We ought to follow exactly the
opposite course with children--to give them a wholesome variety of mental
food, and endeavor to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their
minds with dry facts. The important thing is not so much that every child
should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.
What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A
boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have
forgotten almost all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a
thirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach
himself more than the first ever knew. Children are by nature eager for
information. They are always putting questions. This ought to be
encouraged. In fact, we may to a great extent trust to their instincts,
and in that case they will do much to educate themselves. Too often,
however, the acquirement of knowledge is placed before them in a form so
irksome and fatiguing that all desire for information is choked, or even
crushed out; so that our schools, in fact, become places for the
discouragement of learning, and thus produce the very opposite effect from
that at which we aim.
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