Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II FACTS AND PURPOSES IN EDUCATION We said that it must be our first task to see clearly the difference between means and aims, between facts and purposes. We must recognize and select the aims of elu cation before we can apply the psychological facts in their service. The need of this separation may become more evident if we point at first to a few illustrations. They may indicate by experiences of daily routine how inadequate the facts are to show us the best goals, and how easily commendable movements may cheapen their causes by fallacious arguments which confuse facts and purposes. The student of the child, for instance, knows an abundance of facts with reference to imitation. No one doubts that imitation plays a decisive role in the development of every young mind, hence it is rightly a favorite topic of the modern psychologist. He tries, therefore, to analyze the imitative process; he seeks its elements and studies upon what factors it is dependent, how its working can be improved and strengthened, or how its influence may be suppressed. If all the means of modern psychology are conscientiously used, we may finally come to feel that we know all the facts involved in imitation; but can that possibly include also a knowledge of what the child ought to imitate? Can any study of imitation as a psychical process give the teacher the slightest hint as to what modelsfor imitation ought to be put before the mind of the pupil? Is it more valuable to imitate the hero or the scholar or the martyr or the athlete or the captain of industry? Is it more valuable to imitate unscrupulous success or humble honesty, the life of self denial or the life of glory? Some model for the imitation of the boys must be in the soul of every teacher can the psychology or physiology or socio...
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