A greater vividness and
permanency of impression is secured; and facts thus acquired become
registered in the mind in a way that mere imparted information can
never effect. This kind of self-culture also calls forth power and
cultivates strength. The solution of one problem helps the mastery
of another; and thus knowledge is carried into faculty. Our own
active effort is the essential thing; and no facilities, no books,
no teachers, no amount of lessons learnt by rote will enable us to
dispense with it.
The best teachers have been the readiest to recognize the
importance of self-culture, and of stimulating the student to
acquire knowledge by the active exercise of his own faculties.
They have relied more upon TRAINING than upon telling, and sought
to make their pupils themselves active parties to the work in which
they were engaged; thus making teaching something far higher than
the mere passive reception of the scraps and details of knowledge.
This was the spirit in which the great Dr. Arnold worked; he strove
to teach his pupils to rely upon themselves, and develop their
powers by their own active efforts, himself merely guiding,
directing, stimulating, and encouraging them. "I would far
rather," he said, "send a boy to Van Diemen's Land, where he must
work for his bread, than send him to Oxford to live in luxury,
without any desire in his mind to avail himself of his advantages.
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