routes. It gives the author satisfaction, therefore, to share with a larger group than that comprising his own students the pleasure and advantage to be derived from a study of so interesting a subject. He hopes that this little book will introduce many to a study of the facts in the realm of imagination as exemplified in their own minds and in the minds of others, especially children, and as revealed in play, science, art, and literature. With this end in view, scientific technicalities and exhaustive treatment have intentionally been avoided.

Although the book may be studied by individuals successfully, it will prove much more interesting and valuable

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when used by a group of persons who report and discuss individual observations and make group experiments. It is hoped that the manner of treatment and the exercises at the close of each chapter will make the book especially useful to teachers' reading circles. The references at the close of the book may also prove valuable in giving a wider, more intensive, and varied view of the subject.

E. A. K.

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Part I. Imagination And Related Activities Chapter Page

I. Preliminary Review 3

Making the absent present. Sources of the material used in imagination. Free use of images. Kinds of imagination. Imagination as a method of working. Illustrations and exercises

II. Mental Images 17

Variety, number, and vividness. Control of images. Why some images are usually more prominent than others. Verbal images. Exercises and illustrations

III. Images and Percepts 26

After-images. Hallucinations. Suggested and suggesting images. Standard images. Exercises and illustrations

IV. Mental Laws and Imagination 35

Mental habits. Associations of similarity and contrast. Other laws than those of habit and association. Generic and individual images. Exercises

V. Imagination and Memory 48

Imaging and locating experiences. Constructive imagination and memory. Conflict of memory and creative imagination. Special varieties of images as aids to memory. Exercises

VI. Feeling and Imagination 56

Images and sensory feelings. Constructive imagination and emotional states. Mood and creative imagination. Instincts — and imagination. Desire and imagination. Exercises

VII. Imagination and Dreaming 63

Dream imagery. Sensations and dreams. Recent experiences and dreams. Wishes and dreams. Exercises

VIII. Reasoning and Imagination 69

Similarity and purpose in reasoning. Symbols and exact reasoning. Images, judgment, and decision. Imaging in induction and deduction. Exercises

Part II. The Imaginative Life Of Children

IX. Factors involved in the Early Development

of Imagination 81

The beginnings of imagination. Language and images. Tendency to animism. Imitation and imagination. Reminiscence and anticipation. Imagination and the omnipotence of childhood. Exercises

X. Later Development of the Imagination as

AFFECTED BY AGE, CIRCUMSTANCES, AND INDIVID- UALITY . go

The chief factors involved. Characteristics of imagination at different ages. Periods of imaginative development. Exercises

XI. The Period of Imaginative Play 102

Playing with images. Influences affecting creative activity.

Imaginary companions. Exercises

XII. Constructing the Real World 116

— ^ The period of constructive imagination. Comparing and constructing. Truth and fancy. The imaginary made real. Individual construction. Exercises

XIII. The Period of Daydreams 125

The imagination of the adolescent. Life idealized. Romantic imagination. Ambition. Exercises

XIV. Evils and Dangers of Imagination in Children 134

Playful and pleasurable imagining. Serious or purposeful imagination. Imagination in relation to lying. Mental conflict as a cause of wrongdoing. How to guard against the dangers of imagination. Literature and imaginative activity. Exercises

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CONTENTS

Part III. School Subjects And The Imagination

XV. Use and Training of Imagination in School 157

Disciplining the imagination. Stimuli to the imagination. Directing the imagination. Mental conditions favoring imagination. Exercises

XVI. Learning to Read and Spell 167

Imagination involved in learning to read. The thought method. The symbol or phonic method. Learning to spell. Exercises

XVII. Imagination in Drawing and Constructing . 177

Images and drawing. Models and images. Constructing and imaging. Designing and inventing. Exercises

XVIII. Imagination in Arithmetic 183

From concrete things to symbols. From auditory to visual images. Measurement and imaging. Computing and imaging. Imagination and problem-solving. Exercises

XIX. Geography and the Imagination 192

Geography as a stimulus to the imagination. Geographical language. Constructive imagination and geography. Geographical imaging and reasoning. Exercises

XX. Imagination in History and Literature . . 197

Enlargement of the social environment through imagination. Historical and literary ideals. Dramatics in history and literature. Illustrating and writing as a stimulus to the imagination. Literary expression and imagination. Exercises

XXL Imagination in Nature Study and Science . 204

Imagination and observation. Artistic and poetic study. Practical nature study. Scientific nature study. Exercises

BIBLIOGRAPHY 209

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INTRODUCTION .

Imagination has been the Cinderella of the intellectual faculties, so far as the attention and interest of those who are charged with the care and culture of the young are concerned. Educational literature has been filled with discussions of the nature, value, and training of perception, memory, and reason ; but imagination has always been kept in the background, — so much so, in fact, that most parents and teachers have only very hazy notions respecting the role which this intellectual process plays in human life and the prominence which it should be accorded in education. Nine out of ten persons speak of imagination as though it were not a vital factor in mental operations, — as though it could be ignored or eliminated without loss to the efficiency, stability, or balance of the human mind.

It is true that "Training the Imagination" is a topic sometimes discussed at educational meetings ; but anyone who has listened to these discussions will readily bear witness to the fact that the majority, perhaps, of educators who appear to be well informed on most educational and psychological subjects find themselves at sea when they attempt to distinguish imagination from other forms of mental activity, and especially when they discuss the function of imagination in the various branches of school instruction and the part it should play in the educational program.

Professor Kirkpatrick's book has been prepared with a view to clearing up misconceptions in the minds of

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parents and teachers respecting the relation of imagination to the other intellectual processes, the varieties of imaginative activity in the adjustments of daily life, the changes in the content and form of imagination that occur in the course of a child's development, individual differences in the prominence, intensity, and quality of imagination, and the proper utilization of this activity in the work of the school. The author has treated his theme as a whole and in its various subdivisions in an unusually concrete and lively manner. His generalizations are all based on data derived from the circumstances and experiences of the daily life of childhood and youth in the city and in the country, and in homes with varying ideals of training and discipline. Many persons have cooperated with him in the effort to discover how different minds work imaginatively under varying conditions and at different periods in mental development. In this way a large amount of accurate and live material has been collected, and typical examples are presented and interpreted in this volume. It makes a document of exceptional interest and value for students of human nature, and especially for anyone who acts as counselor for the young or who gives instruction on any subject in the

school or in the home.

M. V. O'SHEA The University of Wisconsin

Chapter I

Making the absent present. The following will serve as an introduction to our subject : "He opened the gate, saw the white cottage through the trees and shrubs, caught the odor of roses and, as he approached the door, heard a joyful cry, saw the door flung open, and felt her arms about him." Is this an account of a man's experience as he approached a suburban home, or is it a description of what he mentally represented as he sat in his office in the city, among far different sights, sounds, and odors ? If the latter is the case, we have an example of imaginative activity.

This power of viewing the absent as though it were present is one of the most distinctive characteristics of human beings. Animals have it either not at all or to only a slight degree. For the most part they live in the present, while people occupy their minds for hours at a time with the absent, the past, and the future. An animal is modified by his past experiences, and on that account his future actions will be different, but there is little reason for believing that any animal becomes distinctly conscious of those past experiences, independent of the surroundings in which they occurred, or that he pictures far in advance what his actions are to be.

It is because human beings have this extraordinary power to represent the absent that they are able to become familiar with objects and events distant in space and time and are able to use the results of past experience in representing and planning what they shall do in the future. The animal's mental experiences are determined by the here and now, the man's by what has been and may be.

A popular view of imagination is that it is concerned only with the untrue and the unreal ; but this is correct only in the sense that the reality and the truth are not manifested in stimuli immediately present. Imagination may concern itself either with what has existed or may exist in the future, or it may represent what never has been and perhaps never will be experienced by any human being in exactly the form pictured. In the illustration given above, the man may be living again in imagination an actual experience and may represent nothing which did not actually happen, or he may be representing what is likely to occur when he goes home at night. Again, he may be representing an experience that he has never had, among scenes that he has. never visited or heard described. In all these cases things not present are made real in his consciousness, which is the most distinctive characteristic of imaginative activity.

When the image of the scene is a memory of what actually happened there is less freedom of representation than when new surroundings and events are mirrored in the mind. We may say, then, that the more completely what is not present to the senses is made to seem real in consciousness and the freer this seeming reality is from any actual associated experience of the moment, the greater, is the degree of imagination. The man who pictures exactly scenes that have occurred or will occur is using his imagination just as truly as the one who pictures the unreal and the impossible. The only difference is that in the one case knowledge of the world as it is exercises a stronger controlling influence over the imaginative activity than in the other.

Sources of the material used in imagination. However free imagination may become, it must begin with materials supplied by real sense experiences. A man who has never had any visual experiences has no material for representing how things actually look. If he pictures a beautiful form it is in terms of touch and motion rather than of light and shade, while representation of color as it appears to the eye is utterly impossible to him. He can only conjecture that colors differ, as tactile, auditory, or olfactory sensations differ ; and when red or yellow are mentioned he may represent them as resembling one kind or another of the sensations with which he is familiar. He cannot possibly experience in consciousness the sensation felt by normal people when objects of those colors are presented to the eye.

It has often been suggested that animals or beings on other planets may have senses entirely different from those that we possess. Whether such is the case or not, it is utterly impossible for us to represent what those senses might be except in terms of sensations that we have experienced. It is true that we may represent objects entirely different from any that we have ever seen and perhaps from any that have ever existed, but in doing so we must use material derived from actual sensory experiences. We may picture an animal or a plant different from any that we know or possibly combining the characteristics of plants and animals in a way unknown to science, but in doing so we have used material derived from actual observations. Our image of an entirely new creature is made possible only by combining parts of many separate observations in an entirely new way.

Free use of images. The material used by the imagination consists of images that are like the sensations experienced when the stimuli were present. When these images are arranged in exactly the same way as their originals were in some experience or series of experiences, there is little freedom of imagination, and the process is usually designated as memory or reproductive imagination. When, however, some of the images are modified or transposed and when images derived from various experiences are combined into a new unity, we have a better example of free activity of the imagination. The person who, when the word " tree " is spoken, always pictures a particular tree standing amid certain surroundings has not as great freedom of the imagination, so far as trees are concerned, as the one who pictures the general form of a tree that can be located anywhere and instantly become of any size, species, or shape. An active imagination not only brings vividly before the mind sense experiences, in the absence of the objects producing them, but it exercises great freedom in isolating sensations from their associates and in making new groupings of images. When images can thus be dissociated and combined with others there is a high degree of freedom as regards the material that the imagination may use. The fact that the images are thus free to enter into new combinations does not, however, give the imagination complete liberty when a new complex image and perhaps a series of events is to be constructed. In making such a construction it may be easy to separate the images from their former associates, but one may have difficulty in combining them in ways that differ greatly from combinations that have previously been experienced.

Kinds of imagination. On the basis of the above facts regarding freedom of imagination, we may distinguish three rather distinct types of imaginative activity. These are, first, reproductive imagination, in which the past is presented to the mind with the images arranged just as they were in the original experience ; second, constructive imagination, in which the separate images are combined not according to some particular experience but in accordance with their more usual arrangement or as directed by descriptions ; third, creative imagination in which the images are freely arranged in accordance with one's own feelings and purposes.

The first type of imagination is quite similar to memory and may be identical with it. There may, however, be this difference : In memory we know that certain things happened at a particular time and place and in a certain order or relation, while in what is called reproductive imagination there may be less accuracy as to the order and relation of events but greater vividness of imagery, so that it almost seems as if the sensory experience were being repeated. It follows, therefore, that although reproductive imagination and memory are often nearly identical, yet there may be a high degree of imaginative activity with much inaccuracy of memory or a high degree of reliability of memory with a limited exercise of imagination.

In constructive imagination laws of association and volition have a prominent part. The most common use of constructive imagination is that in which it is directed by words or symbols of some kind. If you are told how the objects in a room have been arranged and are then able to picture its appearance so that you find it just as you expected when you enter, there has been effective use of the constructive imagination. Through association the words call up images of objects and their relations and the unified picture is formed accordingly. If the room and the objects described are familiar, it may be easy to form vivid pictures ; but if the arrangement is entirely different from that to which one has been accustomed, it may be difficult to construct the scene as described because of the tendency to reproduce in accordance with former experiences.

What is actually imaged when a description is given conforms in part to the words used and in part to the kind and arrangement of images which are most familiar to us. This may be illustrated by the following description: "As we were driving along the road we saw a house and a barnyard with various animals in it." Some persons in listening to such a description may do little constructing, but merely reproduce vividly some suggested scene with which they are familiar. Those who construct a definite picture are likely to do so in accordance with their usual experience of roads, houses, barnyards, and animals. If a more detailed description were given, the whole scene would perhaps have to be changed. For example, it might be said, " The house is sixty feet long, five feet wide, and forty feet high ; the road is of white crushed stone ; the fence is a cactus hedge ; and the animals are elephants, camels, kangaroos, reindeer, and wolves." One must then change his picture so completely that he realizes that constructive imagination is influenced by habit as much or even more than it is by the exact meanings of words.

In creative imagination one pictures according to his emotions, desires, and purposes, although in doing so he is of course influenced by his previous mental habits. If you are asked to plan how the objects in a room of a certain size and description shall be arranged, for certain purposes or in order to produce the most beautiful effect, you must exercise your creative imagination. If you picture the room as quite similar to a particular model or with the arrangement most familiar, you employ less originality in creating the complex image than if the characteristics of various rooms are combined in such a way as to make one of a new type that is useful or beautiful. Freedom from the usual is one of the marked characteristics of creative imagination, yet if this freedom does not recognize the essential nature of things, the product of one's creative imagination may be neither useful nor beautiful. The inventor and the artist must show freedom in making new combinations, but the complex whole must be such as the nature of the material and the purpose of the creation demand, or it will be of no value.

These three forms of imagination all necessitate the production of images based on original sensory experiences. Constructive imagination involves the ability to separate images from their original associates and to arrange them in new combinations according to directions, while creative imagination requires the same power to select and rearrange images and also the faculty of determining how they shall be arranged in order that some ideal or purpose may be realized. Reproductive imagination is especially valuable in describing our own experiences ; constructive imagination, in the understanding and appreciation of descriptions given by others ; and creative imagination, in evolving imaginary descriptions and stories. In the industries reproductive imagination enables one to construct according to a sample pattern, constructive imagination helps one to follow directions and interpret plans, while creative imagination gives power to devise new machines and processes. In art reproductive imagination enables one to reproduce what he has seen, constructive imagination helps one to illustrate a story or poem, and creative imagination is the source of every original conception.

We see, then, that the materials used in imagination are necessarily derived from sensory experiences, but that these materials may be modified and arranged in ways quite unlike those of the real world or they may be arranged in accordance with the actual or probable events of our own lives or those of others. The historian who pictures people as they have really existed is using his imagination in accordance with the facts of particular situations. The novelist who describes imaginary characters which have had no separate individual existence may be directing his fancy in accordance with the nature and relation of things as they are found in the real world, or he may exercise his imagination in representing what will stir the emotions or produce aesthetic satisfaction without regard to the actuality, probability, or even possibility of the existence of such things as he describes. In the first case he is portraying essential but not literal truth, while in the latter case truth is regarded only so far as is necessary to produce the desired mental effects.

The scientist who imagines all substances as consisting of molecules composed of ultimate atoms, or who pictures atoms as electrons or centers of electric forces, is using his imagination to help him to grasp the truth. The mere fact that things can be imagined more vividly one way than another does not prove the truth of the one theory as opposed to another.

A reader who pictures accurately what is described by the historian, novelist, or scientist is truthfully representing what they have set forth, but some of what is imagined may have no counterpart in the world of objective reality. Imagination is not in itself either true or false ; it is merely a mode of representing experiences in consciousness. It is only because the imagination is often occupied with representing the agreeable rather than the actual that there is a tendency to contrast the imaginary with the true and to speak of a liar as one whose imagination is too strong. The impulse to imagine things as one would like them instead of as they are may, of course, lead to unconscious lying, while he who lies intentionally need not necessarily image vividly but may merely strive to make others form pictures which do not conform to actuality.

Imagination as a method of working. There are three principal ways of meeting situations and of solving problems : one method is that of observing and manipulating objects, another, of imaging them, and the third is that of using symbols which represent them.

By the first method one would find how many inch cubes there are in a three-inch cube by cutting it into inch cubes and counting them, while by the second method he would image the three-inch cube as being divided into inch cubes and count without actually seeing them. By the third method he would use figures or symbols to represent the cube and the mathematical process by which he could calculate the number ; for example, 3x3x3 = 27.

If you are asked to tell how many posts placed a rod apart would be required to fence a field eight by ten rods, you could find the number by placing the posts at the proper distances and counting them, or you could imagine the field surrounded by the posts a rod apart and count the number, or, without representing the field at all, you could use symbols standing for distances and numbers and calculate according to the formula, " The number of posts equals twice the length and breadth of the field in rods."

You may determine whether two colors match by looking at both of them at once ; or in the absence of the colors you may imagine how they look and decide whether the ribbon seen at one store will match the dress seen at another ; or one who is used to dealing with colors may represent each color or shade by a number and letter and can thus designate what colors are to be combined or matched, as is done by the dyer of yarns. The first, or perceptual, method is surest but also the slowest and sometimes impracticable ; the method of imagination or representation is quicker, though less accurate, but one that can be used at any time ; while the conceptual, or symbol, method, when proper symbols and formulas have been learned, is quickest and most accurate.

The child in building a house with blocks is likely to depend chiefly upon the perceptual method in choosing and placing his blocks. Later he will be able to image the blocks and their arrangement before actually selecting and placing them, while an architect indicates the plan of a house by means of figures and lines.

There are great differences in people as to their ability to deal with things in their absence and as to the methods they employ. Some may use images, others symbols. Some persons must have the things before them, others may represent them so vividly that it is not necessary to have the objects present, while a few with more abstract concepts need only symbols and formulas in order to determine conditions and quickly form a plan of action. Imagination may therefore be regarded as a mental process in which images of things, persons, and events take the place of the sensations that may be or have been produced by them. It is also a mode of thinking in which images of experiences rather than symbols standing for those experiences are the materials with which the mind works.

Illustrations and exercises. The following are reports of individuals as to the use of imagination. It will be well for each reader to note down instances in which he uses his imagination effectively and of other cases when it fails to serve his purposes or leads him into error. From many such observations he can form an idea of the part that imagination really plays in his mental life.

Images play a large part in my existence. While reading books I almost always imagine myself to be certain characters, while acquaintances take other parts. But when reading books which are not stories I do not image the different characters as much as I do the circumstances.

In day dreaming, when I close my eyes I can always see things just as if they were real. I also feel sensations very keenly as they impressed me in the first place. For instance, one day last summer I went with a family to Mt. Wachusett. My girl friend and I tried to see how far we could run up the Indian trail without stopping. In thinking of this day's outing this feeling of actual fatigue is uppermost in my thoughts.

The next thing I think of is the cool place we found in which to eat our dinner, and how good it seemed to sit down to eat after being so tired. I can actually picture the whole group as we walked, ate, or did other things throughout the day.

I always see in my " mind's eye " the thing itself, hardly ever words or definitions. For instance, I think of a day in camp. I see perfectly the glassy stillness of the lake at sunrise ; I hear again the bugle sounding the reveille in the boys' camp across the bay ; I hear the rattle of dishes in the kitchen, smell the coffee, and the fish frying ; and so on throughout the whole day. Every little incident comes back into my mind, and I see and hear and live again all those delightful experiences. If I close my eyes now I see plainly the tiny bedroom in the cottage, hear the rustle of the leaves and the soft lap, lap of the water upon the rocks of the shore at night. So it is with all my past pleasures They flash upon that i nwar( j e y e

Which is the bliss of solitude.

In thinking of people I usually see them at the sound of the name. On some occasions, however, I have an auditory image, as of the trilling laugh of my favorite cousin, or hear again the peculiar tones in which someone has spoken.

Cicero is an exception. I never picture the man, but the first page of the textbook and his first oration against Catiline. If a book were given me, opened at that place, with my eyes shut I believe I could put my finger on the words " O tempora ! O mores ! " so vividly do I see them on that page.

I cannot image the fragrance of a rose from just the abstract idea " rose," but let me form an image of some particular rose or roses and I can image their fragrance and thorns as easily as their beauty.

My imagination often reminds me of my duties. If I do not feel like writing home some night, I picture mother looking in vain for a letter from me, and I write the letter.

I am able to understand the people I come in contact with by imagining their feelings and motives. I am able to understand the different studies I take by picturing what I study instead of just reading it.