• A clear distinction is to be made between visualizing an object and loolcing at a picture of it The latter may be little more than the physical act of keeping the eye directed to the picture. The mind may remain very largely passive. Visualizing is strictly a mental act. It involves the exercise of several mental func tions. In the end the phenomenon observed, though absent, is imaged in the mind. The image is more than the recollection of some thing impressed upon the mind. A small amount of mental reaction may be sufficient to enable the mind to recognize an object when again presented, but a complete visualization involves a full analysis of the phenomenon and a later synthesis of parts. There must be a rebuilding in the mind of the thing observed and the mental image is .probably never pre cisely like the object The mind appropriates only what concerns its ends or interests.
There is among teachers and others who think upon mental processes an interest in the ques tion of the relation between visualization and imagination. Some would see an opposition between the use of visual aids and imagination. These persons, however, fail to analyze the mental processes involved and to discover the nature of what shoukl be avoided. It is im possible to perceive too much or too accurately. On the other hand true visualization is imagi nation. Every mental image is made up of perceptive elements. Without them there could be no material out of which to build the re constructed image. This statement gains force if one keeps in mind the distinction between the mere remembrance of a past visual impression and the construction within the mind of a men tal picture, the latter being the highest form of visualization. Reproductive imagination is little more than memory. To visualize has come to be a phrase in common use. It is usually employed as equivalent to ((imagine the thing or situation?' What the objector really fears is the lack of ability to create entirely new combinations in a visualization of some thing not corresponding to what has already been observed. This creative power dottbtiess varies naturally in different individuals and is also susceptible of cultivation. The danger is not so much that the visual presentation will be used too extensively as that its use will be unintelligent There are limits to the fields of usefulness of pictures as an educational agency. Unquestionably a person may continue so fully absorbed in observation that insufficient atten tion is given to the exercise of other mental functions. The argwnents for the use of pic
torial expression must remain unshaken so long as such expression is confined within its fields of special usefulness and full me,ntal reactions are secured.
An incentive for the use of pictorial repre sentation is .,the belief that it is specially in teresting. Interest as a motive for effort plays a large part in the modern educational pro gram. The nature of interest may, however, be misinterpreted and dependence upon it may be carried too far. According to the etymology of the word interest the implica tion is that the mind is in the object or idea under consideration. Mental energy hangs upon what is actually before the mind. It is de veloped by the mode of approach through such elements as the mind can easily comprehend, w,hich are necessarily certain objective facts. The objective elements, such as form, color and motion, attract attention, though atten tion at the beginning is passive and may re main so. True interest on the other hand is an active principle. It is difficult to arouse, particularly in untrained minds, hence with children and uneducated adults objects and their pictorial representations may advanta geously be used to attract attention and initiate interest. One must have some experience with an object of study before an interest in it can be aroused. The problem of the educator is to convert into active interest passive attention to the physical elements that for the time hold the mind. Failure to secure adequate mental reaction means the loss of the advantages of the visual presentation.
There is a very direct relationship between impressions and metnory. Abstract ideas are not only difficult to acquire but they are not easily retained in mind. The mind is so con stituted that it depends upon the law of asso ciation. There is a very strong tendency to as sociate a general notion with a particular illus tration of it. So while the mind should move on to the general or abstract it cannot do so without first detecting the truth in some par ticular concrete illustration of it. The sense presentation, chiefly visual, is surely the easiest if not the only approach to the higher and more difficult idea. Further such idea is again brought into the field of consciousness through recalling one or more of the specific illus trations from which it was originally derived.