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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. 1 1. No. 34. 



more difficult to rate ; and often an attempt 

 to mark them according to the usual rules 

 is unsatisfactory. It is quite easy to assign 

 a mark to the amount that a student knows, 

 or even to discriminate as to the quality of 

 his knowledge. To assign a figure to his 

 ability to apply this knowledge, to originate, 

 to create, to act under its instigaton, is more 

 difficult ; yet it can be done with a fair de- 

 gree of success. 



It must always be borne in mind that a 

 man's value in this life does not depend 

 merely on what he knows, but upon what 

 he can do. Cceteris paribus, the more he 

 knows, the more he should be able to do ; 

 for so much the greater should be the in- 

 centive, if the knowledge imparted to him 

 acts on him as it should. Until technical 

 education was introduced, this fact was not 

 well understood, and it is still far from ap- 

 preciated in many schools. 



For instance : A shows in his paper an 

 encyclopedic knowledge. In his answer to 

 Q. 11 he recites with great precision the 

 properties of silica and iodm. But he fails 

 to answer Q. 30, which calls for a conclusion 

 dependent upon this knowledge. He is like 

 a recruit who has been given a gun, but has 

 not been taught how to fire it off. Such a 

 student demands the teacher's attention at 

 once. His mental inaction is usually the 

 result of poor teaching. 



It may not be amiss for me to say par- 

 enthetically here that teaching is the most 

 difficult of all professions. It is not usually 

 regarded so, but I believe that it is. Much 

 of what is called teaching is nothing more 

 than a kind of pumping. Knowledge is 

 forced in through the most convenient in- 

 tellectual orifice, a great deal being lost in 

 transitu, and not a little leaking out after- 

 wards. The engorged recipient is like a 

 boiler whose feed pump is too big for it and 

 will not cease pumping, but fills the boiler 

 entirely full of water and leaves no space 

 for steam ; whereon the engine slows down 



and stops, or throbs soggily with its cylinder 

 filled with lukewarm water instead of hot 

 expansive steam. 



Again, a student may fail in his attempts 

 to state anything correctly or exactly ; but 

 he fills pages with attempts to apply his 

 knowledge, suggesting all sorts of ideas and 

 applications. Most of them may be impos- 

 sible, some even ridiculous. But no mat- 

 ter, let the teacher take hold of this boj^ at 

 once, for the mind of an Edison, a Siemens 

 or an Ericsson may be seeking nourishment 

 and development. Happy is the teacher 

 who can discern what mean the instinctive 

 strugglings of the embrj^onic master mind, 

 and who can liberate it from the thralldom 

 of routine — who can guide its first weak 

 attempts to walk and climb, until it becomes 

 hardy and venturesome, and fearlessly 

 scales cliffs heretofore inaccessible ; and so 

 clambering by hitherto unknown ways to 

 the peak discovers new fields for human 

 activity, and cuts a wide path by which 

 thousands may enter and take possession. 



What man gpts closer to the Creator than 

 the teacher, who can discern and under- 

 stand His idea as shown in the youth and 

 who clears away the obstacles in the way 

 of its development, nourishes it until it is 

 strong and independent, and itself becomes 

 creative ? Yerily such a teacher has his re- 

 ward. 



Examination papers constructed on the 

 basis I have suggested, viz.: to test not only 

 the knowledge possessed by the student, 

 but also the working of his mind upon the 

 particular subject, will show more clearly 

 the nature and condition of a mind than 

 the daily recitation, because the case is 

 more capable of systematic study and can 

 be made to cover larger fields of mental ac- 

 tivity. While I do not intend to suggest 

 that such examinations should replace the 

 regular recitation, I believe that they 

 should be held frequentlj', and should serve 

 a fai' wider purpose than that of merelj' 



