CHILDREN'S QUESTIONING. 803 



in educating them. Even Froebel seems to have overlooked its 

 great value as a means of developing reason, judgment, the rela- 

 tion of things, and everything that makes for real knowledge. 

 Out of school it has room. A man may question everything, 

 past, present, and future, but a child's inalienable right to say 

 " Why ? " out loud in a schoolroom is hardly recognized. He is 

 to take instruction without question. Traditions in education 

 are almost unchangeable. 



Children, as a rule, do not like to be held to a definite line of 

 questioning by a teacher, unless the subject is very interesting by 

 nature. The impressive, commanding, magnetic teacher may have 

 no apparent difficulty in holding the pupils to her questions ; but 

 pride in that feat partakes strongly of vainglory. What will 

 they do when left to themselves ? What can they do without 

 her ? How far can they go alone ? To what degree are they 

 self- controlled. Fine instruction has value, but teaching pupils 

 to teach themselves, and simply and skillfully directing their self- 

 activities to that end, is a great deal better. Herbert Spencer 

 says, " Bear constantly in mind the truth that the aim of your 

 discipline should be to produce a self governing being, not to 

 produce a being to be governed hy others." 



President Eliot says: "All teachers who deserve the name now 

 recognize that self-control is the ultimate moral object of train- 

 ing in youth — a self-control independent of temporary artificial 

 restraints, exclusions, or pressures, as also of the physical presence 

 of a dominating person. To cultivate in the young this self- 

 control should be the steady object of parents and teachers all the 

 way from babyhood to full maturity." 



There are a few schools in which the pupils feel free to ask 

 questions, when it is necessary, in school time. In many schools 

 there is a standing invitation to ask and answer questions before 

 and after school. Such an invitation amounts to a prohibition 

 of questioning. In many schools the pupils are trained to talk ; 

 but the substance of the talk is along the old line, reproduction, 

 or a new form of recitation, better than the old, because in the 

 pupils' own language. Nevertheless, training children to ques- 

 tion in school time as a means of developing reason, power of 

 comprehension, and self-control is scarcely appreciated anywhere. 

 Even suggestions of children's questioning are exceedingly few 

 in literature on education ; but records of its actual practice are 

 unknown. Two lines in Tate's Philosophy of Education and a 

 few lines concerning the Jesuits' methods of teaching in Quick's 

 Educational Reformers are all the suggestions that have come to 

 my notice. The Jesuits divided their boys into two camps and 

 had them question each other, to stimulate rivalry and emulation. 



It will be readily conceded that teachers like to question 



