Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/486

476 term science rather indicates that end of intellectual endeavour which centres in the possession of knowledge; the term discipline rather points to that other end of intellectual endeavour which centres in the evolution and exercise of reason and reflection. Every intellectual pursuit has thus two sides, a theoretical and a practical. Viewed on its theoretical side, it consists of a body of knowledge, and may properly be called a science; viewed on its practical side, it is a means of unfolding, training, and exercising the mind, of educing its latent capacities of thought (as the very word education indicates), and as such, it is properly called a discipline. This is what is meant by saying that instruction is or ought to be both theoretical and practical. It ought to be theoretical, because its business is to impart knowledge; it ought to be practical, because its business is to exercise and strengthen the mind. You will thus perceive (and I make this remark parenthetically), that practical teaching, in the sense in which I have explained it—and I believe this is the proper view to take of it—is something very different from what is usually understood by that expression. Practical teaching is generally regarded as the communication of a knowledge which may be useful to us in the daily concerns of life, in our professional pursuits, and in the ordinary intercourse of society. Far be it from rue to disparage the importance of such knowledge; but the teaching which imparts it is rather theoretical than practical. Practical teaching, I again