Gems of Thought: Cheerfulness

Gems of Thought HI— CHEERFULNESS "The voice that smiles wins." — Theodore N. Vail. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." — Solomon. "Men are, that they might have joy." — Book of Mormon. "Man's chief mundane end is the pursuit of happiness." — B. C. Forbes. "Cheerfulness will open a door when other keys fail." — B. C. Forbes. "All who would win joy must share it; happiness is born a twin." — Byron. "You must take joy with you, or you will not find it, even in heaven." — Selected. "Cultivate the habit of smiling hardest when things look blackest." — Thomas E. Wilson. "He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his own home." — Goethe. "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy." — R. L. Stevenson. "One should lake care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure as laughter." — Addison. "The habitually cheerful person wears the lines of his face curving upward, not downward." — Litt. "There is always room for one more, if that one be an incentive to hap- piness." — Anna Maud Hallam. "I have noticed that folks are just about as happy as they have made up their minds to be." — Abraham Lincoln. "Earning a living is the thing which occupies most of our time; but why shouldn't we be happy doing it?" — Frank Winslow. "Happiness comes from striving, doing, loving, achieving, conquering always something positive and forceful." — David Starr Jordan. "Blessed are the happiness makers; blessed are they who know how to shine on ones gloom with their cheer." — Henry Ward Beecher. "It takes sixty-four muscles of the face to make a frown, and only thirteen to make a smile. Why work overtime?" — Scrap Book. "Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches, and to make knowledge valuable you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom." — Emerson. "It's a fine, heartening thing, is cheerfulness; and do we value it as highly as it deserves? There's a flavor about it, like hot buttered toast on a cold day, eaten round a fire while people crack jokes." — Barton W . Currie.

Helps in Teacher-Training (To accompany Lesson 9, How We Learn, Teacher-Training Text, 1923) Written for the General Church Board of Education, by L. John Nuttall, Brigham Young University PERCEPTION "Why speakest thou unto them in parables?" "Therefore speak I unto them in parables: because they seeing see not, and hearing hear not, neither do they understand." By seeing we mean first that stimulations reach the eye and affect it as was discussed in our lesson on sensation. Similarly all of the senses receive these stimuli from the outside. We now come to the second stage of this process of learning of the world about us. Christ would have us, seeing, really see. In the nervous system this means a receiving of all of the sensations from one of the various objects around us so related that we come to interpret these as meaning the object itself and this meaning is in control of what we will do in the presence of the object. The following is an illustration of this process of interpreting groups of sensations. A man was driving an automobile through a village and saw a comparatively new tire lying by the side of the road. He stopped, got out of the car, examined the tire and took it with him. There was no hesitancy or doubt in his action. Whether he kept the tire or located the owner is not our problem. This same man was driving his car out on a mountain road and saw a similar tire. He looked at it, slowed down, then suddenly with a burst of speed raced past the spot without even looking around. Here were practically the same sensations causing almost totally opposite action re- sults. How was it that in one case, the sight of the tire meant something to investigate and take, and in the other case, the sight of the tire sug- gested holdups and therefore something to get away from? We know that sensations do not come alone. From the tires the same sensation came but perception or meaning comes from the entire group of sensations from the objects themselves and their relationships or setting. Thus what seemed to be similar situations were really different. One was a tire in a safe village street, one was a tire on an unguarded mountain road. But perception means more than just the sensations. These are mixed with past experience to give meaning. Experience brings consequences for action, so we tend to control action by these perceptions or feelings or meanings. We perceive the objects or relationships or events or qualities as wholes. Thus the tire in the mountain meant danger of robbery while the other situation was looked upon as a harmless one. We perceive apples, oranges, good men, clean homes, books, the Church, the teacher, the lessons , etc., as wholes and each means something to us. It is difficult to tell of just what this meaning consists but four ele-

736 IMPROVEMENT ERA ments are quite plain: first, we feel acquainted or the object or event seems familiar; second, we are conscious of some of the qualities; third, we have a certain interest attitude toward it; fourth, we tend to act toward it. Generally we judge our ability to recognize or know an object by our ability to name it. This is a very important element in perception. Pro- nouncing a name is a form of response. All perception doesn't seem to end in some easily observable action but we, in life, tend most generally to know the meaning of things when we know what to do with or to them. There is grave danger that most of the acts we call virtue are perceived as mere words to say rather than conduct to imitate and are not therefore clearly perceived. Sensations and their interpretations lead to action — meaning control action. Perceptions develop or grow. Things seem to change for us. On the sensation side at first we have to see or hear or touch or use an object before we can identify it. In order to see the third dimension, or space, we need to see with both eyes so that the angle of vision is different. Everything would look flat like a photograph if the eyes were different. Compare an ordinary picture with a stereoscope to note this effect. But gradually fewer elements are necessary as we become more familiar. Two bright yellow round objects were held up before an individual and he immediately named one an orange and the other a brass knob. When asked how he could tell, he said the orange was rough and soft arid juicy and good to eat while the knob was smooth and hard, rle could not tell smoothness nor hardness nor taste with the eye, yet he did nothing but look at the objects. Familiarity and experience had caused the visual sensations to stand for all of the rest and mean the object to which he responded. As teachers we all have had such experiences and often feel that pupils must also have had them. But we can not take for granted anything the pupils have not really experienced. To have meaning, an ob- ject or event or person must be present to sense and interpret in connec- tion with past experience. To say to a class, "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed you can remove a mountain," is putting some words before them, but unless they know more than the little image of a seed they just don't act because faith means nothing. Faith to be taught needs to be seen in action, heard in language, written, spoken, acted in imitation and then the meaning will begin to grow so that one suggestion may stand for the meaning. On the action side, meaning grows as the body grows in ability to act. Things mean what we can do with them. An apple to a child means a red object; then something to handle, drop, roll around; then something to eat; then something to please teacher with; then something to take on hikes ; and finally, perhaps, something to raise and sell or use in some other adult way. So word meanings change — first a sound to imitate, then a word to say, then an instruction to follow, then a command to give, then element in language to study, spell or define. Morally we too often give adult meanings without the necessary early growth. This may result on the part of pupils either in no interest or a trial and error effort to interpret.

HELPS IN TEACHER-TRAINING 737 "Do you mean this?" "Would this be wrong?" "Could anybody do it with- out doing wrong?" These are but typical questions. Sometimes perception goes wrong. We come out of a cold room and this one seems warm while others in the room are cold. One man rides in a wagon and the other in an automobile from one place to another over a strange road and are far apart in estimating the distance. The same hour seems three hours to one person and only half hour to others. Two per- sons walking together each absorbed in thought will see a strange object and one will call it a horse and another a bush. These are illusions and there are many in life. They are determined by the learner's condition or set of mind, or by his selecting only a small part of the whole object and association it with another situation. Religiously the same Bible verse conforms to different faiths because it is interpreted either from only part of the stimulus or by a different background. A parent sees his child work a problem in school with little help. The parent sees the part the child does alone and thinks it is good. The teacher sees the part in which help is needed and calls it bad. One boy sees a man do wrong and is pleased because it justifies him. Another boy sees the wrong as some- thing to avoid. So in life we learn what things mean by this eternal pro- cess of having our senses stimulated and by responding which causes us to interpret each new stimulus as it comes. The product in mental life of perception is precepts or ideas. As we gradually learn that certain meanings can stand for many objects or acts, we tend to think in terms of these general ideas and less in terms of concrete acts or detailed perceptions. In teaching, we run a serious danger of talking too much in general terms or in the abstract. The idea of good or bad or right or loyal can best be taught through concrete experience and then generalized rather than to tell the term and its definition and then illustrate. (No. 10 of this series, "Association of Ideas" may be found in the June Juvenile Instructor.) Shall We Meet Our Lord and Savior? (Tune: "Shall We Meet Beyond the River?") Shall we meet our Lord and Savior, Will it not seem sad, alarming, When in glory he shall come? If his lambs we have not fed? Are we worthy, do we labor For his cause that makes us one? ^re we members of his union, Chorus Are we faithful to his laws? Shall we meet, O shall we meet, Do we honor and obey them, Shall we meet our Lord and Savior, Valiant labor for his cause? Shall we meet our Lord and Savior, When in glory he shall come? Will he say to us, with pleasure, Well with you, ye faithful ones? When we meet that mighty army Then our minds will be at leisure With the Master at the head, For our vict'ry will be won. Mink Creek, Idaho Christen Hansen.