Mental cultivation

“ On the contrary, if the mind shall single out any one object from the mass that surrounds it,—shall entertain the idea suggested by its impression on the organs of sense, and think of it—that is, review it on the mind—there is then mental exercise, and, in consequence, mental cultivation. From this obvious truth it necessarily follows, that the cultivation of the mind does not depend upon the multitude of objects presented to the observation of a child, but only on those which it really does observe,—which it looks at, and thinks upon, by an active voluntary exercise of its own powers. ”

“ Cultivation is needed in the direction of bringing it under the guidance of the reason, and control by the will. Thought-Culture in general will do much for the Imagination, for the very processes employed in the development and [Pg 193] cultivation of the various other faculties of the mind will also tend to bring the Imagination into subjection and under control, instead of allowing it to remain the wild, fanciful irresponsible faculty that it is in the majority of cases. Use the faculty of Imagination as a faculty of Thought, instead of a thing of Fancy. ”

“ Thought-Culture is merely a training of the faculties rather than a creation of new mental power, inasmuch as the mind cannot be built up from the outside. This is a curious combination of truth and error. It is true that the mind cannot be built up from outside material, in the sense of creating new mind, but it is also true that in every mind there is the potentiality of growth and development. Just as the future oak is said to be in the acorn, so are the potentialities of mind-growth in every mind waiting for nourishment from outside and the proper cultivation. ”

“ Man is a wonderful union of mind and body, and to form a perfect being a high degree of cultivation is required for each component part. Those who cultivate the mental to the exclusion of the mere bodily, or at least carelessly pass by its claims, are no less in error than those who cultivate the bodily faculties to the exclusion of the mental. The aim of all attempts at self-cultivation should be the highest and most appropriate development of the entire being—physical, intellectual, and moral. ”

“ It is far from my thought, it is needless to say, that mental cultivation can be made to take the place or do the work of religion, even in the case of the very few for whom the best discipline of mind is possible. ”

“ In many ways is this curious analogy apparent.
Not only does the mind need development, but it also needs intelligent cultivation. For it may be developed by improper objects of thought just as well as by the proper ones. A rich field will grow tares and weeds as well as good grain or fruit. Thought-culture should not be confined to the development of a strong and active mind, but should be also extended to the cultivation of a wise and intelligent mind. Strength and Wisdom should be combined. Moreover there should be sought a harmonious and normal development. ”

“ Let the systems of the past be forgotten, and in contemplation of the future, let us resolve that no one passion or desire of mind, shall erect its tyrant throne on the prostration of other nobler powers. For the mind fully cultivated is a "museum of knowledge," lives forever "serene in youthful beauty."
The principle of universal mental cultivation being set forth, its bearing and effect will be seen in its application to the various classes of society. ”

“ In the cultivation and expansion of the faculties of the mind, we act altogether upon organized matter—and this, too, of the most delicate kind—which, while it serves as the mediator between body and spirit, partakes so largely of the nature, character, and essential attributes of the former, that, without its proper physical growth and development, all the manifestations of the latter sink into comparative insignificance; so that, without a perfect organization of the brain, the mental powers must be proportionally paralyzed ”

“ From partial and one-sided cultivation of Human Nature, partial and one-sided results can alone ensue. The commencement of this glorious era will date from the first complete education of all the manifold nature of man. ”

“ As to the matter of development and cultivation by Use, we would advise that you begin gradually to train your mind to reproduce the experiences of the day or week or month, at intervals, until you feel that you are developing a new power in that direction. Tonight, if you try you will find that you can reproduce but a very small part of today's happenings with any degree of clearness. ”

“ There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more enobled by mental cultivation than others, but none in themselves nobler than others. ”

“ All that has gone before, all that we have discussed of sound birth and physical growth and care, is no more than the making ready of the soil for the mind that is to grow therein. As we come to this matter of language, we come a step nearer to the intimate realities of our subject—we come to the mental plant that is to bear the flower and the ripe fruit of the individual life. ”

“ As the seed is cast into the bosom of nature in order that its energies may be called forth and its destinies accomplished, so do you cast yourselves into active life, determined in it to exercise, and by exercise to increase those mental powers that the training of the past has given you—determined that by continual accessions to your knowledge, the stream of thought shall be kept flowing constantly within you and bearing health, activity and growth into the very recesses of your being. ”

“ Here the natural sciences — in the strict sense of the word "natural" — may be evoked to tell of the physical conditions, under which the genesis and development of mental life takes place. But we make a very meagre, an unnecessarily meagre, use of the principle of development, if we fail to apply it directly to mental life itself. ”

“ If here on the farm the mental and physical have been kept healthy and active, the moral and spiritual will develop as naturally as the fruit from the blossom. The development of spiritual fruit to high perfection is slow, because the power to think and reason correctly and abstractly comes only with age, experience and mental development. ”

“ What are to be the new means and appliances for mental culture? We have but to turn again to Nature as our teacher and our guide; her instincts are unerring. The seed germinates and pushes forth its root from within outward. The expansion or growth takes place by means of the elements which it attracts to itself, when these are placed within its reach, and towards which it stretches forth its organs. ”

“ The principle of growth is that of inherent vitality in the seed itself, and the operations of the gardener have their exact analogue in Mental Science. We do not put the self-expansive vitality into the seed, but we must sow it, and we may also, so to speak, water it by quiet concentrated contemplation of our desire as an actually accomplished fact. ”

“ After all it is but the physiological effect of an educational training, the development of the faculties and the evolution of the imagination; the brain functions in proportion to the progress made in the culture in general, harmonizing with the times, circumstances, and conditions of the period in which we live.
Every age has its turn in the evolution of the mental faculties, and it must go through its stage. ”

“ Professor Elmer Gates tells us that only about ten per cent. of our brains are cultivated, that [94] there is a vast field of brain possibilities lying undeveloped in each one of us, and that these possibilities are to be developed through cultivation of the senses. So while I have been talking to you of the care of your body, I have been advocating that which will in reality develop mind. ”

“ The world's cultivation, so slowly and painfully achieved, helps civilize him. He may then go further on, and cultivate himself; may transcend the development of mankind, adding new rounds to the ladder. ”

“ The cultivation of the mind is the superstructure of the moral, social and religious character, which will follow us into our every-day life, and make us 243 what God intended us to be—the noblest instruments of His creative power. ”

“ That grows to seed.’
“So our mental faculties, our whole nature, are like a garden susceptible of being properly cultivated; but when there is no gardener, no intelligence from without to direct the process, what is to be done?” ”

“ Without its exercise there can be no progress or growth. It has its origin in a groping instinct, its final development in orderly activities capable of increasingly clear classification. Body, intellect, character, moral and religious, are under its influence and dependent upon its beneficent operations. ”

“ Among cultural peoples, the child is surrounded by influences inseparable from the processes that arise spontaneously within its own consciousness. Folk psychology, however, in its investigation of the various stages of mental development still exhibited by mankind, leads us along the path of a true psychogenesis. ”

“ When he reaches this stage in his growth, he is spiritually worthy to consider advancement into a higher degree. This advancement is not the result of election or ballot, but is an automatic process in which, having sensitized his consciousness by his life, he thereby attunes himself to the next succeeding plane of expression. All initiation is the result of adjustments of the evolving life to the physical, emotional, and mental planes of consciousness through which it passes. ”

“ And does the intelligence consist, in degree or in kind, in nothing but a repetition of the same experiences as those through which his progenitors were carried, or is there a something in him to which his individual experiences contribute the mental food by which the mind is nourished and by the assimilation of which its individual intellectual growth becomes possible? ”

“ If our growth were rightly directed, the spirit would emerge and flower in all its strength and loveliness, as the physical and mental powers of normal children emerge and flower. What is wrong with education that it fails to achieve this? ”

“ The growth of the animal organism from conception to maturity is along the same line of progression, from the bottom of the scale, toward the top. In the growth of human civilization and the mental, moral and spiritual elevation of the race, the same general law of evolution holds good. The elevating influence must reach the people through their environments. The real man and the real woman, is the ego or spirit. The physical body is the outermost environment of the individual being. ”

“ The making of a man is a process of time, of training and of progress. The babe, indeed, may be born perfect in physical proportions and in possession of normal faculties; but no product of Nature may stand still. Growth or decay is the lot of every one, and the man—the full and perfect man—is the result of physical and mental development. ”

“ Persons of robust emotions seldom think very much about them. The temperament that cultivates its emotional soil assiduously, warms it, waters it and watches anxiously for the first sprouts, gets a rather anemic growth for its pains. Which of these facts is cause and which effect, one need not pretend to say: whether it is a lack of vitality in the seed that prompts the instinct of cultivation, or whether it is the cultivation that prevents a sturdy growth. ”

“ This phase of psychology—tracing the stages of mental development as an organic process from its simple beginnings in the individual or the race to its maturity in adulthood of the individual or civilization of the race—is the field of genetic psychology. ”

“ These processes of sensation, association, and volition constitute the simple basis of individual life upon which the complex structure of an active personality is built.
The individual will is moved to activity by many agencies. There is first the instinct. As a person inherits physical traits from his ancestors, so he gets certain mental traits. The demand for food is the cry of the instinct for self-preservation. The grimace of the infant in response to the mother's smile is an expression of the instinct for imitation. ”

“ This phase of the individual’s life is a very important one. It is the rule for proper reactions to occur at this time, in which case the reproductive instincts assume their proper place in mental life. But if satisfactory adjustments do not occur the consequences may be serious. In the healthy [Pg 130] mental evolution of the individual, therefore, just as in the normal mental evolution of the race, we see that motives arise, assume a dynamic character, play their part in the developing mind, and leave lasting impressions. They serve a useful purpose during one phase of mental evolution. ”

“ I have seen the capacity to synthesise and assimilate mere mental matters developed in a year, by training the mind from the centre of origins outward, that mental training alone could never accomplish. The mind itself becomes vigorous and avid and capacious and majestically swift. ”

“ I never turned recreant to intellectual culture, or ceased to consider the power and practice of analysis as an essential condition both of individual and of social improvement But 1 thought that it had consequences which required to be corrected, by joining other kinds of cultivation with it. The maintenance of a due balance among the faculties now seemed to be of primary importance. The cultivation of the feelings became one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophical creed. ”

“ When the heart is mellowed and yields obedience in the faithful discharge of these duties, and the brain sufficiently matured to comprehend the necessity of them, then attention is directed to the mind; its capacities are learned and known, and it is treated as this knowledge teaches is proper: it is, as the farmer knows, the soil of his cultivation, and is prepared by careful tillage before the seed is sown. The vision of the child's mind is by degrees expanded ”