Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/468

454 GUSTAV SPILLEE transformed at the cost of much time and trouble, there are yet exceptions to this rule. Many an action which we have persisted in for years, as we shall see, may have its character altered at once, while various activities may cause little trouble in the changing. In some instances an intelligent method may rapidly produce far-reaching effects, and the introduction of a particular trend may scatter a multitude of objectionable activities. Changes in routine are, as a rule, hard to accomplish. The lesson to be derived is elementary indeed. We must at the outset ensure that we do a thing well. We must prevent the ripening of objectionable activities and foster the develop- ment of such as mature reflection approves of. In practice, taking life as a whole, the alternative to obviating the growth of questionable activities is to bear with them stoically when they are formed. Attempts at general reform have failed and must fail. 13. Early Education. To avoid the necessity of having to recast a multiplicity of activities, we must begin rational education with the infant. By the time the child is of school age, the general outlines of his nature are fairly settled. It is, for many reasons, hard then to change his character or to remove serious defects. Only the most thoughtful and the most thorough-going attempts will successfully counteract the neglect of the previous six or seven years. The reasons for laying stress on the first three or four years of life are as follows : (a) A child is physically, intellectually, and economi- cally dependent. We possess, therefore, undisputed freedom to place him under conditions favourable to the development of desirable activities, (b) A child's memory is weak. Even when he is compelled to do a thing, he soon comes to do it spontaneously, having forgotten the grievance of compulsion, (c) A child forgives as easily as he forgets. He nurses no resentment, (d) The child's mind is not sufficiently ingeni- ous to plot against its educators, (e) For the same reason as in (d) he can seldom understand or foretell the educator's intention. (/) A child has no deeply-seated objectionable activities, (g) A child easily acquires desirable activities, and as easily shakes off objectionable ones (and vice versa), (h) When an activity has been formed early in life it displays the maximum capacity of developing into strength and effi- ciency. Such activity is very difficult to unsettle in later life. The opportunities of early training being so numerous, the earliest period should be made the most fruitful for educative purposes. It does not follow from the above th'at a human being's plasticity draws to a close at the age of six