54 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



thinking body-politic. This, of course, does not say that 

 each country has arrived at the same stage in the solu- 

 tion of this problem, nor that they will each necessarily 

 arrive at the same or even a similar one. Yet, the general 

 criteria for judging a system for either country will be 

 much the same. Now, an informed, interested, and think- 

 ing body-politic would imply some process of education 

 involving first, the imparting of certain quantities of 

 facts, second, the awakening of intellectual curiosity, and 

 third, some attempt to develop independent thinking. If 

 these three elements can be mixed in due proportion, the 

 result should be a type of education suited to the purpose 

 in hand. 



But just what constitutes a "due proportion" seems to 

 be the snag. One class lays the greatest emphasis on the 

 first requirement and maintains that any system of educa- 

 tion is hopelessly incomplete and narrow which has not 

 given the student a little Latin and mathematics, some 

 acquaintance with English Literature, some German or 

 French, a little ancient and modern history, political gov- 

 ernment, some manual training or needlecraft, a modicum 

 of chemistry and physics, a bit of bird study, etc., etc., or 

 in fact, which seems to slight any field of human know- 

 ledge. They unconsciously proceed on the theory that 

 since no one knows exactly what he is going to do in later 

 life, he should be given such a breadth of useful infor- 

 mation that there is bound to be some of it which he can 

 use later on. Needless to say, their program is so ambi- 

 tious that they do not have much time for the other two 

 requirements. They represent what we might term the 

 adherents of the "fact-education" idea. 



Another school, while recognizing the necessity of mas- 

 tering a certain number of facts, argues that education is 

 not altogether a process of accumulating predigested 

 ideas on a world of isolated facts, but is rather a disciplin- 

 ing of the will and a training of the mind in correct men- 

 tal processes ; that it is a fitting of the recipient of this 

 training to use his mind in solving the difficulties which 

 life presents: that, further, it is an awakening of a crav- 

 ing for knowledge and an imparting of the means for 

 self-satisfaction of this craving. They proceed on the 



