Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/98

 aggregation of material about the plant does not constitute its growth. The plant must assimilate; the juices of life must flow through it.

The teacher does his best work when he makes all conditions favorable for the self-activity of the pupil. Such conditions create a lively interest in the objects and forces of nature, invite examination of facts and discovery of relations, arouse the imagination to conceive results, awaken query and reflection, stimulate the emotional life toward worthy and energetic action, and make the pupil ever progressive.

An article in one of our magazines strongly emphasizes the methods that make power. It considers the kind of training that finally makes accurate thinkers, that makes original, progressive men, men of power, and safe and wise citizens. The author shows that clear observation, accurate recording of facts, just inference, and strong, choice expression are most important ends to be attained by the work of the schools, and that these ends become the means for correcting all sorts of unjust, illogical conclusions as to politics and morals.

There is much profound thought in the view maintained. Unjust inferences, fallacies, are nearly the sum of the world's social and political evils. False ideas are held as true concerning all sorts of current problems—notions that take possession of men's minds without logical reflection. The fallacy of confounding sequence with cause is almost universal. All kinds of subjective and objective duties suffer from illogical minds.

To correct many errors and evils, to make thinking, useful men, we must emphasize the processes