ation, and were good talkers, and who discoursed to their classes
with ready utterance a large part of the time allotted to instruction;
yet an examination of their classes showed little advancement in
knowledge.

There are several time-honored metaphors on this subject, which need to
be received with some grains of allowance, if we would get at an exact
idea of what teaching is. Chiselling the rude marble into the finished
statue; giving the impression of the seal upon the soft wax; pouring
water into an empty vessel;--all these comparisons lack one essential
element of likeness. The mind is, indeed, in one sense, empty, and needs
to be filled. It is yielding, and needs to be impressed. It is rude, and
needs polishing. But it is not, like the marble, the wax, or the vessel,
a passive recipient of external influences. It is itself a living
power. It is acted upon only by stirring up its own activities. The
operative upon mind, unlike the operative upon matter, must have the
active, voluntary co-operation of that upon which he works. The teacher
is doing his work, only so far as he gets work from the scholar. The
very essence and root of the work are in the scholar, not in the
teacher. No one, in fact, in an important sense, is taught at all,
except so far as he is self-taught. The teacher may be useful, as an
auxiliary, in causing this action on the part of the scholar. But the
one, indispensable, vital thing in all learning, is in the scholar
himself. The old Romans, in their word education (_educere_, to draw
out), seem to have come nearer to the true idea than any other people
have done. The teacher is to draw out the resources of the pupil. Yet
even this word comes short of the exact truth. The teacher must put in,
as well as draw out. No process of mere pumping will draw out from a
child's mind knowledge which is not there. All the power of the Socratic
method, could it be applied by Socrates himself, would be unavailing to
draw from a child's mind, by mere questioning, a knowledge, for
instance, of chemical affinity, of the solar system, of the temperature
of the Gulf Stream, of the doctrine of the resurrection.

What, then, is teaching?

Teaching is causing any one to know. Now no one can be made to know a
thing but by the act of his own powers. His own senses, his own memory,
his own powers of reason, perception, and judgment, must be exercised.
The function of the teacher is to bring about this exercise of th