In the one case we should find a mind, uninformed and uncultivated, but of a vigorous and masculine character, grasping the little knowledge it possessed, with the power and right of a conqueror; in the other, a memory occupied by a useless heap of notions,--without a single opinion or idea it could call its own,--and an understanding indolent and narrow, and, from long-indulged inactivity, almost incapable of exertion.

As the fundamental principle of the system, I would therefore say, let the _children think for themselves_.

If they arrive at erroneous conclusions, assist them in attaining the truth; but let them, with such assistance, arrive at it by their own exertions.
Little good will be done, if you say to a child,--_That_ is wrong, _this_ is right, unless you enable it to perceive the error of the one and the truth of the other.

It is not only due to the child as a rational being that you should act so, but it is essentially necessary to the development of its intellectual faculties.

It were not more ridiculous for a master, in teaching arithmetic, to give his pupil the problem and answer, without instructing him in the method of working the question, than it is for a person to give a child results of reasoning, without showing how the truth is arrived at.