" I DON'T KNOW."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17294, 18 October 1919, Page 4 (Supplement)

" I DON'T KNOW."

One of the first precepts which should be inculcated in the young is the unequivocal admission, not only to others, but to themselves, " I don't know." The teacher and parent, and all those responsible for the training of young people, must impress this by example, and must frankly admit their own limitations and their fallibility. There is no greater error —untrue in itself intellectually and morally as well as impolitic in view of the maintenance of educational authoritythan that the maintenance of authority depends upon an estimate of infallibility which the young are to form of their elders, or that the authority is lowered when belief in such infallibility is not absolute. The plea that hesitation, qualification, and doubt produce uncertainty and confusion in the minds of the learners, is un- | founded. No science, no department of j instruction, depends upon, or is benefited by, over-statement. While the moral re- ; suit and the intellectual training, the inj crease of precision in observation and judgment, the stimulation to mental effort, and ■ finally, the production of an ethos, a genej ral character of strong and refined truthful 1 ness. are born from hesitation in judgment, \ and from the admission on the part of the teacher. " T don't know." " T have no right to an opinion on the matter," or " T have, as yet. no right to an opinion." However important it be to teach those | deductive subjects (reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, etch which form our I elementary studies and give a groundwork ' | of fact upon which the reasoning powers are to be employed, it is most important ■ i that the inductive subjects, including ex- ! periment. should be taught, not so much for their own intrinsic value and practical importance, as for the moral discinline ; . winch they induce in every child, what- ! ever its natural bent or the probable ' future line? of study or work which it will have to pursue in after life. For it is i through them that this moral proems in i the finding and in t|n> instifictinn of conviction is most el earl v and effectually impressed upon the child's mind.