The Mind and Its Education (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...proper level. Not to train one's self to think in this discriminating way is much like learning to play a piano by striking each key with equal force 3. TRAINING IN ASSOCIATION Since association is at bottom nothing but habit at work in the mental processes, it follows that it, like other forms of habit, can be encouraged or suppressed by training. Certainly, no part of one's education is of greater importance than the character of his associations. For upon these will largely depend not alone the content of his mental stream, the stuff of his thinking, but also its organization, or the use made of the thought material at hand. In fact, the whole science of education rests on the laws and principles involved in setting up right systems of associative connections in the individual. The Pleasure-Pain Motive in Association.