CHAPTER XIV

A MASTER-THOUGHT

1. What is the motto of the Parents’ Union?

2. Show that this motto is a master-thought.

3. Why is ‘education is an atmosphere’ the clause of the motto that pleases us most?

4. What is the result if this _part_ be taken for the _whole_?

5. What defect in education leads to _ennui_ and the desire to be amused by shows.

6. What was the unconscious formula of the eighteenth century?

7. What was the result of this one-sided view of education?

8. Show that the idea of the development of the faculties also rests upon a one-sided notion.

9. What is the tendency of an education grounded upon the development of faculties?

10. Should it be our aim to produce specialists? Why not?

11. Show what manner of education results in a sound and well-balanced mind.

12. Show that the mediæval Church understood, better than we, that ‘education is a life.’

13. Sketch the scheme of educational philosophy to be found on the walls of the ‘Spanish Chapel’ of S. Maria Novella.

14. Show how this educational creed unifies life.

15. What does Coleridge say of the origin of great ideas of nature?

16. What does Michael Angelo write to his friend of the need for a diet of great ideas?

17. What is the special teaching vouchsafed to men to-day?

18. What views are people apt to take with regard to this teaching?

19. What does Huxley say about ideas in science?

20. How does the teaching of Simone Memmi and Coleridge relieve us from anxiety and make clear our perplexities?

21. How does Coleridge describe Botany, as that science existed in his day?

22. What has evolution, the key-word of our age, done for this and other perplexities?

23. But what has been the object of pursuit among philosophers for three thousand years?

24. How did Heraklitos attempt to solve the problem?

25. How did Demokritos?

26. Show that some knowledge of history and philosophy should give us pause in using the key of evolution.

27. Show that personality remains, and is not resolvable by this key.

28. Why is it necessary for parents and teachers to consider their attitude towards this question?

29. What are the four attitudes which it is possible to take up?

30. What gains will the children derive if their teachers adopt the last-mentioned of these?

31. What two things are incumbent upon us with regard to the great ideas by which the world is being taught?

32. Show the danger of making too personal a matter of education.

33. If education is a world-business, show that we must have a guiding idea about it.

34. What ideas should regulate the curriculum of a boy or girl under fourteen?

35. Show the importance of good books and many books for the use of children.

36. Why may we not choose or reject certain ‘subjects’ arbitrarily?

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