It is a well-known fact that a really intelligent child finds great
difficulty in believing that the earth is round. Stupid children,
on the other hand, believe anything they are told. The difficulty
experienced by the first child is due to the fact that, in however
elementary a way, it is conscious of the implications of the statement.
The stupid child seems to be unaware that the statement has any
implications; it seems able to accept almost any statement in some
curiously bare, unrelated fashion. Hermann Bahr has an interesting and
amusing story of how profoundly his faith in his father was shaken when
the latter, _à propos_ of a sunset, told the young boy that in
reality it was the earth that turned round and not the sun. Completely
overwhelming objections to this statement rose instantly in young
Hermann’s mind, and, outraged by this insult to his intelligence, he
preserved a hurt and dignified silence that lasted for days.
We notice the same essential difference in schoolboys and university
students, and, in fact, in men of any age. Perhaps the majority
of men, and less certainly of children, have but little sense of
the implications of a statement. The sense of implications does not
necessarily involve the ability to discover the implications--that is
a comparatively rare gift. It acts rather in a negative manner, making
the student restless under a subtly illogical presentation of a case,
or leaving the schoolboy frankly mutinous at the end of a sermon. It
is not a gift which makes a rapid learner, although its absence will
prevent a man from ever knowing a subject properly. It is unfortunate
that education, as practised in this country, does not sufficiently
take into account this very desirable inhibition. The text-book plays
a very large part in contemporary education, and most text-books are
designed for those who can swallow statements at great speed. That
delicate web of doubt, of half-seen alternative explanations, which
comes into the mind of the intelligent student when confronted with
the highly dogmatic statements and somewhat perfunctory “proofs” of
many modern text-books, counts as sheer loss in the examination race.
This is especially true of scientific text-books, which are usually
conceived on an entirely wrong plan, judged from the standpoint of
rational education. Statements which are the final expression of
very difficult and slowly acquired abstractions are presented in all
their nakedness, and followed by a collection of “examples.” The glib
student learns these statements as if he were learning a foreign
language, and soon masters the tricks necessary to apply them. I
have known such students able to solve very difficult problems and
yet entirely unable to meet, in any way, a sceptical attack upon
the fundamental theorem they employ. The fact is that this method
of teaching science is psychologically unnatural, and the knowledge
acquired on this method is largely sham knowledge. While it may not
be true that the child passes through “cultural epochs” in its mental
growth, it is true that it will feel many of the hesitations and
difficulties experienced by the men who first formulated the concepts
now presented to it for its instant acceptance. It is for this reason
that the best method of teaching a science is probably the historic
method. In this way not only are many doubts fairly met instead of
being merely repressed, but the exact _portée_ of a statement and
possible lines of extension are much more clearly seen. The effect of
the modern text-book is to make the intelligent student feel that he is
remarkably unintelligent; the text-book writer is so terribly cocksure.
But if the historic method must be rejected as too lengthy one may
plead for its partial application. Let the text-book give the broad
outlines, and let the student supplement these by reading, wherever
possible, the standard memoirs written by the original discoverers.
In this way he will gain something much more valuable than a more
thorough acquaintance with his subject; he will learn something of the
mental gesture of the true man of science, something very different
from the glittering efficiency of the text-book writer. Consider, for
instance, the following passage from Newton, writing on the theory of
light: He discusses a corpuscular theory, and continues:
But they, that like not this, may suppose light any other corporeal
emanation, or any impulse or motion of any other medium or æthereal
spirit diffused through the main body of æther, or what else they
can imagine proper for this purpose. To avoid dispute, and make this
hypothesis general, let every man here take his fancy; only whatever
light be, I suppose it consists of rays differing from one another in
contingent circumstances, as bigness, form, or vigour.
The subject here becomes alive in a way it never does in the text-book.
It is of the greatest importance that the student should see, not
merely the results, but the avenues of approach. He will gain more
confidence in his own powers and more interest in the subject.
For those people also who, without being students, take an interest in
science, the reading of original memoirs may be recommended. Much of
the science they learn in this way will be wrong, but they will see it
as something thoroughly human and, it may be, as something thoroughly
sympathetic. The text-book has an air of infallibility which is very
repellent, and it is difficult to avoid associating this with the
scientific man. But it is merely a manifestation of the same tendency
that produces stereotyped restaurants. A reading of the old memoirs
shows science as tentative, imaginative, courageous. They show that the
man of science is a humanist.