86 Education through Nature 



That which the pupil has not, because he has been 

 unable to get it, must be imparted. 



2. We have a right to assume that the pupil has 

 some power of (a) sense perception, (b) thinking, 



(c) judgment, (d) imagination, (e) expression. But 

 these powers are inaccurate. 



Such inaccurate use of powers must be remedied by 

 training. 



3. We have a right to assume, also, that the pupil 

 has at least the germs of the principal moral elements, 



(d) ethical, (b) aesthetic, (c) ideals, (d) character. 

 But these, very probably, are rudimentary. Such 

 rudimentary elements must be developed. 



4. To briefly summarize, then, our task seems to 

 be: (d) to impart (knowledge, power); (b) to train 

 (sense-perception, thinking, judgment, imagination, 

 expression); (c) to develop (the sense of right and 

 truth, the sense of the beautiful, higher ideals, char- 

 acter). Let us keep these things in mind in develop- 

 ing our method! 



III. 



THE METHOD. A method is not for its own sake. 

 It is for the purpose of accomplishing an end in view. 

 Teaching should have an aim. Too often that aim 

 is the ease of the teacher. The pupil is a living, 

 growing thing. The true aim of education and a 

 rational method for realizing that aim cannot be 

 comprehended until the laws of life and growth are 

 understood. Teachers, because they have not under- 

 stood life and growth, have all along been playing 

 with ideas, much as "children play marbles for keeps." 

 Ask them what these ideas are, or how they come to 

 be at all, of course, they do not know. That ideas 

 do appear, with or without a teacher, with or without 

 a book, is certain. 



Life and growth implies change. A method to 



