It depends on the degree of preparation of the teachers to decide
whether the form of a lecture is safest, or whether they can risk
themselves in the arena of question and answer, the most useful in
itself but requiring a far more complete training in preparation. If
it can be obtained that the pupils state their own questions and
difficulties in writing, a great deal will have been gained, for a
good statement of a question is half-way to the right solution. If,
after hearing a lecture or oral lesson, they can answer in writing
Borne simple questions carefully stated, it will be a further advance.
It is something to grasp accurately the scope of a question. The
plague of girls' answers is usually irrelevancy from want of thought
as to the scope of questions or even from inattention to their
wording. If they can be patient in face of unanswered difficulties,
and wait for the solution to come later on in its natural course, then
at least one small fruit of their studies will have been brought to
maturity; and if at the end of their elementary course they are
convinced of their own ignorance, and want to know more, it may be
said that the course has not been unsuccessful.
It is not, however, complete unless they know something of the history
of philosophy, the great schools, and the names which have been held
in honour from the beginning down to our own days.
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