Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/145

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The Art of Education
141

sowing the seeds of what, in later life, will develop into what is even legally actual insanity. He may do any or all of these things without ever uttering a word in the hearing of pupils on any subject except the one he professes to teach.

From all that Gratry and Boole have said, it would appear that the question whether the faculties exercised recuperate themselves from extra-human sources, or by draining away the vitality of other faculties, especially the moral stamina, depends mainly on whether the synthetical work is commensurate in amount and kind with the specialization, and is properly alternated with it.

The process of synthesising the work of the week is by no means difficult, even for the teacher; and to the pupils it appears like mere amusement. There are two reasons why it is neglected. One is that any unification at all commensurate with the amount of specialization now going on in schools, is looked on at present (in England at least) with dread. Whenever those who understand the process try to call attention to its importance, the subject is almost sure to be treated, by those who do not understand it, as if we were talking of what is technically called "religion," and trenching on ground which is the proper domain of parents and the clergy. The thing which I mean (or rather which such Logicians as Gratry and Boole have, in all ages, meant) has no more connection with what is called "religious instruction," than it has with Algebra or Grammar. We mean the mental act of synthesis, which forms the compensating recoil from the specialization induced by study; completing the pulsation, of which special studies form one-half; and causing whatever faculties have