Spontaneous Activity in Education Part 19

Imaginative creation has no mere vague sensory support; that is to say, it is not the unbridled divagation of the fancy among images of light, color, sounds and impressions; but it is a construction firmly allied to reality; and the more it holds fast to the forms of the external created world, the loftier will the value of its internal creations be. Even in imagining an unreal and superhuman world, the imagination must be contained within limits which recall those of reality. Man creates, but on the model of that divine creation in which he is materially and spiritually immersed.

In literary works of the highest order, such as the _Divina Commedia_, we admire the continual recurrence to the mind of the supreme poet of material and tangible things which ill.u.s.trate by comparison the things imagined:

As doves By fond desire invited, on wide wings And firm to their sweet nest returning home, Cleave the air, wafted by their will along; Thus issued from that troop where Dido ranks, They, through the ill air speeding.

(Carey's translation of Dante's _Inferno_, Canto V.)

And as a man with difficult short breath Forespent with toiling, 'scaped from sea to sh.o.r.e, Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands At gaze; e'en so my spirit, that yet fail'd Struggling with terror, turn'd to view the straits That none hath pa.s.sed and lived.

(Carey's translation of Dante's _Inferno_, Canto I.)

As sheep that step from forth their fold by one Or pairs, or three at once; meanwhile the rest Stand fearfully, bending the eye and nose To ground, and what the foremost does, that do.

The others, gathering round her if she stops, Simple and quiet, nor the cause discern; So saw I moving to advance the first Who of that fortunate crew were at the head, Of modest mien, and graceful in their gait.

(Carey's translation of Dante's _Purgatorio_, Canto III.)

As though translucent and smooth gla.s.s or wave Clear and unmoved, and flowing not so deep As that its bed is dark, the shape returns So faint of our impictured lineaments That on white forehead set, a pearl as strong Comes to the eye; such saw I many a face All stretch'd to speak.

(Carey's translation of Dante's _Paradiso_, Canto III.)

Dante's metaphors are profuse and marvelous, but every lofty writer and every great orator perpetually links the fruits of the imagination with the observation of fact; and then we say that he is a genius, full of imagination and knowledge, and that his thought is clear and vital.

"As a pack of hounds, after vainly pursuing a hare, returns in mortification to the master with hanging heads and drooping tails, so on that tumultuous night did the mercenaries return to Don Rodrigo's stronghold" (Manzoni, _I promessi Sposi_).

Imagery is confined to actual figures; and it is this measure and this _form_ which give power to the creations of the mind. The imaginative writer should possess a rich store of perceptive observations, and the more accurate and perfect these are, the more vigorous will be the form he creates. The insane talk of fantastic things, but we do not therefore say that they have a great deal of "imagination"; there is a vast gulf between the delirious confusion of thought and the metaphorical eloquence of the imagination. In the first case there is a total incapacity to perceive actual things correctly, and also to construct organically with the intelligence; in the second, the two things are co-existent as forms closely bound up one with the other.

The value of imaginative speech is determined by these conditions: that the images used should be _original_, that their author should himself link together the actual and the created images, his own skill making him susceptible to their just and harmonious a.s.sociation. If he repeats or imitates the images of others, he achieves nothing. Hence it is necessary that every artist should be an observer; and so, speaking of the generality of intelligences, it may be said that in order to develop the imagination it is necessary for every one first of all to put himself in contact with reality.

The same thing holds good in art. The artist "imagines" his figure; he does not copy it, he "creates" it. But this creation is in fact the _fruit_ of the mind which is rooted in the observation of reality. The painter and the sculptor are, _par excellence_, types of visual susceptibility to the forms and colors of their environment, capable of perceiving its harmonies and contrasts; and it is by refining his powers of observation that the artist finally perfects himself and succeeds in creating a masterpiece. The immortal art of Greece was above all an art based on observation; the scanty clothing which was the fas.h.i.+on of his day enabled the Greek artist to contemplate the human form freely; and the exquisite sensibility of his eye enabled him to distinguish the beautiful body from that which lacked harmony, until under the impulse of genius, he was able to create the ideal figure, conceived by the fusion of individual beauties chosen from details in the sensorial storehouse of the mind. The artist, when he creates certainly does not compose by putting together the parts which are to form the whole as in a mosaic; in the ardor of inspiration he sees the complete _new figure_, born of his genius; but details he has acc.u.mulated have served to nourish it, as the blood nourishes the new man in the bosom of his mother.

Raphael continually visited the Trastevere, a popular quarter where the most beautiful women in Rome were to be found, in order to seek the type of a Madonna. It was here he became acquainted with the Fornarina and his models. But when he painted the Madonna he reproduced "the image of his soul." We are told that Michelangelo would spend entire evenings gazing into s.p.a.ce; and when they asked him at what he was gazing, he replied: "I see a dome." It was after this form, so marvelously created within him, that the famous cupola of St.

Peter's in Rome was fas.h.i.+oned. But it could never have been born, even in the mind of Michelangelo, if his architectural studies had not prepared the material for it.

No genius has ever been able to create the absolutely new. We have only to think of certain forms much used in art, and heavy and grotesque as the human fancy which is incapable of rising above the earth. It seems to me amazing that the figure of the winged angel should still persist, and that no artist should have yet improved upon it. To represent a being more diaphanous than man, and without corporeal weight, we have robust beings whose backs are furnished with colossal wings covered with heavy feathers. Strange indeed is this fusion in a single creature of such incompatible natural features as hair and feathers, and this attribution to a human being of six limbs--arms, legs and wings, as to an insect. This "strange conception" continues to be so materialized, not certainly as an artistic idea, but as the result of poverty of language. Indeed, we talk of angels "flying" because our language is human and earthly, and we cannot imagine the attributes of angels. Few indeed are the artists who in pictures of the Annunciation represent the Angel as a luminous, delicate, and evanescent figure.

The more perfect the approximation to truth, the more perfect is art.

When, for instance, in a drawing-room, some one pays us a compliment, if this is founded upon one of our real qualities, and touches it closely, we feel legitimate satisfaction, because what has been said is relevant, and we may conclude that the person _has observed us_ and feels a sincere admiration for us. We accordingly think of such a person: He is subtle and intellectual; and we feel disposed to reciprocate his friendliness. But if the compliment praises us for qualities we do not possess, or distorts or exaggerates our true attributes, we think with disgust: What a coa.r.s.e creature! and feel even more coldly to him than before.

Dante's sublime sonnet must certainly have touched the heart of Beatrice profoundly:

My lady looks so gentle and so pure When yielding salutation by the way, That the tongue trembles and has nought to say, And the eyes, which fain would see, may not endure.

And still, amid the praise she hears secure, She walks with humbleness for her array; Seeming a creature sent from Heaven, to stay On earth, and show a miracle made sure.

She is so pleasant in the eyes of men That through the sight the inmost heart doth gain A sweetness which needs proof to know it by; And from between her lips there seems to move A soothing essence that is full of love, Saying for ever to the spirit: "Sigh!"

(Rossetti's translation, Dante's _Vita nuova_, section XXVI.)

A very different impression must have been made on the self-respect and delicate sensibility of a feminine soul by this other sonnet, which is clumsy and bombastic because it is full of inappropriate and exaggerated metaphors:

Your salutation and your glances bright Deal death to him who greets you on your way; Love my a.s.sailant, heedless of my plight, Cares nought if what he does shall heal or slay.

Straight to the mark his arrow flew apace Piercing my heart and cleaving it in twain; I was as one who sees Death face to face; No word I spake--so great my burning pain.

As through the window of the lordly tower The missile hurtles, shattering all within, So did the arrow enter through my eye;

Bereft of life and spirit in that hour I stood there, to a man of bra.s.s akin, That mocks with semblance of humanity.

(Guinizelli, 1300.)

If, then, the true basis of the imagination is reality, and its perception is related to exactness of observation, it is necessary to prepare children to perceive the things in their environment exactly, in order to secure for them the material required by the imagination.

Further, the exercise of the intelligence, reasoning within sharply defined limits, and distinguis.h.i.+ng one thing from another, prepares a cement for imaginative constructions; because these are the more beautiful the more closely they are united to a form, and the more logical they are in the a.s.sociation of individual images. The fancy which exaggerates and invents coa.r.s.ely does not put the child on the right road.

A true preparation digs the beds where the waters which well up from intellectual creation will flow in smiling or majestic rivers, without overflowing and so destroying the beauty of internal order.

In the matter of causing the springing up of these rus.h.i.+ng waters of internal creation we are powerless. "Never to obstruct the spontaneous outburst of an activity, even though it springs forth like the humble trickle of some almost invisible source," and "to wait"--this is our task. Why should we delude ourselves with the idea that we can "create an intelligence," we who can do nothing but "observe and await" the blade of gra.s.s which is sprouting, the microbe which is dividing itself?

We must consider that creative imagination must rise like an illuminated palace, on dark foundations deeply imbedded in the rock, if it is to be anything but a house of cards, an illusion, an error; and the salvation of the intelligence is "to be able to plant the feet on firm ground."

=Imagination in children=.--It is a very common belief that the young child is characterized by a vivid imagination, and therefore a special education should be adopted to cultivate this special gift of nature.

His mentality differs from ours; he escapes from our strongly marked and restricted limits, and loves to wander in the fascinating worlds of unreality, a tendency which is also characteristic of savage peoples.

This childish characteristic, however, gave rise to the generalization of a materialistic idea now discredited: "Ontogenesis sums up philogenesis": that is, the life of the individual reproduces the life of the species; just as the life of man reproduces the life of civilization, so in young children we find the psychical characteristics of savages. Hence the child, like the savage, is attracted by the fantastic, the supernatural, and the unreal.

Instead of indulging in such flights of scientific fancy as these, it would be much simpler to declare that an organism as yet immature, like that of the child, has remote affinities with mentalities less mature than our own, like those of savages. But even if we refrain from interfering with the belief of those who interpret childish mentality as "a savage state," we may point out that as, in any case, this savage state is transient, and must be superseded, education _should help the child_ to overcome it; it should not _develop the savage state_, nor _keep_ the child therein.

All the forms of imperfect development we encounter in the child have some resemblance to corresponding characteristics in the savage; for instance, in language, poverty of expression, the existence only of concrete terms, and the generalization of words, by means of which a single word serves several purposes and indicates several objects, the absence of inflections in verbs, causing the child to use only the infinitive. But no one would maintain that "for this reason" we ought to restrict the child artificially to such primitive language, to enable him to pa.s.s through his prehistoric period easily.

And if some peoples remain permanently in a state of imagination in which unrealities predominate, our child, on the contrary, belongs to a people for whom the delights of the mind are to be found in the great works of art, and the civilizing constructions of science, and in those products of the higher imagination which represent the environment in which the intelligence of our child is destined to form itself. It is natural that in the hazy period of his mental development the child should be attracted by fantastic ideas; but this must not make us forget that he is to be our continuator, and for that reason should be superior to us; and the least we ought to give him to this end is the maximum at our disposal.

A form of imagination supposed to be "proper" to childhood, and almost universally recognized as creative imagination, is that spontaneous work of the infant mind by which children attribute desirable characteristics to objects which do not possess them.

Who has not seen a child riding upon and whipping his father's walking-stick, as if he were mounted upon a real horse? There we have a proof of "imagination" in the child! What pleasure it gives to children to construct a splendid coach with chairs and armchairs; and while some recline inside, looking out with delight at an imaginary landscape, or bowing to an applauding crowd, other children, perched on the backs of chairs, beat the air as if they were whipping fiery horses. Here is another proof of "imagination."

But if we observe rich children, who own quiet ponies, and drive out habitually in carriages and motor-cars, we shall find that they look with a touch of contempt at the child who is running about whipping a stick in great excitement; they would be astonished to see the delight of children who imagine themselves to be drawn along by stationary armchairs. They would say of such children: "They are very poor; they act thus because they have no horses or carriages." An adult resigns himself to his lot; a child creates an illusion. But this is not a proof of imagination, it is a proof of an unsatisfied desire; it is not an activity bound up with gifts of nature; it is a manifestation of conscious, sensitive poverty. No one, we may be sure, will say that in order to educate a rich child we should take away his pony and give him a stick. Nor is it necessary to prevent the poor child from being content with his stick. If a poor man, a beggar, had nothing but dry bread to eat, and if he placed himself by the grated window of a rich underground kitchen because when he smelt its savory odors he imagined himself to be eating excellent dishes together with his bread, who could prevent him? But no one would say that in order to develop the imaginative activity of the fortunate persons for whom the actual dishes were destined, it would be well to take away their meat and give them bread and fragrance.

A poor mother who was devoted to her little child offered him the piece of bread which was all she had to give in this manner: she divided it into two portions, and gave them to him in succession, saying: "This is the bread, this is the meat." The child was quite content. But no mother would deprive her child of food in order to develop his imagination in this way.

And yet I was once seriously asked by some one if it would be injurious to give a piano to a child who was continually practising with his fingers upon the table, as if he were playing the piano.

"And why should it be injurious?" I asked. "Because, if I do so, he will learn music, it is true, but his imagination will no longer be exercised, and I do not know which would be best for him."

Some of Froebel's games are based upon similar beliefs. A wooden brick is given to a child with the words: "This is a horse." Bricks are then arranged in a certain order, and he is told: "This is the stable; now let us put the horse into the stable." Then the bricks are differently arranged: "This is a tower, this is the village church, etc." In such exercises the objects (bricks) lend themselves to illusion less readily than a stick used as a horse, which the child can at least bestride and beat, moving along the while. The building of towers and churches with horses brings the mental confusion of the child to its culmination. Moreover, in this case it is not the child who "imagines spontaneously" and works with his brains, for at the moment he is required to see that which the teacher suggests. And it is impossible to know whether the child really thinks that the stable has become a church, or whether his attention has wandered elsewhere. He would, of course, like to move, but he cannot, because he is obliged to contemplate the kind of cinematograph of which the teacher speaks in the series of images she suggests, though they exist only in the shape of pieces of wood all of the same size.

What is it that is thus being cultivated in these immature minds? What do we find akin to this in the adult world which will enable us to understand for what definitive forms we prepare the mind by such a method of education? There are, indeed, men who really take a tree for a throne, and issue royal commands: some believe themselves to be G.o.d, for "false perceptions," or the graver form, "illusions," are the beginning of false reasoning, and the concomitants of delirium. The insane produce nothing, nor can those children, condemned to the immobility of an education which tends to _develop_ their innocent manifestations of unsatisfied desires into mania, produce anything either for themselves or others.

We, however, suppose that we are developing the imagination of children by making them accept fantastic things as realities. Thus, for instance, in Latin countries, Christmas is personified by an ugly woman, the _Befana_, who comes through the walls and down the chimneys, bringing toys for the good children, and leaving only lumps of coal for the naughty ones. In Anglo-Saxon countries, on the other hand, Christmas is an old man covered with snow who carries a huge basket containing toys for children, and who really enters their houses by night. But how can the _imagination_ of children be developed by what is, on the contrary, the fruit of _our_ imagination?

It is we who imagine, not they; they _believe_, they do not imagine.

Credulity is, indeed, a characteristic of immature minds which lack experience and knowledge of realities, and are as yet devoid of that intelligence which distinguishes the true from the false, the beautiful from the ugly, the possible from the impossible.

Is it, then, _credulity_ we wish to develop in our children, merely because they show themselves to be credulous at an age when they are naturally ignorant and immature? Of course, credulity may exist in adults; but it exists in _contrast_ with _intelligence_, and is neither its foundation nor its fruit. It is in periods of intellectual darkness that credulity germinates; and we are proud to have outlived these epochs. We speak of credulity as a mark of the uncivilized.

Here is a piquant anecdote of the seventeenth century. The Pont Neuf in Paris was the main highway for foot-pa.s.sengers, and a meeting-place for loungers. Many mountebanks and charlatans mingled with the crowd.