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INTERNATIONAL OONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
SOME ASSOCIATION TRACKS INVOLVED IN READING 
AND SPELLING. 
BY THOMAS M. BALLIET, SUPERINTENDENT SCHOOLS, SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 
IT is a fact fairly well established that the impressions received through 
the different senses are perceived by different areas, or “ centers,” of the 
cortex ; and in like manner the process of ideation, or recalling these 
sense impressions, is carried on by various centers, located for each sense 
probably in the same general region of the brain in which the impressions 
of that sense are perceived ; if indeed ideation is not a function of the 
very same groups of cells which perform the process of perception. Con- 
cepts of objects of sense are therefore reproduced in memory through an 
activity of these centers of ideation ; and a complex concept, such as that 
of an orange, gained through a number of senses, involves for its com- 
olete recall an activity of a number of different areas of the cortex. 
In like manner it is fairly well established that special groups of cells 
or centers have been differentiated in the cortex for the purpose of lan- 
guage. The facts of aphasia show quite clearly that there is a word- 
nearing center, a word-seeing center (a reading center), a speaking center, 
and a writing center. 
The different centers of ideation are connected by fibers, or association 
cracks, which make it possible for one center to arouse to activity all the 
others. It isin virtue of these association tracks that an entire concept, 
consisting of ideas gained through a number of senses, can be recalled as 
a2 whole and appear in consciousness as a unit. In this way the visual 
perception of a piece of granite recalls its hardness, its roughness, its 
weight, and other. qualities, in idea. When these association tracks are 
listurbed or destroyed by disease, the person perceives an object without 
recognizing it as having ever been perceived by him before and without 
recalling any of its uses. In short, he suffers from what is pathologically 
ermed apraxia. 
Like the centers of ideation, the various language centers are connected 
together by association tracks, both with one another and with the cen- 
ers of ideation. If these association tracks, or the centers themselves, 
are injured by disease, there arise various disturbances of speech, known 
as word-deafness, word-blindness, aphasia proper, and agraphia. 
Without aiming at an exhaustive enumeration, I may say that the most 
important of the association tracks involved in the use of language are the 
following : 
(1) In hearing spoken language, an association is made (a) between the 
oral word in the auditory word center and the ideas constituting a con-