PLACE OF BOTANY IN EDUCATION 17 



or that self-made men so often have no respect for it. 

 These at least have had the clearness of sight to seek 

 and use the inductive or natural method of acquiring 

 their knowledge, a method vastly better than any which 

 Education had to offer them ; and there is many a 

 man who has succeeded rather in spite of his educa- 

 tion than in consequence of it. The self-made man 

 has no doubt often been better made than would have 

 been the case if " Education ' had had anything to do 

 with the process. 



That this maladjustment of studies is as bad in 

 practice as it is illogical in theory, every teacher of 

 the Sciences knows. Through it, children, during the 

 period of school study, when their minds are in the 

 most receptive and formative state, so far from being 

 made accustomed to natural inductive methods of ac- 

 quiring knowledge, are subjected to excessive text- 

 book and deductive work, which always tends to make 

 them distrustful of their own powers, and leads them 

 to regard as the only real sources of knowledge the 

 thoughts of others properly recorded in printed books. 

 The revival in students of the spirit of inductive in- 

 quiry, a spirit which they naturally possess, but which 

 is usually crushed out of them by their school course, is 

 the first and greatest task of any teacher of a Science. 

 Against a system which permits such a condition, every 

 teacher should wage determined and incessant battle. 



The argument for a classical course has always 



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