The pupil is encouraged to form, on the basis of the particular facts, a
general notion, a conception of how they stand related; but no pains are
taken to make the student follow up the notion, to elaborate it and see
just what its bearings are upon the case in hand and upon similar cases.
The inductive inference, the guess, is formed by the student; if it
happens to be correct, it is at once accepted by the teacher; or if it
is false, it is rejected. If any amplification of the idea occurs, it
is quite likely carried through by the teacher, who thereby assumes the
responsibility for its intellectual development. But a complete, an
integral, act of thought requires that the person making the suggestion
(the guess) be responsible also for reasoning out its bearings upon the
problem in hand; that he develop the suggestion at least enough to
indicate the ways in which it applies to and accounts for the specific
data of the case. Too often when a recitation does not consist in simply
testing the ability of the student to display some form of technical
skill, or to repeat facts and principles accepted on the authority of
text-book or lecturer, the teacher goes to the opposite extreme; and
after calling out the spontaneous reflections of the pupils, their
guesses or ideas about the matter, merely accepts or rejects them,
assuming himself the responsibility for their elaboration. In this way,
the function of suggestion and of interpretation is excited, but it is
not directed and trained. Induction is stimulated but is not carried
over into the _reasoning_ phase necessary to complete it.
In other subjects and topics, the deductive phase is isolated, and is
treated as if it were complete in itself. This false isolation may show
itself in either (and both) of two points; namely, at the beginning or
at the end of the resort to general intellectual procedure.
[Sidenote: Isolation of deduction by commencing with it]
(_iii_) Beginning with definitions, rules, general principles,
classifications, and the like, is a common form of the first error. This
method has been such a uniform object of attack on the part of all
educational reformers that it is not necessary to dwell upon it further
than to note that the mistake is, logically, due to the attempt to
introduce deductive considerations without first making acquaintance
with the particular facts that create a need for the generalizing
rational devices. Unfortunately, the reformer sometimes carries his
objection too far, or rather locates it in the wrong place. He is led
into a tirade against _all_ definition, all systematization, all use of
general principles, instead of confining himself to pointing out their
futility and their deadness when not properly motivated by familiarity
with concrete experiences.
[Sidenote: Isolation of deduction from direction of new observations]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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