The application of psychology to the science of education / by Johann Friedrich Herbart ; translated and edited ... Beatrice C. Mulliner.

  • Herbart, Johann Friedrich, 1776-1841.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The application of psychology to the science of education / by Johann Friedrich Herbart ; translated and edited ... Beatrice C. Mulliner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    attention, of which we have not yet spoken, comes to the assistance of reproduction.1 Committing to memory does not at all require that single presentations should rise high in consciousness. If they did this, they would form a greater sum of arrest: they would even spread over a wide area on account of their earlier associations, whereas nothing is really more detrimental to memory than yielding to the train of one’s own thoughts. Even the subject must be an object of indifference, or be treated as such; the feelings which it might arouse would only do damage. Those things which are to be remembered must not follow each other too quickly, otherwise the reproduction which should meet them from within has not time to arise; they must not be given too slowly, for then the earlier sink too low before that which follows overtakes them. In reading marvellous stories of those whose memory has been trained to great perfection, one is inclined to believe that there must be some active organic co-operation. And in what would this co-operation consist ? Simply in maintaining that condition which has been brought about by the presentations. Such a view may be held without any materialistic folly. 1 This somewhat strange metaphor seems to mean that the presence of high mountains and deep rivers, would draw attention away from the little shrubs, unless a new energy, i.e., voluntary attention, comes also into action. Therefore, in committing to memory certain facts or words, anything of the nature of a stronger impression should be avoided. But, if the memorizing is to succeed in spite of these stronger impressions, the energy of voluntary attention will have to be called in.