A
Cambridge student who had taken the best prizes and scholarships said
at the end of his university career: "I am at a loss to know what to
do. I have already gained the best distinctions, and I can see but
little to work for in the future." The child of four years, who opens
his eyes with unfeigned interest and surprised inquiry into the big
world around him, has a better spirit than such a dead product of
university training. But happily this is not the spirit of our
universities now. The remarkable and characteristic idea in university
life today is the spirit of investigation and scientific inquiry which
it constantly awakens. We happen to live in a time when university
teachers are trying to enlarge the bounds of human knowledge in every
direction, to solve problems that have not been solved before. No
matter what the subject, the real student soon becomes an explorer, an
investigator in fields of absorbing interest. The common school can
scarcely do better than to receive this generous impulse into its work.
Can our common studies be approached in this inquisitive spirit? Can
growth in knowledge be made a progressive investigation? A true
interest takes pleasure in acquired knowledge, and standing upon this
vantage looks with inquiring purpose into new worlds.
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