There exists, then, the "spirit" of the scientist, a thing far above his mere "mechanical skill," and the scientist is at the height of his achievement when the spirit has triumphed over the mechanism. When he has reached this point, science will receive from him not only new revelations of nature, but philosophic syntheses of pure thought.
It is my belief that the thing which we should cultivate in our teachers is more the _spirit_ than the mechanical skill of the scientist; that is, the _direction_ of the _preparation_ should be toward the spirit rather than toward the mechanism. For example, when we considered the scientific preparation of teachers to be simply the acquiring of the technique of science, we did not attempt to make these elementary teachers perfect anthropologists, expert experimental psychologists, or masters of infant hygiene; we wished only to _direct them_ toward the field of experimental science, teaching them to manage the various instruments with a certain degree of skill. So now, we wish to _direct_ the teacher, trying to awaken in him, in connection with his own particular field, the school, that scientific _spirit_ which opens the door for him to broader and bigger possibilities. In other words, we wish to awaken in the mind and heart of the educator an _interest in natural phenomena_ to such an extent that, loving nature, he shall understand the anxious and expectant attitude of one who has prepared an experiment and who awaits a revelation from it.[3]
[3] See in my treatise on Pedagogical Anthropology the chapter on "The Method Used In Experimental Sciences."
The instruments are like the alphabet, and we must know how to manage them if we are to read nature; but as the book, which contains the revelation of the greatest thoughts of an author, uses in the alphabet the means of composing the external symbols or words, so nature, through the mechanism of the experiment, gives us an infinite series of revelations, unfolding for us her secrets.
Now one who has learned to spell mechanically all the words in his spelling-book, would be able to read in the same mechanical way the words in one of Shakespeare's plays, provided the print were sufficiently clear. He who is initiated solely into the making of the bare experiment, is like one who spells out the literal sense of the words in the spelling-book; it is on such a level that we leave the teachers if we limit their preparation to technique alone.