finally, (8) the report back that the act has been performed. With this in mind it
fairly bewilders one to think of the marvelous complexity of the work that is
going on in our nervous mechanism every moment of our life, even without
considering the higher thought processes at all. How, with these added, the
resulting complexity all works out into beautiful harmony is indeed beyond
comprehension.
3. EDUCATION AND THE TRAINING OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
Fortunately, many of the best opportunities for sensory and motor training do not
depend on schools or courses of study. The world is full of stimuli to our senses
and to our social natures; and our common lives are made up of the responses we
make to these stimuli,—the movements, acts and deeds by which we fit
ourselves into our world of environment. Undoubtedly the most rapid and vital
progress we make in our development is accomplished in the years before we
have reached the age to go to school. Yet it is the business of education to see
that we do not lack any essential opportunity, to make sure that necessary lines
of stimuli or of motor training have not been omitted from our development.
Education to Supply Opportunities for Stimulus and Response.—The great
problem of education is, on the physical side, it would seem, then, to provide for
ourselves and those we seek to educate as rich an environment of sensory and
social stimuli as possible; one whose impressions will be full of suggestions to
response in motor activity and the higher thought processes; and then to give
opportunity for thought and for expression in acts and deeds in the largest
possible number of lines. And added to this must be frequent and clear sensory
and motor recall, a living over again of the sights and sounds and odors and the
motor activities we have once experienced. There must also be the opportunity
for the forming of worthy plans and ideals. For in this way the brain centers
which were concerned in the original sensation or thought or movement are
again brought into exercise, and their development continued. Through recall
and imagination we are able not only greatly to multiply the effects of the
immediate sensory and motor stimuli which come to us, but also to improve our
power of thinking by getting a fund of material upon which the mind can draw.
Order of Development in the Nervous System.—Nature has set the order in
which the powers of the nervous system shall develop. And we must follow this
order if we would obtain the best results. Stated in technical terms, the order is
from fundamental to accessory. This is to say that the nerve centers controlling