The words of S. S. Greene deserve the attention of every teacher anxious to prevent the formation of vicious habits of thought by the pupils in our schools and colleges. Years ago he wrote as follows: “While an external object may be viewed by thousands in common, the idea or image of it addresses itself only to the individual consciousness. My idea or image is mine alone,—the reward of careless observation, if imperfect; of attentive, careful, and varied observation, if correct. Between mine and yours a great gulf is fixed. No man can pass from mine to yours, or from yours to mine. Neither, in any proper sense of the word, can mine be conveyed to you. Words do not convey thoughts; they are not vehicles of thought in any true sense of that term. A word is simply a common symbol which each associates with his own idea or image. Neither can I compare mine with yours, except through the mediation of external objects. And, then, how do I know that they are alike; that a measure called a foot, for instance, seems as long to you as to me? My idea of a new object, which you and I observe together, may be very imperfect. By it I attribute to the object what does not belong to it, take from it what does, distort its form, and otherwise pervert it. Suppose, now, at the time of observation we agree upon a word as a sign or symbol of the object or the idea of it. The object is withdrawn; the idea only remains,—imperfect in my case, complete and vivid in yours. The sign is employed. Does it bring back the original object? By no means. Does it convey my idea to your mind? Nothing of the kind; you would be disgusted with the shapeless image. Does it convey yours to me? No; I should be delighted at the sight. What does it effect? It becomes the occasion for each to call up his own image. Does each now contemplate the same thing? What multitudes of dissimilar images instantly spring up at the announcement of the same symbol!—dissimilar not because of anything in the one source whence they are derived, but because of either an inattentive and imperfect observation of that source, or some constitutional or habitual defect in the use of the perceptive faculty.”
Dr. J. P. Gordy, to whom credit is due for the preceding quotation, further says, “Words are like paper money; their value depends on what they stand for. As you would be none the richer for possessing Confederate money to the amount of a million dollars, so your pupils would be none the wiser for being able to repeat book after book by heart, unless the words were the signs of ideas in their minds. Words without ideas are an irredeemable paper currency. It is the practical recognition of this truth that has revolutionized the best schools in the last quarter of a century.... In what did the reform inaugurated by Pestalozzi consist? In the substitution of the intelligent for the blind use of words. He reversed the educational engine. Before his time teachers expected their pupils to go from words to ideas; he taught them to go from ideas to words. He brought out the fact upon which I have been insisting,—that words are utterly powerless to create ideas; that all they can do is to help the pupil to recall and recombine ideas already formed. With Pestalozzi, therefore, and with those who have been imbued with his theories, the important matter is the forming of clear and definite ideas.”[4]