“Those who have been brought up under the ordinary school drill, and have carried away with them the idea that education is practicable only in that style, will think it hopeless to make children their own teachers. If, however, they will call to mind that the all-important knowledge of surrounding objects which a child gets in its early years is got without help--if they will remember that the child is self-taught in the use of its mother tongue; if they will estimate the amount of that experience of life, that out-of-school wisdom, which every boy gathers for himself; if they will mark the unusual intelligence of the uncared-for London gamin, as shown in all the directions in which his faculties have been tasked; if further, they will think how many minds have struggled up unaided not only through the mysteries of our irrationally planned curriculum, but through hosts of other obstacles besides--they will find it a not unreasonable conclusion, that if the subject be put before him in right order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity will surmount his successive difficulties with but little assistance” (7: p. 125). Thus, his much-quoted phrase: “Children should be led to make their own investigations and to draw their own inferences. They should be _told_ as little as possible, and induced to _discover_ as much as possible” (7: p. 124). From this point of view the rejection of hasty and indiscriminate book instruction is simply a necessary consequence. Interest is to be the guide and criterion of all instruction or culture. “A child’s intellectual instincts are more trustworthy than our reasonings. In respect to the knowing faculties, we may confidentially trust in the general law, that under normal conditions, healthful action is pleasurable, while action that gives pain is not healthful” (7: p. 127). The result of thus making education a process of self-instruction will, moreover, be to form a never-dying habit of progressive self-culture, to cultivate courage in attacking difficulties, patient concentration of attention, perseverance through failure, to give a good temper, cheerfulness, and confidence, instead of a permanent moroseness, timidity, and even depression; to establish a friendly, trustful, and consequently influential relationship between the teacher and the pupil.