to copy and not create.
Creative Imagination.—But we must have leaders, originators—else we should
but imitate each other and the world would be at a standstill. Indeed, every
person, no matter how humble his station or how humdrum his life, should be in
some degree capable of initiative and originality. Such ability depends in no
small measure on the power to use creative imagination.
Creative imagination takes the images from our own past experience or those
gleaned from the work of others and puts them together in new and original
forms. The inventor, the writer, the mechanic or the artist who possesses the
spirit of creation is not satisfied with mere reproduction, but seeks to modify, to
improve, to originate. True, many important inventions and discoveries have
come by seeming accident, by being stumbled upon. Yet it holds that the person
who thus stumbles upon the discovery or invention is usually one whose creative
imagination is actively at work seeking to create or discover in his field. The
world's progress as a whole does not come by accident, but by creative planning.
Creative imagination is always found at the van of progress, whether in the life
of an individual or a nation.
4. TRAINING THE IMAGINATION
Imagination is highly susceptible of cultivation, and its training should constitute
one of the most important aims of education. Every school subject, but
especially such subjects as deal with description and narration—history,
literature, geography, nature study and science—is rich in opportunities for the
use of imagination. Skillful teaching will not only find in these subjects a means
of training the imagination, but will so employ imagination in their study as to
make them living matter, throbbing with life and action, rather than so many
dead words or uninteresting facts.
Gathering of Material for Imagination.—Theoretically, then, it is not hard to
see what we must do to cultivate our imagination. In the first place, we must take
care to secure a large and usable stock of images from all fields of perception. It
is not enough to have visual images alone or chiefly, for many a time shall we
need to build structures involving all the other senses and the motor activities as
well. This means that we must have a first-hand contact with just as large an
environment as possible—large in the world of Nature with all her varied forms
suited to appeal to every avenue of sense; large in our contact with people in all