PSYCHOLOGY, PSYCHURGY, AND THE KINDERGARTEN. 
BY ELMER GATES, M. D. 
1HAVE been asked to state in a few 
pages some of the simplest applica- 
tions of the results of my psychologic and 
psychurgic experiments to the methods of 
the kindergarten. In so short an article I 
cannot do more than explain, in untechni- 
cal terms, several of those most important 
general principles which may easily be ap- 
plied by the teacher, and to indicate still 
more briefly the kind of experimental evi- 
dence upon which these principles are 
based, reserving for a subsequent explana- 
tion a description of the apparatus and 
rules for putting these principles most suc- 
cessfully into school-room practice. 
Psychology is the science of mind. Since 
the days of Fechner, Helmholtz, and 
Wundt, the mind has been studied experi- 
mentally, and the sciences of physiological 
psychology and psycho - physics have 
arisen. But, in the broadest sense, I 
mean by psychology the science of living 
things. All living things have minds, and 
it is that which distinguishes them from 
inanimate things. The lowest known liv- 
ing organisms,—simple unicellular lumps 
of protoplasm like the amoeba, and all 
other microbes, can feel, and feeling is dis- 
tinctively a mental phenomenon; and the 
same is true of plants and animals. Cells 
can adapt acts to ends; and that is char- 
acteristically a mental process. Mind, as 
far as science is aware, is manifested only 
in organic structures; the amount of mind 
manifested depends upon the kind and 
complexity of the structure and upon the 
environmental relations, etc. Hence if we 
desire to understand mind, we must study 
it as it is manifested in all kinds of organ- 
isms and environments. Experimentally, 
we can vary (a) the environmental condi- 
tions and (b) the organic structures by 
rapid methods of evolution and retrogres- 
sion, and (c) the mental activities; and by 
thus varying in each of these three classes 
of phenomena one condition at a time, we 
can determine the effect each condition has 
upon all or any of the others. Psychology 
is thus seen to be coextensive with biol- 
ogy, and to include it. When we shall 
have carefully ascertained the effect of each 
environmental condition and of each kind 
of organic structure upon the manifestation 
of mind; and when we shall have applied 
the same methods to social groups of indi- 
viduals; and when we shall have experi- 
mentally determined the effect of each 
mental activity upon the organism, and 
upon the environment, and upon social 
groups of individuals;—then we shall have 
accumulated the data for an Objective 
Psychology; and when the same general 
methods shall have been applied by the 
pupil to his or her own mind as known in- 
trospectively to the pupil alone, then that 
pupil will have the data for a Subjective 
Psychology. But all these data belong to 
the science of mind, and in addition to 
their scientific value, should lead to some 
applications to human affairs; that is, out 
of the science of psychology there should 
develop an art of psychology. These psy- 
chologic data should teach us how to make 
a better and more effective use of the mind 
in daily life, education, invention, and so 
forth. Now, to this art of getting more 
mind and of using the mind, I have given 
the name of Psychurgy. Psychology is the 
Science of Mind, and Psychurgy is the 
Art of Mentation. ‘ ‘ Mind ” is a noun; 
and as we have no corresponding verb, 
we have to use the word “ mentation,” to 
express the idea of mind in action. 
Psychurgy has a startling message for 
the world,—a message that would be 
wholly incredible were it not for the fact 
that it is founded upon indubitable experi- 
mental data that any one can repeat. The 
message is that any human being can get, 
or embody, by a simple process of brain- 
building, more mind than he at present 
possesses. More mind,—what does that 2 
Psychology, Psychurgy, and the Kindergarten. 
mean ? It means more of that which does 
all that is done in the world! It is the 
mind that discovers and creates every part 
and every science; it is the mind that in- 
vents, and knows, and enjoys, and does, 
all that we do. It is the mind that learns, 
and the mind that applies the learning; and 
the getting of more mind means the easier 
and quicker and better doing of all that we 
may attempt to do. More mind means 
more intellect, better affections and 
emotions, and a more potent moral 
nature, and more skill, and more suc- 
cess in all we undertake. To get more 
mind means to get more of that which 
makes all things more attainable to us. 
How can I prove that more mind can be 
given to a living being ? I will tell you. 
I caused three shepherd puppies to be 
born in darkness and to be kept in com- 
plete darkness until they were one year 
old: and at the same time I caused four 
other shepherd puppies to be raised by a 
farmer in the usual way, without suppres- 
sion or training, until they were one year 
old: and at the same time I caused five 
other shepherd puppies to be trained in 
the systematic and equal mentation of every 
phase of the seeing-functions for one year: 
and then I had them all killed with chloro- 
form, and I examined their brains chemi- 
cally and microscopically. And what do 
you think I found ? It had previously 
been taught that mental activity leaves no 
chemical or physical trace in the brain. I 
found that by the process of mentation to 
which I subjected these puppies, I had 
created in a certain part of their brains a 
greater number ot brain-cells than any dog 
of that species and age had ever before 
had, and that these cells were much larger, 
and had more dejidrites and filatnents. etc. 
The dogs that had been kept in the dark- 
ness had a less than normal number, and 
these were smaller in size, and other- 
wise different. That is, the mentative 
process created more brain tissue, and 
gave the dogs more mind! To make 
a very long story very short, I found 
that every conscious mental experience 
creates in some definite part of the brain a 
definite brain-structure, the refunctioning 
of which is essential to the remembrance of 
that experience. Thus, every sensation 
which differs in kind from other sensa- 
tions creates in some definite part of the 
cortex of the cerebrum a special cellular 
structure. The sound-memory-structures 
are enregistered in the cortex of the tem- 
poral lobes, the sight-memory-structures in 
the occipital lobe in the region of the 
cuneus, the muscular-memory-structures 
along the fissure of Rolando, and so on. 
The mind creates the organic tissues in 
which it is embodied! This is true not 
alone in animals and men: I found it to be 
true even in the lowest known living forms, 
such as amoeba ; for when these cells are 
caused to engage in different mental activ- 
ities for a long time, there arise in the 
cells new structures which are different in 
kind according as the mental activity has 
been different in kind. Cells feel light, and 
respond to it by adaptive action, and this 
feeling and response is mentation: and 
when they feel cold-impressions and re- 
spond to them, the mentation is different; 
and the cells which are caused to respond 
repeatedly to cold, develop a kind of 
structures different from those of the cells 
which are caused to respond to light. This 
shows that at the very lowest stage of life, 
in the physiologic units, the mind-activity 
builds the body! 
Two dogs were trained to discriminate 
red colors only; two other dogs were 
trained to distinguish red and green colors 
only; and two other dogs were trained to 
distinguish all the colors. When their 
brains were examined, it was found that 
the first group had a smaller number of 
cells in the seeing-areas of their brains than 
the second group, and the second fewer 
than the third. Which means that in or- 
der to give a dog as much mind in the 
seeing-areas of the brain as possible, he 
must be caused to discriminate all the 
colors, and not merely some of them. To 
have more mind, he must have a corre- 
spondingly greater amount of brain-struc- 
ture. To get an additional structure in 
the seeing-area of his brain, the dog must 
make an additional color-discrimination— 
he must not merely see the new color, tint, Psychology, Psychurgy, and the Kindergarten. 
3 
or shade, or hue; he must discriminate that 
color from all other colors and base an ac- 
tivity on that discrimination. 
Two dogs two years old were kept for 
one month in a room where they could see 
all colors exposed in full view on the wall; 
and two others of the same age and 
species were caused to discriminate 
between these colors by feeding them 
under inverted pans which were painted 
in different colors. Small mouthfuls 
of meat were placed under some given 
color, say yellow. The dogs soon learned 
not to waste time in turning over any but 
yellow pans for the coveted morsel. When 
yellow had been learned, the meat was 
placed under some other color; and so on, 
until all the colors, hues, tints, and shades, 
had been discriminated, and an activity 
based thereon. This was kept up one 
month, and the dogs were two years old 
when I began. The trained dogs had, 
approximately, twenty times the greater 
number of brain-cells in the seeing-areas, 
as compared with the dogs that had simply 
been kept in the presence of the same col- 
ors, hues, tints, and shades! A word to 
the wise is sufficient,—so runs the proverb, 
—but my experience is that it takes more 
than a word, more than any number of 
words—it takes laboratory training to do 
this well. 
A dog that has not seen any color but 
red with its tints and shades, will lack in its 
brain those structures which would have 
been there if it had seen the other colors 
with their tints and shades; that is, the 
dog will have less mind and a less number 
of brain-cells in that area of its brain than 
it might have had! Some parts of its see- 
ing-cortex will remain fallow. That part 
of the universe, of the not-self, of the 
macrocosm, will not be represented in that 
dog’s mind; and that dog will go through 
life with that part of the brain and that cor- 
responding part of the omnicosm not func- 
tioning in its consciousness! 
And what is true of the dog is true of a 
human child—a child should have all the 
structures in its brain that it can get, nor- 
mally, and no parts of its cortex fallow, no 
portion of nature unrepresented in its ma- 
chinery of mentation. The mind of a 
child is all of the child—its mind is all it 
has—take away its mind, and what is left ? 
Therefore give it more mind, and you will 
give it the greatest of all possible gifts. 
How shall you do it ? 
It would require a large book to tell 
you, but I can give you a little practical 
idea of the method in this article. To 
give a child all the brain structures in the 
seeing-areas that it can hope to get through 
the exercise of the first stage of mentation 
in that area—the sensation-stage—it will 
be necessary for that child, not merely to 
see all of the colors, hues, shades, and 
tints, but to discriminate between each of 
them and all the others, and also to base 
an activity upon each such a discrimina- 
tion. These are two of the general prin- 
ciples to which I alluded at the beginning 
of this article: 
I. In the first stage of brain-building—the 
sensation-stage—the child should as early 
in life as possible be caused to discriminate 
between each recognizable difference of 
color— pitch, hue, tint, and shade,—and 
all the other color-pitches, hues, tints, and 
shades; and to discriminate between each 
recognizable difference of sound - pitch, 
amplitude, tone-quality, cadence, melodic 
succession, and chordal synthesis, and every 
other sound-pitch, amplitude, tone-quality, 
etc.; and to discriminate between each rec- 
ognizable difference of pleasurable and 
healthful taste, and every other one; and 
to discriminate between each recognizable 
difference of healthful smells, and each 
other smell; to discriminate, in a similar 
manner between touches, in their recogniz- 
able differences of intensity and locality and 
comparative closeness; and the same for 
warm-temperature sensations; and for cold- 
temperature sensations; and the same for 
muscular sensations, until each muscle has 
been felt to move, and to move with differ- 
ent degrees of energy and speed and in 
different directions. Briefly, give to the 
child every sensation-memory-structure that 
it can get from each of the eight classes of 
sensory nerves, omitting not one recogniz- 
able sensation-difference in any of the 
senses. Psychology, Psychurgy, and the Kindergarten. 
4 
To accomplish this well for the eye, re- 
quires special apparatus. It requires a 
tri-prism movable-spectrum photometer to 
exhibit all the pitches of each of the seven 
spectral colors, and each of the hues of 
these colors, and the tints and shades of 
these colors and hues—over two millions 
of recognizable differences; and they can 
all be passed in review in len minutes, 
when necessary. In default of such a de- 
vice, two Maxwell color-wheels may be 
used to make the different tints and shades 
and hues of those particular pitches of color 
which the disks happen to represent, show- 
ing the child all of the recognizable tint- 
and shade-differences, and hues of those 
particular pitches. If by means of three 
prisms you project upon the whitened wall 
of a darkened room three solar spectra, 
juxtaposed side by side, you will, by mov- 
ing one of these spectra up and down rel- 
ative to the others, be able to let the child 
compare all the color-pitch differences. 
Then by superimposing one part of a spec- 
trum over another, and by varying the 
amount of light and darkness, you will be 
able to produce all the tints, shades, and 
hues, of all pitches of color. By covering 
with a cardboard those parts of the spec- 
trum which are not to be observed, you 
will aid the child in the attempt. I am 
constructing such an apparatus with grat- 
ings instead of prisms. By disks and a 
color-wheel, only some of the pitches can 
be shown, because it would be impracti- 
cable to make as many disks as there are 
recognizable pitches of color, and it would 
take too long a time to make the changes 
of the disks on the wheel to show the 
pitches and hues. Let us suppose that 
there are only 100 color-pitches recogniz- 
able, and only 300 dual hues,‘and only 
3000 of the triple hues; then, to exhibit 
these on the color-wheel (allowing three 
minutes to adjust the disks and turn the 
wheel and look at it a moment), would re- 
quire 175 hours! With a tri-prism appa- 
ratus, all these can be shown in half an 
hour by any teacher who will practise a 
little in juxtaposing and superimposing 
several well-diffracted spectra! But to 
exhibit the at least forty recognizable tints 
and shades of the above-mentioned pitches, 
and hues, would require forty times 175 
hours. By varying the amount of light 
and shade in the room, the teacher can in 
a few hours exhibit all the lights and 
shades of the pitches and hues. 
To accomplish the same thing for the 
ear requires also special apparatus, such 
as instruments for making all the pitches 
of sound, without skipping intermediate 
pitches, as the piano and organ do; and 
means for making all the pleasant ampli- 
tudes of each of these pitches; and means 
for making all the tone-qualities of each of 
these pitches by varying the relative loud- 
ness of different over-tones in each of these 
pitches; and means for making chordal 
combinations on each of these pitches and 
with each tone-quality thereof. I have 
devised an electric sonometer which accom- 
plishes this; but the teacher can by means 
of a wire sonometer, or stretched strings, 
produce most of the pitches by the process 
known as the glide, and also differences of 
amplitude, and to a small extent differences 
of tone-quality, by making a given pitch 
with different musical instruments. Do 
not use instruments with fixed keys or 
holes, because these do not give nearly all 
of the pitches within their range, but omit 
vastly more pitches than they produce. 
Thus if c' on the piano be 512 oscillations 
per second, then, between that and its 
octave c" there will be 512 pitches possi- 
ble: but the piano gives only 12 of them ! 
Between c'' and c''' the piano and organ 
give only 12 out of 1024 possible pitches. 
In instruments as at present known, the 
tone-quality cannot be varied in any given 
note, and without special facilities the 
teacher cannot hope to do more than give 
the pitches and amplitudes and chords. 
To omit from the child’s training most of 
the recognizable sound-pitches is to omit 
from its brain most of the cerebral mem- 
ory-structures which it might have had in 
its hearing-areas; it is to leave unrepre- 
sented in its mentation that portion of the 
cosmos; and it is to produce in that part 
of the child’s mind-organism an unsym- 
metrical and ataxic and incomplete mind- 
embodiment. The omitted structures pre- Psychology, Psychurgy, and the Kindergarten. 
5 
vent that unity and wholeness in the brain- 
building which it is the object of brain- 
building to produce. If all the pitches of 
sound have been heard several times in 
gliding succession, and then with succes- 
sively larger intervals until the chromatic 
and diatonic scales have been heard, there 
will be anatomical and psychologic totality 
and organic oneness in the memory-struc- 
tures and consciousness. But that self- 
adive unity will be broken if great groups 
of the pitches have never been heard. The 
same is true if great groups of color-pitches 
and hues have never been seen, and the 
same is true of all the other senses; but I 
cannot in this article refer to the methods 
of training them. 
It will be noticed that this first general 
principle of mind-embodiment requires a 
totality or unity of memory-structures, so 
that there shall be no gaps in the repre- 
sentation of the macrocosm in the micro- 
cosm—so that no part of the cosmos shall 
be unrepresented in the mentation as far 
as the Sensation Stage of Brain-building is 
concerned. I am not dealing in this paper 
with the other and higher stages of mind- 
building, such as the image-stage, the 
idea-stage, the concept-stage, the reason- 
stage, the thought-stage, and so on, but 
only with the sensation-stage. This first 
principle requires that all the distinguish- 
able sensations shall be discriminated by 
the child; but it is also required that these 
sensations shall be given in a certain order 
or natural grouping, from the lowest pitch 
of sound and color to the highest, and so 
on; and this leads us to the next principle. 
II. In the first stage of brain-building, the 
child should have its sensation-memories 
enregistered in a natural order and in tax- 
onomicgroups; that is, one great natural 
group of memories should be given to the 
child at a time, and that group should be 
completed before beginning another 
group, and the order and classification of 
these memories should correspond to the 
arrangement as found in nature. Any 
kind of artificial arrangement or grouping 
is a simple taxis; if the classification is er- 
roneous, it is dystaxis; if there is no classi- 
fication, but a chaos, it is ataxis; if the 
classification is true,—that is, if it corre- 
sponds to the universe as far as known,— 
it is eutaxis. To jumble all kinds of color- 
pitches and hues and tints into one lesson 
is to produce dystaxic or ataxic brain- 
building; but to teach the color-pitches of 
red in their normal order from lowest to 
highest so as to omit none of the recogniz- 
able pitch-differences, and at the same 
lesson-hour to give the tints and shades of 
those pitches; and then to proceed in the 
same way to the other colors; and then to 
take up the hues and their tints and 
shades, not mixing in the same lesson a 
few pitches of this color and a few of that 
and several hues of this and several tints 
of that, giving no one group complete at 
a time, is to achieve eutaxic brain-building. 
Education is at present chiefly ataxic. The 
object of eutaxic mind-embodiment is to 
produce a normal and complete brain and 
a wholeness of consciousness. If the ma- 
chinery of mentation is built orderly, with 
no parts of the mechanism missing, then 
the mind can completely manifest its pos- 
sibilities. If the structures are dystaxic, 
so will the mentation be dystaxic. I can- 
not enter into an explanation of the full 
meaning of eutaxy, in this paper. 
III. In the first stage of mind-embodi- 
ment the child should have the eutaxic en- 
registration take place at the same hour each 
day, so as to create a periodicity of vaso- 
motor blood supply to that portion of the 
brain, and a periodicity of metabolism, etc. 
Thus, when building the seeing-areas the 
lesson should be given precisely at the 
same hour each day, so that by habit a 
full supply of nutrient blood may furnish 
the materials for the creation of cellular 
structures, and so that the periodicity of 
metabolic stimulus may at that time be 
dominant. If at the same hour daily you 
bring into activity other parts of the brain, 
such as the hearing-areas, or muscular- 
areas, then the metabolism and blood- 
supply will not be centred at the one place 
as they should be for the best results, and 
dominancy of consciousness will be scat- 
tered. Of course the child should always 
have slept and rested well the previous 
night, and should have been well nourish- 6 
Psychology, Psychurgy, and the Kindergarten. 
ed, and happy. If these conditions can- 
not be obtained, better not give the lesson 
than to make weak brain-structures or 
vitiate them with the poisonous toxastates 
produced by the evil emotions. 
IV. The enregistrations of the memory- 
structures in any eutaxic group should be 
repeated once each day for at least six 
days, in order to produce fully-developed 
structural changes that will not atrophy or 
become submerged in a short time, and so 
as to fully develop the auxiliary structural 
growths upon which associative connec- 
tions depend. A single enregistration of 
a given sensation is not enough; only five 
or six repetitions can produce an efficiently 
functioning structure capable of doing duty 
for a lifetime. 
V. The enregistration of sensation- 
memories of any one eutaxic group, should 
take place under the influence of an equal 
degree of interest or attention so as to 
render each sensation-memory equally 
dominant in consciousness with all the oth- 
ers of that group. Otherwise, some of 
these memories will stand out in bold re- 
lief, and others will not arise in conscious- 
ness, and the inexorable result will be ab- 
normal mentation and untrue conclusions: 
the life mentation of that child will to that 
extent be defective—the missing memories 
will not influence its judgments,'and its ideas 
will be dystaxic. The same law applies to 
the different sensory groups. All should 
be equally dominant in cons:iousness. Just 
stop and think how far this law has not 
been realized in our educational methods! 
VI. The enregistration of each eutaxic 
group of sensations should take place at 
that ontogenetic periodicity of the child’s 
evolutionary development when the corre- 
sponding capacities first arrive and when 
the cravings for that kind of mental activi- 
ties first manifest themselves. Thus the 
baby can appreciate touches and tempera- 
tures before it can discriminate smells and 
colors: and so on. When the capacity 
and craving first arises is the periodic time 
when the blood through normal vaso-motor 
dominancy is first surging through those 
parts of the brain, and eutaxic growth is 
easiest effected. 
VII. Every enregistration should be 
wholly anabolic. I will explain: the chem- 
ical changes which take place within the 
cell substances of those cells out of which 
our whole body is built,—which constitute 
the growth and recuperation of the cells— 
are called metabolism. Cells take food out 
of the blood,assimilate it, excrete the refuse 
matter, manufacture the energy of life and 
repair the waste of fatigue; these changes 
are called metabolism. If these cells are 
living at a profit, that is, if they are ac- 
cumulating nutriment and growth and 
energy, the process is called anabolism; and 
if the reverse process takes place through 
fatigue or disease, it is called katabolism. 
Now I have discovered that the evil and de- 
pressing emotions augment katabolism ; 
and when they are prolonged and intense 
there result poisonous autotoxic compounds 
which I have named toxastates. When 
the good and cheerful emotions are intense 
and prolonged, there result an augmented 
anabolism, and the production of supera- 
bundant energy and the nutritive products 
which are stored for after use, which com- 
pounds I have named eunastates. All 
painful and disagreeable sensations are 
katabolic, and fill the cells and blood with 
toxastates, and the memory-structure pro- 
duced, recreates these poisons whenever 
it refunctions. Hence, avoid all unpleas- 
ant sensations, and if one is produced 
never allow its repetition. Make all the 
sensation-enregistrations as pleasant as pos- 
sible, and make them only while the child 
is happy, and never when the child is un- 
happy. 
VIII. In enregistering sensation-mem- 
ories, always cause the child to base an 
activity upon the discrimination of each 
sensation for all others of its eutaxic class. 
This is the most important law of the 
series; omit it, and no enregistrations will 
be made that are worth having. I should 
write a whole article upon this subject, but 
a few explanations will suffice. You are 
never certain that a discrimination has 
been made until an activity has been based 
upon that discrimination. Place upon the 
floor, for example, twenty green boxes and 
twenty red boxes of the same size and Psychology, Psychurgy, and the Kindergarten. 
7 
shape, and put into each of the red boxes 
a small bit of cake. The stupidest child 
will after several repetitions learn to open 
only the red boxes; that is, an activity 
based upon the actual discrimination be- 
tween red and green, tells you that the 
discrimination has actually been made, and 
the memory-structure that results will be 
intellective and conative. A normal and 
natural act of conduct has thereby been 
based upon the discrimination, and the 
motor-memories have been thus associated 
with the intellective memories, and if the 
process had been a play-activity, it will 
also acquire the normal emotive, anabolic 
memories. Long before a child can 
talk, it can be made to stick pennies 
through a crack, or put blocks through 
a hole in the top of a box. Make a 
round hole and a square hole in the 
box and fit two blocks to them—the 
round blocks will not pass through the 
square hole, and the square block will not 
pass through the round.hole. After some 
days the very young child will look at the 
blocks and then at the holes, and will de- 
liberately put the round block into the 
round hole—that is, it has discriminated 
between two geometrical images, and dem- 
onstrated to you that fact by basing a 
normal activity thereon. But this belongs 
to the second stage of brain-building—that 
of image-building. To return to the cake 
and the colored boxes; suppose that as soon 
as the child learns to seek for cake in boxes 
of a certain color, you take instead of food 
a favorite rattle, hide it in the red box, 
and place the red box among boxes of 
all the colors; then place the red box 
among other red boxes of much lighter 
tints and shades, until finally you have 
several red boxes containing cake, mixed 
with red boxes not containing cake, and 
of a five-per-cent, lighter or darker red. If 
the child can find the boxes containing 
the cake without mistake, it will have dis- 
criminated between a five-per-cent, differ- 
ence in the shade or tint of red; if you 
still diminish this difference you will finally 
reach the child’s “ least noticeable differ- 
ence ’ ’ for reds. A child can in a hun- 
dred ways be caused to base an activity 
on each sensory discrimination; and only 
when it has done so, has that brain-struc- 
ture been properly placed in the brain. 
The Froebelian Kindergartner will no- 
tice that we have here experimentally 
demonstrated that only the self-activity of 
the mind can create brain-structures; that 
Froebel’s idea of teaching by wholes was a 
first glimpse into a very profound law; 
and that play-activities are not merely de- 
sirable, but that a pleasant anabolic activity 
must be coupled with every intellectual 
acquisition. 
In conclusion, I take pleasure in refer- 
ring to the recent experiments by Professor 
Aurelio Lui in Stephano’s laboratory in 
Italy (an account of which may be found in 
the Revista Sperimentale di Frenatria, 
volume 20 [1894], page 218, and volume 
12, page 27), in which he has shown by ex- 
periments upon animals that as they more 
and more acquire the capacity for walking 
they get a greater number of motor-cells in 
the brain,, and that these cells are larger and 
more complex in their structure, thus cor- 
roborating my much earlier experiments in 
brain-building. 
It seems to me that the noblest profes- 
sion is that of teaching and training chil- 
dren ; and I predict that in the not very 
remote future, properly-prepared teachers 
will receive high salaries for taking care of 
children during the pre-kindergarten stage, 
or “ cradle curriculum,” and through the 
kindergarten stage and during the primary 
school stage; for it is during these stages 
that the most important part of mind-build- 
ing and moral training can be effected. 
For this task, the fullest preparation and 
the supremest self-control and the widest 
knowledge and the purest life are needed 
—and these things cannot be had for a 
meagre salary. 
Of course there is a still more important 
stage of training—the stage that lasts nine 
months during gestation—and this de- 
volves upon the parents, and chiefly upon 
the mother; but of this I will not now 
speak. And there is one still more im- 
portant stage—that which precedes the 
creation of the child. My experiments on 
Guinea-pigs demonstrate that only those 8 
Psychology, Psychurgy, and the Kindergarten. 
mental qualities are transmitted to a child 
which have previously to the creation of the 
child been builded in the brain as brain- 
structures ; and it is thus in the power of 
the parents to bequeath to the child all the 
normal mental capacities. Those intellec- 
tual, moral, and conative qualities which 
you do not desire to transmit to the child, 
can be prevented from being so transmitted 
by the process of curing immoralities which 
I was fortunate enough to discover. It 
consists in finding out just what kind of 
evil memory-structures the parents have— 
what wrong sensation - memories, what 
wrong image-memories, what wrong con- 
cept-memories, what wrong idea-memories, 
what wrong emotion-memories, etc.; and 
then in building in these same parts of the 
brain another group of good memory- 
structures, until you have therein a hun- 
dred times as many good memory-structures 
as you had bad memories; and then for five 
or six months keeping the good structures 
functionally active oftener each day than 
the parents will have an opportunity to ex- 
ercise the bad ones. The result is growth 
of the good structures, and atrophy of the 
bad ones—submergence of the evil con- 
scious states and dominancy of the good 
states. Being physiologically, anatomi- 
cally, and psychologically remade, those 
undesirable structures and traits will not 
be hereditarily acquired by the child to 
such a large extent as without this train- 
ing; and with a longer training the inher- 
itance will be wholly prevented. 
These facts are optimistic, and prophetic 
of a glorious future for the race.