galton.org 73
Mental Imagery
73
men of old times. In ages so far gone by, that the interval that separates
them from our own may be measured in perhaps hundreds of thousands of
years, when Europe was mostly icebound, a race who, in the opinion of all
anthropologists, was closely allied to the modern Eskimo, lived in caves
in the more habitable places. Many broken relics of that race have been
found; some few of these are of bone engraved with flints or carved into.
figures, and among these are representations of the mammoth, elk, and
reindeer, which, if made by an English labourer with the much better
implements at his command, would certainly attract local attention and
lead to his being properly educated, and in much likelihood to his
becoming a considerable artist if he had intellectual powers to match.
It is not at all improbable that these prehistoric men had the same
geographical instincts as the modern Eskimo, whom they closely resemble
in every known respect. If so, it is perfectly possible that scraps of charts
scratched on bone or stone, of prehistoric Europe, when the distribution of
land, sea, and ice was very different to what it is now, may still exist,
buried underground, and may reward the zeal of some future cave
explorer.
There is abundant evidence that the visualising faculty admits of being
developed by education. The testimony on which I would lay especial
stress is derived from the published experiences of M. Lecoq de
Boisbaudran, late director of the École Nationale de Dessein, in Paris,
which are related in his Education de Za Mémoire Pittoresque.
[1]
He
trained his pupils with extraordinary success, beginning with the simplest
figures. They were made to study the models thoroughly before they tried
to draw them from memory. One favourite expedient was to associate the
sight memory with the muscular memory, by making his pupils follow at
a distance the outlines of the figures with a pencil held in their hands.
After three or four months practice, their visual memory became greatly
strengthened. They had no difficulty in summoning images at will, in
holding them steady, and in drawing them. Their copies
[1]
Republished in an 8vo, entitled Enseignment Artistique Morel et Cie. Paris, 1879
.
