t
appears to be idle. But in seeming-industry all the external motives of
activity, all the mechanism of work, manifest themselves noisily, while
there is no true energy of attention and productivity. One busies
himself with all the apparatus of work; he heaps up instruments and
books around him; he sketches plans; he spends many hours staring into
vacancy, biting his pen, gazing at words, drawings, numbers, &c. Boys,
under the protection of so great a scaffolding for work erected around
them, often carry on their own amusements. Men, who arrive at no real
concentration of their force, no clear defining of their vocation, no
firm decision as to their action, dissipate their power in what is too
often a great activity with absolutely no result. They are busy, very
busy; they have hardly time to do this thing because they really wish or
ought to do that; but, with all their driving, their energy is all
dissipated, and nothing comes from their countless labors.

III. _The Modality of the Process of Teaching._

Sec. 122. Now that we have learned something of the relation of the teacher
to the taught, and of the process of learning itself, we must examine
the mode and manner of instruction. This may have (1) the character of
contingency: the way in which our immediate existence in the world, our
life, teaches us; or it may be given (2) by the printed page; or (3) it
may take the shape of formal oral instruction.

Sec. 123. (1) For the most, the best, and the mightiest things that we know
we are indebted to Life itself. The sum of perceptions which a human
being absorbs into himself up to the fourth or fifth year of his life is
incalculable; and after this time we involuntarily gain by immediate
contact with the world countless ideas. But especially we understand by
the phrase "the School of Life," the ethical knowledge which we gain by
what happens in our own lives.

--If one says, _Vitae non scholae discendum est_, one can also say, _Vita
docet_. Without the power exercised by the immediate world our
intelligence would remain abstract and lifeless.--

Sec. 124. (2) What we learn through books is the opposite of that which we
learn through living. Life _forces_ upon us the knowledge it has to
give; the book, on the contrary, is entirely passive. It is locked up in
itself; it cannot be altered; but it waits by us till we wish to use it.
We can read it rapidly or slowly; we can simply turn over its
leaves--what in moder