Fundamentals of child study ; a discussion of instincts and other factors in human development, with practical applications / by Edwin A. Kirkpatrick.

  • Kirkpatrick, Edwin A. (Edwin Asbury), 1862-1937.
Date:
1912 [©1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fundamentals of child study ; a discussion of instincts and other factors in human development, with practical applications / by Edwin A. Kirkpatrick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    activity whose excitant is so subtle that it is not discernible. To put it in physiological terms, nervous impulses tend to diffuse themselves to parts that have not been active, or to pass irregularly from one estab- lished centre of activity to another. If there is a strong tendency to such activity, many unusual combinations of mental images will result, a large portion of which may be merely absurd or grotesque (as they usually are in dreams), but some of which are likely to be artistic or useful. / Careful training, which results in definite ideas and j particular ways of doing things, if continued for a long i time, checks the tendency to free activity and may de- i stroy the power of creative imagination. It is for this ; reason that untrained men like Edison are often the I most original. Definite training, with some imitation of l various models, gives a good basis for the development of the creative imagination; but the training and the imitation must be varied and not too long continued in one line, or the material becomes set by habit, and can be arranged only in the customary ways. An artist, for example, who studies and imitates one school of painting only, for years, can never become an original painter. (2) The impulse to create cannot be directly produced by training, since it comes from instinctive tendencies to construct and express, stirred .by various emotions. It is especially strong when new experiences are met or new instincts come into prominence. One of the first emotions to stir the imagination is often that of fear, especially when the child is alone in the dark. Later the more aesthetic emotions stimulate the imagination. The