(_ii_) Educators should also note the very great individual differences
that exist; they should not try to force one pattern and model upon all.
In many (probably the majority) the executive tendency, the habit of
mind that thinks for purposes of conduct and achievement, not for the
sake of knowing, remains dominant to the end. Engineers, lawyers,
doctors, merchants, are much more numerous in adult life than scholars,
scientists, and philosophers. While education should strive to make men
who, however prominent their professional interests and aims, partake of
the spirit of the scholar, philosopher, and scientist, no good reason
appears why education should esteem the one mental habit inherently
superior to the other, and deliberately try to transform the type from
practical to theoretical. Have not our schools (as already suggested, p.
49) been one-sidedly devoted to the more abstract type of thinking, thus
doing injustice to the majority of pupils? Has not the idea of a
"liberal" and "humane" education tended too often in practice to the
production of technical, because overspecialized, thinkers?
[Sidenote: Aim of education is a working balance]
The aim of education should be to secure a balanced interaction of the
two types of mental attitude, having sufficient regard to the
disposition of the individual not to hamper and cripple whatever powers
are naturally strong in him. The narrowness of individuals of strong
concrete bent needs to be liberalized. Every opportunity that occurs
within their practical activities for developing curiosity and
susceptibility to intellectual problems should be seized. Violence is
not done to natural disposition, but the latter is broadened. As regards
the smaller number of those who have a taste for abstract, purely
intellectual topics, pains should be taken to multiply opportunities and
demands for the application of ideas; for translating symbolic truths
into terms of social life and its ends. Every human being has both
capabilities, and every individual will be more effective and happier if
both powers are developed in easy and close interaction with each
other.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EMPIRICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THINKING
§ 1. _Empirical Thinking_
[Sidenote: Empirical thinking depends on past habits]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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