G. A. Johnston

“ The emotion may persist long after the stimulus has disappeared. If one has been angered early in the morning, the emotion may continue all day in a dull subconscious sort of way. If one has wakened up at night with the fear that burglars are in the house, it may take a long time for the emotion to disappear entirely. But perhaps the most persistent and constant of human emotions is hope. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." ”

“ The weeping of a Russian lady over the fictitious personages in the play, while her coachman is freezing to death on the seat outside, is the sort of thing that everywhere happens on a less glaring scale. ... The remedy would be never to suffer oneself to have an emotion at a concert without expressing it afterwards in some active way. Let the expression be the least thing in the world—speaking genially to one's aunt, or giving up one's seat in a horse-car, if nothing more heroic offers—but let it not fail to take place. ”

“ A profound sentiment will pervade the whole of a man's life, constantly spurring him on to fresh efforts. A great love, whether for a person or for a cause or institution, influences the man in whom it burns to strain every nerve to make himself more worthy of the service of the beloved person or cause. ”

“ We strive to prevent our faces paling with fear, because that is an emotion of which we are ashamed. Many of our emotions we have so far under control that we allow them to express themselves on some occasions, but not on others. We would allow the emotion of anger to express itself on our faces and in our words and actions, if we thought the occasion demanded righteous indignation. On the other hand, a similarly violent emotion might be repressed, if we thought its expression wrong or inexpedient. And there are other emotions whose expression on the face few people can wholly prevent. ”

“ There is no virtue in restraining the expression of our emotions unless we are thus helped to control the emotions themselves. The great practical importance of controlling the expression of emotion lies in the fact that if it is regularly and strictly controlled, the emotion itself is less apt to be evoked on future occasions by the appropriate stimulus. The importance of controlling the expression consists in the added ability it gives us to control the emotion itself. ”

“ Sentiments vary very much from one man to another. They differ much more than emotions do. In the same community the most diverse sentiments may be found. In one man the sentiment of the family may be the strongest thing in the world, in another the sentiment of patriotism, or loyalty to some institution, or enthusiasm for the kingdom of God, while others may be dominated by the selfish sentiment, the sentiment of self-love. Now sentiments are almost wholly acquired during the lifetime of the man in whom they appear. ”

“ The child who is struck by another immediately feels the emotion of anger, the creak of the door in the small hours immediately excites the emotion of fear, and so on.
Let us now consider some of the general characteristics of emotion. (1) Emotions permeate the whole of life. They impart glow and colour and tone to existence. Very little of our normal waking life is altogether devoid of emotion. But people differ very greatly in their susceptibility to emotion. Many a dull, drab life seems to have lost altogether any capacity it ever had to be emotionally affected. ”

“ The possibility of organising the emotions depends on the fact that they are always excited by, or cluster round, perceptions or ideas which are to a certain extent in our own power. The emotion of jealousy may be roused equally by the sight of my rival or by the thought of him. A great many of our emotions are excited by imagination or recollection rather than by actual perception or sensation. This is an important point in connection with their organisation. For our trains of thoughts and images are more under our control than our perceptions. We cannot always choose what we shall perceive ”

“ Sentiments are nearly all varieties of love or hatred, of like or dislike. If the child develops sentiments towards things, it is because he really regards them as persons. The little girl treats her doll and her teddy-bear as persons, and her sentiment towards them dies away precisely when it becomes too great an effort of imagination to credit them with personal behaviour. As the child grows up, he extends the sentiment of love which originated in his attitude to his parents to groups of persons and institutions. ”

“ What practical steps can the teacher take in attempting to educate the sentiments? It is not advisable simply to describe such a sentiment as patriotism and inculcate it, with much exhortation, as a virtue. That is often the very worst way to instil a sentiment. For a sentiment is a kind of feeling; and a feeling can never be made to seem desirable simply by being described. ”

“ What kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of gooseflesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible for me to think. ”

“ The variously-coloured dresses and scenery, with all their subtle and delicate shades and tinges, blend into one complex colour-scheme. We enjoy the complex sensation we have as we observe the scene, and we do not usually try to analyse it. ”

“ One of the first sentiments that the child develops is love for his parents. When we say that the child loves his parents, we do not mean merely that he has from moment to moment a certain affectionate emotion towards them, but that he has a more or less fixed disposition or attitude to them, which may include many special emotions, e.g. sorrow when they are angry with him, jealousy of his little brother who is being petted, or joy when their affection seems to be restored to him. ”

“ The emotion owes its strength to its suddenness and intensity; but it soon exhausts itself, and the sentiment with which it clashed remains dominant. It is a sign of moral progress when the sentiment completely controls and organises the emotions and desires of life in accordance with its own end. ”

“ The moral importance of the sentiments cannot be gainsaid. Every sentiment encourages the growth of those qualities of character which seem likely to subserve its ends. Patriotism or religious zeal stimulate special sets of virtues; and, in general, we may say with Mr. Shand, that "every sentiment tends to acquire the virtues and vices that are required by its system." [7] Love, for instance, fosters a whole galaxy of good qualities; but it is apt also to acquire the defects of its virtues, such as jealousy and partiality. Love must ever be partial, and hence may often be unjust. ”

“ In every case the sentiment is fundamentally love, though it may be called loyalty, patriotism, or enthusiasm.
When sentiments conflict, it may be either with other sentiments or with emotions. The child's love of his parents may conflict with his momentary anger at them. The sentiment of avarice may conflict with patriotism or filial love. When two sentiments conflict, that one will conquer which has been most habitually at one with the character as a whole. In every conflict between sentiment and emotion, the sentiment is likely to overcome the emotion which opposes it. ”

“ It frets and fumes, and the emotions of jealousy and fear are developed. In the school, also, it is essential that the child should be kept fully occupied. Otherwise it becomes listless, and its emotional state, which was previously kept at a more or less high level of pleasurable activity, sinks to the depths of boredom and irritability. The unpleasantness of waiting for a train that is late is due to the absence of aim and occupation. We have time which we cannot organise in any way: the moments must simply be allowed to slip away in dull suspense. ”

“ An emotional disposition is more indefinite than a simple emotion. A simple emotion always has a reference to some definite object. We are afraid of some thing or some person, we are angry at some thing or some person. ”

“ But our difficulty is that when we actually experience emotions, they often seem hopelessly confused and jumbled. Take, for example, the emotional condition of a small boy who is being caned, or that of a girl who is saying good-bye to her brother "off to the Front." The small boy is probably not aware of his emotions as emotions; and while the girl will recognise her state as an emotional one, she will make no effort to distinguish one emotion from another within that complex state. ”

“ The only way to encourage the growth of sentiments is to make the great ends with which they are connected seem desirable as the great aims of life. In practice, the teaching of History may be used to foster the sentiments of patriotism and loyalty, just as the teaching of Scripture ought to aim at the stimulation of an enthusiasm for humanity. ”

“ It is one of the great tasks of moral education to secure that emotions issue in valuable channels. Children should be encouraged to seek for themselves worthy outlets for their emotions. It is a wise moral economy to translate emotion into socially valuable action.
(3) Emotions are most valuable when they appear in an organised life. In every department of mental and moral activity aimlessness is both unpleasant and unprofitable. The child is never emotionally satisfied unless it is occupied in some way. ”

“ And it seems probable that in societies such as our own, where control over the expression of emotion is inculcated from an early age, emotions are, as a rule, actually less intense than among peoples who see no cause for shame in giving them comparatively free play. ”

“ The emotions themselves must be organised. The educationist's aim is not to encourage each and every emotion. Emotions good and valuable in themselves may become positively mischievous if they are allowed to riot at haphazard. There is no more futile life than the existence that is at the mercy of random emotions. And it is important to notice that such an unsystematic condition is not natural. "Mental activity tends, at first unconsciously, afterwards consciously, to produce and to sustain system and organisation." ”

“ Emotions are for the most part instinctive in their origin. The child does not need to learn to feel angry or afraid. The simpler and coarser emotions, such as anger, fear, and jealousy, are more completely instinctive than the finer and more complex ones.
(3) Emotions are generally excited by some specific stimulus or some definite situation. In the latter respect they resemble impulses, which usually arise in response to some special need or interest. Some stimulus, e.g. a blow or an insult, is necessary to excite the emotion of anger. ”

“ There are Germans to-day who know that Germany did wrong to hack its way through Belgium, and feel a righteous indignation with her for doing it; and yet their patriotism and loyalty to their fatherland is as strong as ever. Sentiments, once formed, are profoundly conservative forces. ”

“ All the strength of his will is directed to support the sentiment. The more intensely and steadfastly a man loves a person or institution, the more completely he organises his whole life round this sentiment. ”

“ Sentiments are developed under the influence of the social environment.
Hence the importance of the moral education of the sentiments. The sentiments are essentially educable, and their formed nature depends wholly on how the child has been trained. Whether the child will become a patriotic citizen or a neutral cipher, a loyal member of a family or a self-centred misanthrope, an enthusiast for social righteousness or a morbid egoist, will depend very largely on the influence of parents and teachers. ”

“ In order to escape the unpleasant emotional condition of boredom, we must organise our mental activities. And as we are most often bored during leisure hours, it follows that it is one of the great tasks of education to train children in the right enjoyment of leisure. ”

“ The very young child's life is organised round such primary needs as eating and playing and sleeping. It wants toys to keep it amused, and when the old toys' possibilities become exhausted, the child's life becomes disorganised. ”

“ Sentiments arise most naturally in connection with persons, and they have an intimate relation to character. The child enters into relations with his parents, relatives, teachers, and other friends; and out of these relations grow his sentiments. ”

“ Rousseau, inflaming all the mothers of France, by his eloquence, to follow Nature and nurse their babies themselves, while he sends his own children to the foundling hospital, is the classical example of what I mean. The habit of excessive novel-reading and theatre-going will produce true monsters in this line. ”