5. PROBLEMS FOR OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
1. Explain the cause and the remedy in the case of such errors as the following:
Children who defined mountain as land 1,000 or more feet in height said that the factory smokestack was higher than the mountain because it "went straight up" and the mountain did not.
Children often think of the horizon as fastened to the earth.
Islands are thought of as floating on the water.
2. How would you stimulate the imagination of a child who does not seem to picture or make real the descriptions in reading, geography, etc.? Is it possible that such inability may come from an insufficient basis in observation, and hence in images?
3. Classify the school subjects, including domestic science and manual training, as to their ability to train (1) reproductive and (2) creative imagination.
4. Do you ever skip the descriptive parts of a book and read the narrative? As you read the description of a bit of natural scenery, does it rise before you? As you study the description of a battle, can you see the movements of the troops?
5. Have you ever planned a house as you think you would like it? Can you see it from all sides? Can you see all the rooms in their various finishings and furnishings?
6. What plans and ideals have you formed, and what ones are you at present following? Can you describe the process by which your plans or ideals change? Do you ever try to put yourself in the other person's place?
7. Take some fanciful unreality which your imagination has constructed and see whether you can select from it familiar elements from actual experiences.
8. What use do you make of imagination in the common round of duties in your daily life? What are you doing to improve your imagination?
