A reaction inevitably occurs from the poor results that accrue from
these professedly "logical" methods. Lack of interest in study, habits
of inattention and procrastination, positive aversion to intellectual
application, dependence upon sheer memorizing and mechanical routine
with only a modicum of understanding by the pupil of what he is about,
show that the theory of logical definition, division, gradation, and
system does not work out practically as it is theoretically supposed to
work. The consequent disposition--as in every reaction--is to go to the
opposite extreme. The "logical" is thought to be wholly artificial and
extraneous; teacher and pupil alike are to turn their backs upon it, and
to work toward the expression of existing aptitudes and tastes. Emphasis
upon natural tendencies and powers as the only possible starting-point
of development is indeed wholesome. But the reaction is false, and hence
misleading, in what it ignores and denies: the presence of genuinely
intellectual factors in existing powers and interests.
[Sidenote: Logic of subject-matter is logic of adult or trained mind]
What is conventionally termed logical (namely, the logical from the
standpoint of subject-matter) represents in truth the logic of the
trained adult mind. Ability to divide a subject, to define its elements,
and to group them into classes according to general principles
represents logical capacity at its best point reached _after_ thorough
training. The mind that habitually exhibits skill in divisions,
definitions, generalizations, and systematic recapitulations no longer
needs training in logical methods. But it is absurd to suppose that a
mind which needs training because it cannot perform these operations
can begin where the expert mind stops. _The logical from the standpoint
of subject-matter represents the goal, the last term of training, not
the point of departure._
[Sidenote: The immature mind has its own logic]
[Sidenote: Hence, the _psychological_ and the _logical_ represent the
two ends of the same movement]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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