Theoria - DISA

never occurred that pumping information and respectable
doctrines into their pupils is not the sole end of education ; who,
with one eye, perhaps, on some examination, success in which
may bring renown upon the institution they so faithfully serve,
and serve to destroy, stuff their pupils with facts, formulae,
fancies and faiths ; and who, when their pupils show themselves
docile and receptive, willing vessels to receive the milk of the
word, commend them for the very qualities they lack—intelligence,
agility of mind, understanding of the world they live in—
it is these worthy teachers who make the supreme task of
educating for democracy wellnigh impossible. They are like
the soft and gentle, but totally blind, mole that works underground.
They don't know what they are doing, but parents,
parsons, and politicians praise them. The blind mole is soft and
gentle, but he undermines. The white ant is also soft and gentle,
and, when you brush away the sheltering earth over his silent
workings and expose him to the sunlight, rather pitiful. But,
I confess it without shame, when I find the white ants working
in my lawn or under the floors of my house, I destroy them
without mercy. One does not have to be a liberal towards the
white ant.
Beware the teacher, whether you find him in school or university,
who professes to believe in a liberal education, but who,
by doing all your thinking for you, denies you your birthright,
which is freedom.
Copies of Professor Greig's address were circulated to six
members of the staff of N.U.C., who were asked to reply to a
series of questions based on it. The questions and answers are
given below.
i.—Do you think that the main aim, of university teaching should be
to enable students to think for themselves ?
PROF. COUTTS : Yes; but the stage at which independent
thinking is practicable must depend upon the nature of the
material under discussion. In Physics, for example, a sound
factual background is a necessary pre-requisite to independent
thought, and we must, in Prof. Greig's phrase, ''give the answer
to our pupils categorically ". It would be, fraudulent to make
students believe that they had rediscovered such general principles
as the Newtonian law of gravitation; although they should be
introduced to the historical developments that led from Ptolemy's
geocentric notions, through Copernicus and Kepler, to Newton's
generalisation.
DR. COBLANS : University education must aim primarily at
8