These examples, and others like them which Lewes gives, bring us face to face with the proposition that “much of our thinking is carried on by means of symbols without any images, which is the same thing as thinking being carried on by words without any meanings and with only the accompanying intuition of their logical relations.” Thus, after a century of exhortation against the blind use of words we are brought face to face with the question of using words in thinking without realizing the full meaning, an abuse of words for which reformers have shot their arrows at rote teaching from every possible point of view. What truth is there in the statement of Mr. Lewes? What can be his meaning?
It must be admitted that men in mature life skim newspapers, magazines, and books, especially books of fiction and books of reference, without realizing in their minds the import of all the words upon which the eye falls. The aim may be to get the plot of the story or a fact for some specific use, or a hurried view of the news and current events of the last twenty-four hours. But this is not the kind of thinking which the teacher aims to beget in the minds of his pupils. Nor does it ever lead to a just appreciation of literature. All literature which appeals to the imagination cannot be read and enjoyed in that way. No one can rightly read a choice selection without thinking what was in the author’s mind, reconstructing the images and scenes which were before his mental eye and following the movements depicted by his language. Movement is more easily conceived than scenery, and abounds in the stories which are most popular among children. Judicious exercises will soon enable the pupil to call up all kinds of imagery. In the Standard Fifth Reader it is suggested that the pupils sit with closed eyes and close attention while the teacher or one of the pupils reads a paragraph or stanza. For illustration, Kate Putnam Osgood’s poem, entitled “Driving Home the Cows,” is selected.
Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass He turned them into the river lane; One after another he let them pass, Then fastened the meadow bars again.
Under the willows and over the hill He patiently followed their sober pace; The merry whistle for once was still, And something shadowed the sunny face.