16 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
their pupils in attempting to teach what they have no time or taste to thoroughly 
understand. All education must suffer till a judicious division of mental labor 
will neither require nor allow one to teach these topics for which he has not him- 
self sufficient enthusiasm to inspire his pupils. 
Another reason for the too prevalent notion that what is in reality the most 
charming line of study is the most dry and void of interest, is that these subjects 
are taken up so late in the course of study that the pupil never acquires the 
scientific method. He is set to learning definitions, laws and principles before 
he has been allowed to see any basis in fact and reason for them ; compelled to 
accept the conclusion before he has considered the premises ; and to crowd the 
memory with long lists of hard names relating to objects of which he has no intel- 
ligent conception, because he has never seen or carefully examined them. 
Again, when science has been accorded its fair share of opportunities, these 
have, for the most part, been practically wasted by wrong methods. It is a sad 
mistake, though I believe a ruinously common one, to think the teacher's work is 
to impart information. The teacher ought not so much to be a good conductor 
as a good exciter or electric. The parent does not best serve his child when he 
hands from bis own purse whatever the boy wants ; but rather he who with holds 
every possible cent which the boy can earn for himself, and bestows the most 
precious gift when he teaches him to earn his own money. The history of great 
men is of those whom some circumstance — usually poverty — had compelled to 
help themselves. And I believe the best teacher is the one who imparts only the 
least possible information that will inspire and foster thought, and only helps his 
pupil to think and acquire for himself. A stuffed turkey is not remarkable for 
intellectual power, but is about as much so as a stuffed boy, and certainly far more 
agreeable to a cultivated taste. A porker once chewed up for a friend of mine 
a leather purse containing $300.00 in bills of his own hard earnings. It made 
just about as much fat on the hog's ribs as 300 thoroughly digested and well-put 
statements from a teacher would benefit an ordinary school boy. That which costs 
one nothing is no more a good to him than the funds which others have earned 
serve to enrich a cashier who receives without appropriating them. 
One can progress more rapidly to carry a child than to teach it to walk. To 
answer a question or solve a problem for a pupil is easier than to lead him on to 
his own solution. But the quicker and easier way only weakens the child by 
fostering the spirit and practice of dependence. Again there is a strong tempta- 
tion ever besetting a self-conscious teacher, — and it might well be called his easily 
besetting sin, — to exhibit on every occasion his own superior knowledge, by put- 
ting forth his own views before his pupils are given a moment's time to reach a 
conclusion for themselves. By thus robbing them of the opportunity to form an 
opinion of their own, he does his pupils an irrepairable wrong. All honor and 
praise are due to the rare virtue of an instructor with a self-forgetful devotion to 
the best interests of his pupils which allows them to think by with holding his 
own thoughts. 
The best educators of to-day are thoroughly convinced that a knowledge ot 
