testimony, based on personal
observation, is of such great value that we cannot refrain from quoting
it. Here it is.

"One of the duties which fell to my share, during the period to
which I have referred, was the instruction of a class in
mathematics, and I usually found that Euclid and the ancient
geometry generally, when addressed to the understanding, formed a
very attractive study for youth. But it was my habitual practice to
withdraw the boys from the routine of the book, and to appeal to
their self-power in the treatment of questions not comprehended in
that routine. At first, the change from the beaten track usually
excited a little aversion: the youth felt like a child amid
strangers; but in no single instance have I found this aversion to
continue. When utterly disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by
that anecdote of Newton, where he attributes the difference between
him and other men, mainly to his own patience; or of Mirabeau, when
he ordered his servant, who had stated something to be impossible,
never to use that stupid word again. Thus cheered, he has returned
to his task with a smile, which perhaps had something of doubt in
it, but which, nevertheless, evinced a resolution to try again. I
have seen the boy's eye brighten, and at length, with a pleasure of
which the ecstasy of Archimedes was but a simple expansion, heard
him exclaim, 'I have it, sir.' The consciousness of self-power,
thus awakened, was of immense value; and animated by it, the
progress of the class was truly astonishing. It was often my custom
to give the boys their choice of pursuing their propositions in the
book, or of trying their strength at others not to be found there.
Never in a single instance have I known the book to be chosen. I
was ever ready to assist when I deemed help needful, but my offers
of assistance were habitually declined. The boys had tasted the
sweets of intellectual conquest and demanded victories of their
own. I have seen their diagrams scratched on the walls, cut into
the beams upon the play ground, and numberless other illustrations
of the living interest they took in the subject. For my own part,
as far as experience in teaching goes, I was a mere fledgling: I
knew nothing of the rules of pedagogics, as the Germans name it;
but I adhered to