make grammar, arithmetic, history and other subjects life unfolding instruments. Teaching unites the not-self with the self by means of a spiritual principle which is presupposed in the difference of subject and object. The entire life of the school is a reciprocal action between these two forces whose resultant is knowledge and culture. We can know the object only in unity with the self and we can know the subject only as it is realized in the object. The final aim in teaching is to recognize that subjects of study exist in opposition to and in relation to the mind and that the self exists only as it realizes itself in history, grammar, etc. Grammar is opposed to mind yet contains an element which sustains an organic relation to mind. Subject-matter and mind are extreme terms representing a difference which is essential to rational life. The subject presupposes the object yet both are rooted in a higher spiritual principle which indicates a unity in difference. It is the purpose of teaching to show the In Teaching relation between subject and object, inner and outer experience, and to understand how these two elements are distinguished, yet never disjointed. The teacher's duty is to unite and relate the consciousness of the subject, to the consciousness of the individual studying. There is no impassable gulf between the inner and outer world, but there is organic unity in their difference. The life of the child is not disjointed from all outer experience for his inner self is nothing but a return upon himself from the outer world. The teaching process Final Aim clearly reveals the fact that self-consciousness, cut off from the objective world, is an absurdity and that the branches of study can be understood only in relation to the thinking self. The movement by which the teacher transforms subject-matter and makes it the basis for spiritual development, is an evolutionary process which manifests that unitary principle conditioning and underlying all life. A deep study of modern science, literature and philosophy discloses the fact that the teacher is the polar opposite of the child and that the objective world, as the ultimate expression of the curriculum, is the all-sufficient, unitary, eternal force which organizes these seemingly contradictory elements into a bond of spiritual freedom. According to Kant the impulse which stimulates us to grow is due to three ideas-the world, the self and God. Our intelligence is based upon a presupposition of these ideas and are the final aims in knowledge. One purpose in teaching is to demonstrate the unity of the world amidst its complexities and to show the interconnections and relations existing between the different parts and laws. To interpret the outer world the mind must seek an ultimate unity revealed in differences between object and subject. According to a great modern thinker, "Every step toward the conception of the world or of any part of it as a system, every step toward the comprehension of the unity of the intelligence in all the variety of its activities, every step toward a rational view of the relation between Unitary the intelligence and the intelligible world, is a step toward the verification and, in an etymological sense, the demonstration of the principles of unity presupposed in the whole process." It should be the duty of the teacher to reduce the manifold, in the various lessons, to unitary ideas to be transmuted into mind substance. The true purpose in teaching is to trace the multiplicity of facts in a given subject back to its original creative source, as the facts of history back to its institutional ideas, and forms of sentences in grammar back to their original creative principle, and the numerous problems in arithmetic to the ratio idea and finally to unify these branches of study into a generic whole. Divine To seek constantly for the unity of things lifts the student finally into the absolute unity of the world. Both the teacher and the pupil are forced from the very nature of consciousness Unity itself to presuppose an Infinite Mind as the source of all consciousness and the first and last principle of all knowing and being. The ultimate purpose in teaching is to trace out the divine unity holding the world together and to induce the pupil to be a partaker of the divine idea and, therefore, to attain his freedom. This supreme purpose in teaching has been discussed to lead the teacher and the pupil into the highest conceptions of life and to make them responsive to the soul's true worth. These high ideals give the mind an impulse to know the world, to understand the secrets of the mind and finally to unify itself with the outer world through an infinite unity or God. Oliver Wendell Holmes most beautifully pictures the purpose of teaching and education: "Teacher of teachers! Yours the task, High up Æonia's murmurous mount, To guide the hurrying flood that fills "Rich is the harvest from the fields Ploughed deep by thought's unwearied toil, And where the leaves, the flowers, the fruits, To fill each branching vein? "Welcome! Author's firmest friends, You knowing well the future's need, THE TEACHING PROCESS THE THINKING PROCESS XIII. THE LAW The THE fundamental law in teaching parallels the essential law in thinking. To teach a pupil is to cause him to think; to think is to translate object relations into mind substance; to know is to recognize the relations which constitute a thing. organic elements of thinking are mind activity and a process of unifying mind with thought external to itself. Mind grows by identifying itself with mind embodied in the external world. It attains its freedom when it realizes its possibilities, and when it takes on to itself the spiritual content of the universe. T. H. Green says: "Our conception of an order of nature and the relations which form that order, have a common spiritual source." By thinking, the individual enters into the inner essence of things. The thinker finds behind all things-thought. He discovers in things his other self, identifies himself with himself, and thus realizes his true nature. In the learning process, the student finds in subject-matter a self-activity akin to his own nature. There are just two elements in all thought processes: the thinking mind and the thing to be taught. In studying botany the mind |