Читать книгу The Mind and Its Education - George Herbert Betts - Страница 23

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND MOTOR TRAINING

Education was long looked upon as affecting the mind only; the body was either left out of account or neglected. Later science has shown, however, that the mind cannot be trained except as the nervous system is trained and developed. For not sensation and the simpler mental processes alone, but memory, imagination, judgment, reasoning and every other act of the mind are dependent on the nervous system finally for their efficiency. The little child gets its first mental experiences in connection with certain movements or acts set up reflexly by the pre-organized nervous system. From this time on movement and idea are so inextricably bound together that they cannot be separated. The mind and the brain are so vitally related that it is impossible to educate one without performing a like office for the other; and it is likewise impossible to neglect the one without causing the other to suffer in its development.