Intellectual discipline

“ So you will perceive that when I speak of the improvement of the mind, I do not mean reading only; but that discipline which calls into exercise the intellectual faculties, and enables us to employ them in the investigation of the truth. This discipline is a necessary preparation for profitable reading. It is a great mistake to suppose that mind is entirely original; or that only a few possess intellectual faculties capable of searching into the deep recesses of knowledge. It is true some possess talents of a superior order; but none, except idiots, are incapable of improvement ”

“ You added that any rational person who found himself sinking into such a deplorable condition as this, would have recourse to some severe discipline as a preservative—a discipline requiring close attention to common things, and rigorously excluding every variety of thought which could possibly be considered intellectual. ”

“ Hence, to acquire the habit of thought conducive to right thinking in Sociology, the mind must be familiarized with the fundamental ideas which each class of sciences brings into view, and must not be possessed by those of any one class, or any two classes, of sciences. That this may be better seen, let me briefly indicate the indispensable discipline which each class of sciences gives to the intellect, and also the wrong intellectual habits produced if that class of sciences is studied exclusively. ”

“ The mental discipline, the habits of sound and accurate reasoning, the distrust of mere authority and of untested assertions and traditions that science tends to produce, all stimulate the intellectual virtues, and science has done much to rectify the chart of life, pointing out more clearly the true conditions of human well-being and disclosing much baselessness and many errors in the teaching of the past. ”

“ You are no doubt aware that the Almighty, desiring to lead us to perfection and to improve our state of society, has revealed to us laws which are to regulate our actions. These laws, however, presuppose an advanced state of intellectual culture. We must first form a conception of the Existence of the Creator according to our capabilities; that is, we must have a knowledge of Metaphysics. But this discipline can only be approached after the study of Physics; ”

“ Still less is it the antithesis between intellectual and commonplace; the highest intellectual powers find employment in practical life. The various mental and moral qualities belong to both spheres, but have a different meaning for each. 146Practical experience is a totally different thing from what the religious thinker means by his 'experience.' The discipline given by the world often consists in the dulling of those powers which self-discipline seeks to develope. ”

“ This is Nature’s way of keeping us to our specialities; she protects us by means of what superficial moralists condemn as one of the minor vices—the disinclination to trouble ourselves without necessity, when the work involves the acquisition of new habits.
The moral basis of the intellectual life appears to be the idea of discipline; but the discipline is of a very peculiar kind, and varies with every individual. People of original power have to discover the original discipline that they need. ”

“ Any mind is disciplined in a subject in which independent intellectual initiative and control have been achieved. Discipline represents original native endowment turned, through gradual exercise, into effective power. So far as a mind is disciplined, control of method in a given subject has been attained so that the mind is able to manage itself independently without external tutelage. The aim of education is precisely to develop intelligence of this independent and effective type—a disciplined mind. Discipline is positive and constructive. ”

“ Men of the profoundest learning, of the sublimest genius, and of the purest integrity, after devoting their lives to the research, finally differed in their ideas upon many great points, both of doctrine and discipline. ”

“ When the ideas are once in mind, it is necessary to determine what they tell us in the way of truth. Hence, to train the mind to make proper discriminations, he declares in the Conduct of the Understanding that practice and discipline are necessary. ”

“ How the understanding is best conducted to the knowledge of science, by what steps it is to be led forwards in its pursuit, how it is to be cured of its defects, and habituated to new studies, has been the inquiry of many acute and learned men, whose observations I shall not either adopt or censure: my purpose being to consider the moral discipline of the mind, and to promote the increase of virtue rather than of learning. ”

“ As evidence of this, he undertakes to show that science, like language, trains the memory, and, in addition, exercises the understanding; that it is superior to language in cultivating judgment; that, by fostering independence, perseverance, and sincerity, it furnishes a moral discipline. ”

“ To understand, we have analyzed the intellectual world into two classes, good and evil; and to discover the members of each class, we fix their qualities, not by the hypothetick, but the practical mode of reasoning. ”

“ For, if he have the opportunity to learn all those things, and have his mind disciplined in the various directions the teaching of those topics would have necessitated, then, assuredly, he will be able to pick up, on his road through life, all the rest of the intellectual baggage he wants. ”

“ EDUCATION COMPLETE. Thus have we sketched, on a small scale, a complete scheme of education. How to live?—that is the question. How to use all your powers to the glory of God and the greatest advantage to yourselves and others—how to live completely? The intellectual part of your nature is superior to the physical; the moral higher than the intellectual ”

“ But, gentlemen, the exclusive devotion to mental and moral philosophy as contradistinguished from physical science, Exclusive devotion to Philosophy. and without sufficient subjection to the discipline of severer studies, such as logic, mathematics and science—is apt to develop the very faults to which your mental constitution is prone. The imaginative faculties rise and spread so as to overshadow the reason; the idealistic power flourishes so excessively as to draw the vigour away from the realistic faculties. ”

“ The education of which I speak is expansion and discipline of mind rather than learning; and its tendency is not so much to form profound dogmatists, or erudite canonists, or acute casuists, as to cultivate a habit of mind, which, for want of a better word, may be called philosophical; to enlarge the intellect, to strengthen and supple its faculties, to enable it to take connected views of things and their relations, and to see clear amid the mazes of human error and through the mists of human passion. ”

“ Moral training, in a knowledge of moral and social laws, and an engaging of the affections for what is good instead of what is evil; Intellectual training, in knowledge and the means of acquiring knowledge, alike for practical purposes and for recreation. ”

“ And as he aspires to exhibit models of education, possessing higher excellencies than mechanical dexterity or mere intellectual acuteness; his anxious aim will be to make instruction in art and science, the culture of the understanding, and of the physical powers, subservient to the nobler intention of fostering and maturing the virtues of the heart. ”

“ Let the world see that with informed heads you have reformed hearts, and that your intellectual training has been no one-sided system which has done all that is possible to be done for the mind, while it has left untended and untrained the heart, whence are the very issues of moral life. Good example is a language all can understand. ”

“ He must study the nature of the effect that he is to produce, and of the materials upon which he is to work, and adopt, after mature deliberation, a plan to accomplish his purpose founded upon the principles which ought always to regulate the action of mind upon mind, and adapted to produce the intellectual effect which he wishes to accomplish. ”

“ As he carves out his path to this or that goal, in accordance with his spiritual interests and in compliance with the contingencies of life, he will avail himself of this initial instruction, use it to further his progress towards this or that end, good or evil as the case may be. For intellectual instruction, it is argued, can be made subservient either to noble impulses or to base motives. ”

“ That natural dispositions and talents (such as imagination and wit) , which ask a free and unlimited development, require in many respects the corrective influence of discipline, every one will readily grant. ”

“ We are, indeed, simply concerned with a discipline or routine which in this field is properly described as custom, and the word morals essentially means custom. That is what morals must always be for the mass, and, indeed, to some extent for all, a discipline, and, as we have already seen, a discipline cannot properly be regarded as a science or an art. ”

“ When we learn what knowledge is most valuable, the habit or discipline incidentally acquired in seeking that knowledge will, no doubt, be the discipline which will aid most in seeking and applying other valuable knowledge throughout the whole course of life. ”

“ On this account, wise men have had recourse to various expedients; such as the provision of Laws; the culture of Arts and Letters; and, in general, all that discipline which comes under the notion of early tutorage and education. But none of these has been found so effectual to the end in view, or is so immediately directed to the purpose of enlarging the mind, and curing it, at once, of all its obstinate and malignant prejudices, as a knowledge of the world acquired in the way of society, and general conversation. ”

“ It results from this doctrine of the mind's growth, that success in all the departments of life over which intellect holds dominion depends, not merely on an outside knowledge of the facts and laws connected with each department, but on the assimilation of that knowledge into instinctive intelligence and active power. Take the good farmer, and you will find that ideas in him are endowed with will, and can work. Take the good general, and you will find that the principles of his profession are inwrought into the substance of his nature, and act with the velocity of instincts. ”

“ Intellectual and Moral Education.--"The object of intellectual education is to create such indissoluble associations of our ideas of things, in the order and relation in which they occur in nature; that of a moral education is to unite as fixedly, the ideas of evil deeds with those of pain and degradation, and of good actions with those of pleasure and nobleness." ”

“ The objective mind, it will therefore be seen, is potentially selective, that is to say, the measure of its quality is its capacity to select at will intellectual nourishment from the whole range of humanity and nature, free from the oppression of its psychic environment. ”

“ I cannot forbear here to point out, further, that the truth in regard to mental discipline appears to be a universal truth or law of human activity, perhaps of all activity. Discipline is an incidental result of right exercise. ”

“ Truthful ideas and correct conduct also, which at first require the exercise of considerable intellect and much self-discipline, in order to arrive at them, become by habit so completely converted into acquired tendencies as to be automatic. ”

“ Mental discipline had then the same relation to human activity that it has now. Until schools were created, all study was in the direction of real or apparent utility; all study outside of the schools is at present for knowledge or utility. ”

“ The laws of psychology, or the capabilities and methods of mind-activity, are themselves the fundamental laws of teaching, which is the act of exciting normal and profitable mind-action. Beyond these fundamental laws, the principles of education are to be derived inductively. ”

“ We are discovering that the idea of discipline inheres not in the nature of certain particular subjects, distinguishing them from all others which are non-disciplinary and merely utilitarian, but in the right method of teaching all subjects ”

“ He should feel in some measure the power of that group of studies which have to do with mental and moral processes considered apart from the world of outward phenomena, psychology, ethics, philosophy, religion. He needs to relate his individual activity to the larger life of the whole by some genuine grasp of fundamentals in his thinking. ”

“ For will is one thing, they say, and the intellect is another.
The question of the abstractness of discipline impels us now to examine the legitimacy of this broader distinction, which does not simply concern the problems of the school, but extends to the fundamental principles of the philosophy of the spirit. Under its influence, contemporary thought attacks all the surviving forms of this ancient distinction between will and intellect, which rested on a frankly realistic intuition of the world. ”

“ Only the sense and power of effort, which made Lessing prefer the search to the possession of truth, which trains the will in the intellectual field, which is becoming more and more the field of its activity, counts for character and makes instruction really educating. This makes mental work a series of acts, or living thoughts, and not merely words. ”

“ If we are to work to good purpose we must take our stand, with the great thinkers and educators, on the broad field of man's nature, and act in the light of the only true ideal of education,—that its end is wisdom, virtue, knowledge, power, reverence, faith, health, behavior, hope, and love; in a word, whatever powers and capacities make for intelligence, for conduct, for character, for completeness of life. ”

“ And though the doctrine that all the faculties of all minds should be developed as far as possible by appropriate educational exercise and discipline is a true doctrine, yet the doctrine that all faculties of all minds are equally capable of development is a fallacy which no enlightened educator will think of maintaining. ”