The Art of Thinking.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1991, 11 April 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Art of Thinking.

TnE object of the teaoher is to teach to think. The pupil thinks enough, but he thinks loosely, incoherently indefinitely, and vaguely. He expends power enough on his mental work, but it is poorly applied. The teaoher points out to him these indefinite or incoherent results, and demands logical statements of him. Here ia the positive advantage the teacher is to the pupil. Let us suppose two pupils are studying the same lesson in geography or grammar or history. One reads to get the facts ;he fastens hii eye on the page and his mind to the subject before him ; he makes the book a study and aoquires information from it ; his object is to acquire knowledge. He attains this end. The other also studies the book, but while reading he is obtaining lessons in thinking. He doei not merely commit to memory ; he itops to see if the argument is sound, he analyzes it to see if the conclusion is warranted by the premises. The one who thinks as he reads is quite different, it will be seen, from him who simply learns as he reads. To read and think, or to think as one reads, is the end to seek. To teach to think is then the art of the teacher. The reader for facts gets facts ; he comes to the recitation Beat and reels off those facts. His mind, like Edison's phonograph, gives back just what it received. While this power is valuable, it is not the power the world wants. The teacher will find his pupils come to the reoitation to transmit the facts they have gained. He must put them in quite another frame of mind. Instead of reoitations they mutt be made into thinkers. The value of the teacher is measured by his power to teach the art of thinking. — Teacher 1 * Institute.