(_iv_) The isolation of deduction is seen, at the other end, wherever
there is failure to clinch and test the results of the general reasoning
processes by application to new concrete cases. The final point of the
deductive devices lies in their use in assimilating and comprehending
individual cases. No one understands a general principle fully--no
matter how adequately he can demonstrate it, to say nothing of repeating
it--till he can employ it in the mastery of new situations, which, if
they _are_ new, differ in manifestation from the cases used in reaching
the generalization. Too often the text-book or teacher is contented with
a series of somewhat perfunctory examples and illustrations, and the
student is not forced to carry the principle that he has formulated over
into further cases of his own experience. In so far, the principle is
inert and dead.
[Sidenote: Lack of provision for experimentation]
(_v_) It is only a variation upon this same theme to say that
every complete act of reflective inquiry makes provision for
experimentation--for testing suggested and accepted principles by
employing them for the active construction of new cases, in which new
qualities emerge. Only slowly do our schools accommodate themselves to
the general advance of scientific method. From the scientific side, it
is demonstrated that effective and integral thinking is possible only
where the experimental method in some form is used. Some recognition of
this principle is evinced in higher institutions of learning, colleges
and high schools. But in elementary education, it is still assumed, for
the most part, that the pupil's natural range of observations,
supplemented by what he accepts on hearsay, is adequate for intellectual
growth. Of course it is not necessary that laboratories shall be
introduced under that name, much less that elaborate apparatus be
secured; but the entire scientific history of humanity demonstrates that
the conditions for complete mental activity will not be obtained till
adequate provision is made for the carrying on of activities that
actually modify physical conditions, and that books, pictures, and even
objects that are passively observed but not manipulated do not furnish
the provision required.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JUDGMENT: THE INTERPRETATION OF FACTS
§ 1. _The Three Factors of Judging_
[Sidenote: Good judgment]
A man of good judgment in a given set of affairs is a man in so far
educated, trained, whatever may be his literacy. And if our schools turn
out their pupils in that attitude of mind which is conducive to good
judgment in any department of affairs in which the pupils are placed,
they have done more than if they sent out their pupils merely possessed
of vast stores of information, or high degrees of skill in specialized
branches. To know what is _good_ judgment we need first to know what
judgment is.
[Sidenote: Judgment and inference]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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