Intellectual and Moral Education

“The object of intellectual education is to create such indissoluble associations of our ideas of things, in the order and relation in which they occur in nature; that of a moral education is to unite as fixedly, the ideas of evil deeds with those of pain and degradation, and of good actions with those of pleasure and nobleness.” [1]

But it is the intimate interlocking of mind and matter which is more directly important to the educator – the idea which we have put broadly under the (by no means scientifically accurate) figure of a rut.  Given, that the constant direction of the thoughts produces a certain set in the tissues of the brain, this set is the first trace of the rut or path, a line of least resistance, along which the same impression, made another time, will find it easier to travel than to take another path.  So arises a right-of-way for any given habit of action or thought.


[1] Huxley, Thomas.  Lessons in Elementary Physiology. Macmillan and Co. 1878. pg 271.

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