I don’t remember when I first heard the expression “furnishing the mind,” but I do remember how it immediately seemed to me a perfect complement to something I have been saying for years: “You can’t get something out of a brain that isn’t in there to begin with.” Likely, this idiom predates John Locke, who wrote in “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1689):
Let us then suppose the Mind to be, as we say, white Paper [tabula rasa], void of all Characters without any Ideas; How comes it to be furnished?
For me the expression can lead to a metaphor of a home; the mind is the place where our thinking self lives. Few people possess a large capacity residence; most of us were given a more humble abode. But, what seems more important to me is how it is filled rather than the size of the house. What benefit would be a great mansion of an intellect if poorly furnished? Wouldn’t a small bungalow of a brain filled with good and beautiful and useful things be the greater blessing and of the greater use?
So, I will attempt an answer—at least in part—to Locke’s question. For now, I will posit that as teachers of the arts of language we should energetically furnish three vital areas: vocabulary, syntax, and metaphor. Furthermore, these key divisions can be cultivated in three natural and most effective ways: hearing, reading, and memorization.
Hearing
It is unlikely if not impossible for a child to speak or write a word he has never heard. Primarily, language is an auditory and verbal function, and only secondarily does it become a written record of thought. Unless encumbered by a neurological impediment, we learn the meanings of words almost effortlessly simply from the world around us during the most formative years of our childhood. If the language used in daily life is rich, varied, and nuanced, a child’s passive vocabulary will naturally be expanded beyond what it would be in a less linguistically stimulating environment. Then, through a relatively painless but seemingly slow process, the words heard are imitated and make their way into the child’s active vocabulary. This continues into early adulthood, when this naturally slows and the person nears his or her lifetime vocabulary potential (unless it is aggressively pursued later in life). Likewise, with grammar a child’s variety and facility in forming complex phrases, clauses, sentences, and narratives are primarily established during the first two decades or so and will become the set of tools he or she will be furnished with for life.
Thus, if our goal is to equip students with the highest level of skill in using language effectively, we must pay great attention to the auditory environment. As we talk to each other and to our children throughout the day, are we using language carefully, even beautifully? Sadly, it is hard to do in this modern, stress-enhanced, semichaotic life we consider normal. Of course, we must try, but we will inevitably fall short of an ideal environment due to the interferences of technology and the vicissitudes of each day.
This is why reading aloud to children is of the greatest importance. Books will bring into the ear and mind a level of language far above that which daily conversation can provide. Supplement that with abundant audiobooks. Make time to engage in meaningful conversations about the books read. With intention, build a world of beautiful language and thought. If you can construct a rich auditory world for your young students, half their work of acquiring excellent reading and writing skills will have been accomplished.
Reading
As children become fluent readers, their work moves from the simple practice of decoding letters and words to the grasp of greater meaning from the texts they encounter. In so many cases, the easy-to-read books are intellectually insulting to the children using them since those books are much less engaging than the imaginative world of the picture books and stories we read to them. So initially the satisfaction from reading comes with a feeling of success in decoding, like doing puzzles, but seldom from the stories themselves.
Gradually, however, the books improve, and the enjoyment of reading comes from immersion in characters and plot as well as engagement with ideas—a stimulated imagination. Again, audiobooks and reading aloud are the best ways to motivate students to keep developing ease and speed in decoding so they can reach a level of ease at which they will truly enjoy the better books. From these better books—eventually great books—the literary mind is furnished with the poetic beauty of words alongside the tropes which illumine the imagination. An attentive reader will semiconsciously (or perhaps intentionally) become aware of particularly effective techniques used by great writers. These readers will then be able to draw upon this linguistic furnishing, imitating and integrating things they have read into their own speaking or writing style, enabling them to draw on a higher level of vocabulary, use a more literary, complex style, and reach for a similar level of embedded poetic technique.
Memorization
A more meaningful synonym for memorize would be “learn by heart,” which is the idiom my mother always used. When we learn good music by heart and lovely poems by heart, this furnishes not only our minds with song and language but also our souls with beauty and affection. We love what we know the best. When we have poetry and music fully stored in our memories and hearts, they ignite joy while also empowering language skills, broadening vocabulary, and bringing new and varied syntax and inventive metaphor into our spoken and written English. From the beginning of history until about a century ago, memorized language was considered not only a foundational way of furnishing the mind for better writing and speaking, it helped to establish core values into the minds and hearts of students.
These days, however, as a society, we no longer have a cultural tradition of learning the great poems, religious writings, speeches, and songs of past generations. This is a great loss. It means that unless we, as mentors, very intentionally recover and pass on this tradition of learning by heart once again, we will fail to maximize the language and poetic potential of our students.
I take great inspiration in the life of Frederick Douglass, who became the greatest orator of his time, almost a miracle given the harsh childhood and practically nonexistent education he received. My question was “How did he become so articulate, so knowledgeable about history and scripture, so compelling?” By his own description this was accomplished in great part by his study of a small book of famous speeches from history and “committing them all to memory.” He furnished his mind, or mental workshop, with the best tools and materials to be had in his time. Few, if any, men or women have exceeded his eloquence in our more modern times.
Certainly, there are many other aspects of life experience which add greatly to the furnishing of our minds, imagination, conscience, and subconscious. But one thing we know for sure: It is possible and very beneficial to be intentional about creating an optimal language environment. Let us adopt a lifestyle which includes reading aloud to children as much as possible, thereby cultivating a lifetime love of literature while also incorporating more memorization of the best poetry, scripture, history, and music we can find. Rich furnishings of the mind are an endless blessing for our whole life, and rather than furniture, they more resemble a nearly inexhaustible supply of materiel with which we can invent solutions when fighting the battles of life—by better listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking.
