EDUCATION AND ART OF REASONING. K) 



The laboratory for science, sources of informa- 

 tion for history, inventional work in mathe- 

 matics, all bear witness that the student has 

 been brought into direct contact with the mate- 

 rial by means of which his intellect is to be 

 trained. The best laboratory hand-books are 

 no longer books of directions, but of sugges- 

 tion and question ; these books constitute a 

 distinct recognition that the art of reasoning is 

 the heart of education, that the true student is 

 from first to last a discoverer, and that any 

 method which makes the discoveries for him is 

 wrong. 



There are, however, two very distinct orders 

 of reasoning: the order of discovery, which the 

 mind follows as it winds its way among facts, 

 adopting tentatively hypotheses which are after- 

 wards rejected, and groping along the border 

 of the unknown in the pursuit of knowledge; 

 and the order of proof or argument, used by 

 the investigator in his effort to convince his 

 hearer or reader of the truth of his results. 

 The order of proof may ignore entirely the 

 steps by which the discoveries were made, the 

 materials collected, and the conclusions drawn. 

 The aim is conviction, and the evidence is 

 arranged in the most lucid order to support the 

 conclusions established at the end of an inves- 



