m. It is assumed on all hands that it is desirable to study
psychology, and courses of lectures are multiplied in all quarters.

Probably some of this interest has its root in the fallacy touched upon
earlier in this chapter. The science of psychology has revolutionized
educational theory. When those of us who have arrived at middle life
look back and survey the tedious and toilsome path along which we were
unwillingly driven in our schoolboy days, and then see how smooth and
pleasant it has been made since, we are impelled to honor all who have
contributed to this result. Moreover, it seems very clear that
teachers of all grades should have some acquaintance with the nature of
the minds that they are laboring to develop, and that they should not
be left to pick up their information for themselves--a task
sufficiently difficult to an unobservant person.

These considerations furnish a sufficient ground for extolling the
science of psychology, and for insisting that studies in it should form
some part of the education of a teacher. But why should the rest of us
care for such studies?

To this one may answer, in the first place, that nearly all of us have,
or ought to have, some responsibility for the education of children;
and, in the second, that we deal with the minds of others every day in
every walk in life, and it can certainly do no harm to have our
attention called to the way in which minds function. To be sure, some
men are by nature tactful, and instinctively conscious of how things
strike the minds of those about them. But even such persons may gain
helpful suggestions, and, at least, have the habit of attention to the
mental processes of others confirmed in them. How often we are
impressed at church, at the public lecture, and in private
conversations, with the fact that the speaker lives in blissful
unconsciousness of what can be understood by or can possibly interest
his hearers! For the confirmed bore, there is, perhaps, no cure; but
it seems as though something might be done for those who are afflicted
to a minor degree.

And this brings me to another consideration, which is that a proper
study of psychology ought to be of service in revealing to a man his
own nature. It should show him what he is, and this is surely a first
step toward becoming something better. It is wonderful how blind men
may be with regard to what passes in their own minds and with regard to
their own peculiarities. Wh