Accepting this as a fundamental
truth in education, the problem for our solution is, how to stimulate
children to encounter difficulties. Many children have little
inclination to sacrifice their ease to the cause of learning, and our
dull methods of teaching confirm them in their indifference to
educational incentives. Any child, who, like Hugh Miller or Abraham
Lincoln, already possesses an insatiable thirst for knowledge, will
allow no difficulties or hardships to stand in the way of progress.
This original appetite and thirst for knowledge which the select few
have often manifested in childhood is more valuable than anything the
schools can give. With the majority of children we can certainly do
nothing better than to nurture such a taste for knowledge into vigorous
life. It will not do to assume that the average of children have any
such original energy or momentum to lead them to scale the heights of
even ordinary knowledge. Nor will it do to rely too much upon a
_forcing process_, that is, by means of threats, severity, and
discipline, to carry children against their will toward the educational
goal.
"Be not like dumb driven cattle,
Be a hero in the strife"
is sound educational doctrine.
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