This volume is not designed to supplant systematic treatises on psychology and logic. Its aim is to throw light upon one important phase of the art of teaching. If it contributes but two mites to the treasury of information on the science and art of education, the labor bestowed upon it has not been in vain. Should any critic hint that two mites are all one has to give, it may be said in reply that it is better to give something than to give nothing at all, and that according to Holy Writ the smallest contributions are not to be despised if made in the right spirit. And it may add to the critic’s stock of ideas to be informed that a small English weight, called mite, outweighs very many of the current criticisms upon modern education, that of this small weight it takes twenty to make a grain, and that to a faithful teacher a tenth of a grain of helpful suggestion is worth more than many tons of destructive criticism.
IV.—BASAL CONCEPTS AS THOUGHT-MATERIAL 63
VI.—TECHNICAL TERMS AS INSTRUMENTS OF THOUGHT 99
XIV.—THE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN LISTENING AND READING 223
XV.—THE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN WRITING, SPEAKING, AND ORAL READING 239
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; he who dares not is a slave.
Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above the beasts in this lower world.
Man is not the prince of creatures, But in reason. Fail that, he is worse Than horse, or dog, or beast of wilderness.
Man is a thinking being, whether he will or no. All he can do is to turn his thoughts the best way.
For the purpose of testing the quality of gold alloy jewellers formerly used a fine-grained dark stone, called the touchstone. In the eyes of an educator good instruction is more precious than pure gold. The touchstone by which he tests the quality of instruction, so as to distinguish genuine teaching from its counterfeit, rote teaching, is thinking. The schoolmaster who teaches by rote is satisfied if the pupils repeat his words or those of the book; the true teacher sees to it that the pupils think the thoughts which the words convey.
Thring, who, next to Arnold, was perhaps the greatest teacher England ever had, laid much stress upon thinking. Sometimes he would startle a dull lad, in the midst of an exercise, by asking, “What have you got sticking up between your shoulders?” “My head,” was the reply. “How does it differ from a turnip?” And by questioning he would elicit the answer, “The head thinks; the turnip does not.”