A Brief Explanation of Principles and Methods.

by T. Sharper Knowlson.

Director of Instruction at The Pelman Institue, London, England.

The Times, Thursday, February 20, 1919.

There are no doubt many people who wonder what the Pelman Course is like, and what happens when a student enrolls. In this announcement I wish to answer that question in most of its bearings, and in a manner that is at once simple and straightforward. But before doing so I should like to say a word or two about the bases of Pelmanism.

In one sense it is a new kind of education; in another sense it is as old as the hills. One might even say that it is an adaptation of the Socratic method of question and answer, the object being to bring out all the possibilities that lie within the recesses of the mind and soul.

It is giving each individual a full opportunity of personal development. This indeed, is what the word education means—a bringing out of inward powers—but so many opposing methods are included under the heading of education that we would prefer to drop the word entirely, and to substitute the word training.

A New Kind of Education.

It is in this sense that Pelmanism is a new kind of education, the fundamental conception being that all efficiencies, of any kind whatever, are first of all mental efficiencies; that is, they exist in the mind as internal facts before they can exist as external realities.

• The sculptor sees the statue in the rough unhewn block of marble.
• The inventor sees the result of his ingenuity before he has actually realized it as a concrete fact.
• The painter sees the picture before he has painted it.
• The business man opens many branches long before he has even chosen the streets in which they shall ultimately be located.

That is why Psychology is one of the first of all sciences. If Mind rules the world, and is the creator of all great things, its training must naturally occupy the first place.

The Exercises are Vitally Important.

Now we may turn to the question with which we commenced. When a student has enrolled he receives two books, I. and II., in which are placed what we call Work-Sheets containing questions set on the text books, and reserving spaces for reports on certain prescribed exercises.

The object of the questions on the text-book is two-fold; we desire, first of all, to impress certain truths on his mind; and, secondly, we want to stimulate his powers of reflection by suggesting lines of thought that may be new to him.

But it is on the exercises that we place the most emphasis, and the student immediately discovers that to go through a Pelmanism is not to go through a reading course. He has to put himself under discipline, and in his reports on the exercises he has to tell us where he succeeded and where he failed, so that the examiner may advise him as to future efforts.

People come into the Institute almost every day offering us the full fee for the books that we use, and excusing themselves on various pretexts from taking the course in the ordinary way. Naturally we decline.

Pelmanism is not a Reading Course.

Pelmanism is not a collection of text-books; and, although a certain amount of good can be obtained from the mere reading of the books, one by one, it is the practice of the exercises which accomplishes the aim we have in view. An illustration will make this clear.

You go to a physical culture expert, and receive from him a text-book containing an exposition of principles and a series of exercises. These you must study and practice. To read the exposition, but never to make a single movement of the body would be to render the whole process nugatory.

Physical culture requires physical movements on approved lines. In precisely the same way it is impossible to get the real good out of Pelmanism by reading the text-books. There must be the carrying out of mental exercises, not flippantly or lightly, but seriously.

Remarkable Results from Simple Exercises.

There is a further analogy between physical and mental culture. Simple movements of the arms, legs, and of the body generally produce marvelous results in the way of restoring health and strength; and simple mental exercises produce the same marvelous results in the realm of the mind.

The student is astonished to find how an easy exercise in concentration ultimately puts an end to his mind-wandering and increases his memory as well as his self-confidence. It used to be thought that only very advanced subjects would enable a man to learn the secrets of concentration—subjects like the calculus in mathematics, or the thing-in-itself in Philosophy. We know better now.

The simplicities of Pelmanism have reduced this notion to absurdity. When the Prophet prescribed an easy and simple cure for Naaman’s leprosy, that disease-smitten Potentate lost his temper. He wanted something dignified and difficult. Besides, the Prophet himself did not appear; he sent a mere understrapper with a message! Tut, tut. Naaman went into a rage.

But he had on his staff a man with horse sense, who argued the point so cleverly that the Syrian chief dipped himself seven times, and, the story tells us, came out of the river Jordan with a clean skin. The didactic worth of this narrative is its chief asset. It teaches us the value of simplicity. All the great world-movements have been capable of embodiment in simple words.