54 THE TEACHING BOTANIST 



in his work, but be obliged to complete certain portions, 

 or topics, to be judged en masse, and which he must 

 therefore plan to do for himself. The teacher should try 

 to cultivate the idea that it is a teacher's duty simply 

 to provide the opportunity to learn, while the responsi- 

 bility of taking advantage of this opportunity rests 

 upon the student. Of course, this applies rather to the 

 better students ; it will always be necessary to force 

 the poorer. Again, information and training are still 

 too often confused, and the first place too often given 

 in teaching to the former, and this despite the fact 

 that "what a man can do is more important than what 

 he knows ' has become a commonplace of education. 

 Training is immensely more important than informa- 

 tion in education, for many reasons, and amongst 

 others for this, that the acquisition of information is 

 a power that follows as a matter of course upon train- 

 ing, while there is comparatively little training in the 

 acquisition of information. The trained mind naturally, 

 and without effort, assimilates information and trans- 

 mutes it into knowledge, while the untrained simply 

 stores it en masse to the limit of its capacity, all kinds 

 together. Information, too, which is simply, as it were, 

 laid upon the mind, may soon be forgotten, while train- 

 ing, consisting in a change in the mind itself, always 

 remains. The aim of every teacher should be, training 

 before information, or, in the words of President Eliot, 

 every teacher should Train for Foivcr. 



