reatly multiplied if we ourselves
recognize its worth and importance, and lead our pupils to see in each
concrete case the operation of the general principle. After all, the
chief reason why so much of our education miscarries, why so few pupils
gain the strength and the power that we expect all to gain, lies in the
inability of the average individual to draw a general conclusion from
concrete cases--to see the general in the particular. We have insisted
so strenuously upon concrete instruction that we have perhaps failed
also to insist that fact without law is blind, and that observation
without induction is stupidity gone to seed.

Let me give a concrete instance of what I mean. Not long ago, I visited
an eighth-grade class during a geography period. It was at the time when
the discovery of the Pole had just set the whole civilized world by the
ears, and the teacher was doing something that many good teachers do on
occasions of this sort: she was turning the vivid interest of the moment
to educative purposes. The pupils had read Peary's account of his trip
and they were discussing its details in class. Now that exercise was
vastly more than an interesting information lesson, for Peary's
achievement became, under the skillful touch of that teacher, a type of
all human achievement. I wish that I could reproduce that lesson for
you--how vividly she pictured the situation that confronted the
explorer,--the bitter cold, the shifting ice, the treacherous open
leads, the lack of game or other sources of food supply, the long
marches on scant rations, the short hours and the uncomfortable
conditions of sleep; and how from these that fundamental lesson of pluck
and endurance and courage came forth naturally without preaching the
moral or indulging in sentimental "goody-goodyism." And then the other
and equally important part of the lesson,--how pluck and courage in
themselves could never have solved the problem; how knowledge was
essential, and how that knowledge had been gained: some of it from the
experience of early explorers,--how to avoid the dreaded scurvy, how to
build a ship that could withstand the tremendous pressure of the floes;
and some from the Eskimos,--how to live in that barren region, and how
to travel with dogs and sledges;--and some, too, from Peary's own early
experiences,--how he had struggled for twenty years to reach the goal,
and had added this experience to that until finally the prize was his.
We may