earlier experience, thinks of the slap and the frustration, recollects
the begging and the reward, inhibits the snatching impulse, substitutes
the 'nice' reaction for it, and gets the toy immediately, by eliminating
all the intermediary steps. If a child's first snatching impulse be
excessive or his memory poor, many repetitions of the discipline may be
needed before the acquired reaction comes to be an ingrained habit; but
in an eminently educable child a single experience will suffice.

One can easily represent the whole process by a brain-diagram. Such a
diagram can be little more than a symbolic translation of the immediate
experience into spatial terms; yet it may be useful, so I subjoin it.

[Illustration: FIGURE 1. THE BRAIN-PROCESSES BEFORE EDUCATION.]

Figure 1 shows the paths of the four successive reflexes executed by the
lower or instinctive centres. The dotted lines that lead from them to
the higher centres and connect the latter together, represent the
processes of memory and association which the reactions impress upon the
higher centres as they take place.

[Illustration: FIGURE 2. THE BRAIN-PROCESS AFTER EDUCATION.]

In Figure 2 we have the final result. The impression _see_ awakens the
chain of memories, and the only reactions that take place are the _beg_
and _smile_. The thought of the _slap_, connected with the activity of
Centre 2, inhibits the _snatch_, and makes it abortive, so it is
represented only by a dotted line of discharge not reaching the
terminus. Ditto of the _cry_ reaction. These are, as it were,
short-circuited by the current sweeping through the higher centres from
_see_ to _smile_. _Beg_ and _smile_, thus substituted for the original