WRONG THINGS TO TEACH
SIR,—In the , excellent recommendations in this article one misses a plea for philosophy. This most vital/study of all, can be taught in simple fashion to the young, as I have myself proved in recent years. The average human being is a potential philosopher at fifteen, but our educational system usually permits those powers, through neglect, to become atrophied. For some years -Ihave conducted classes aiming at character-forming rather than memory-training, and have employed literary and philosophic talks of an elementary nature with the object of training the critical faculty and the soul to look upward. A strong stand has been made ft* the ideal, and devotion to lofty standards of reasonable and moral conduct, emphasis being placed on the truth that all parts of life (not some only) are -relevant to true religion. The endeavour has been to turn the eye to the light, thus not merely illuminating the intellect, but helping the soul to disencumber itself of the weights which bear it down, and turn it another way.
I feel that some degree of success can be claimed for this endeavour. In any event, interest has been aroused and held by fruitful discussions, which clearly is to the good. I would like to suggest that all who are responsible instructors of the young should sit at the feet of Socrates— the father of common sense, as Sydney Smith'called him—and Plato, his disciple, and be well versed in that great work The Republic. This opens the mind, and enables it to function as it ought. I would go so far as to say that there is tic, substitute for The Republic.---Your,
obedient servant, PAUL H. C. PRENTICE. Ellerslie, Bickington, Nr. Barnstaple.
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