The first thing necessary in making the pupil think is best shown by relating another incident. The catalogue of a well-known school announced that the teachers were aiming to get their pupils to read Latin at sight and to think in more tongues than one. A captious superintendent wrote to the principal, saying, “I envy you. How do you do it? We would be satisfied if we could make pupils think in English.” The reply was equally sharp and suggestive: “You ask how we make pupils think. I answer, By giving them something to think about. If you ask how we make them think in more tongues than one, I answer, By giving them, in addition to the materials of thought, the instruments of thought as found in two or more languages.”
The first step in training a pupil to think is to furnish him proper materials of thought, to develop in his mind the concepts which lie at the basis of a branch of study, and which must be analyzed, compared, and combined in new forms during the prosecution of that study. Just as little as a boy can draw fish from an empty pond, so little can he draw ideas, thoughts, and conclusions from an empty head. If the fundamental ideas are not carefully developed when the study of a new science is begun, all subsequent thinking on the part of the pupil is necessarily hazy, uncertain, unsatisfactory. How can a pupil compare two ideas or concepts and join them in a correct judgment if there is nothing in his mind except the technical terms by which the scientist denotes these ideas? The idea of number lies at the basis of arithmetic. How often are beginners expected to think in figures without having a clear idea of what figures denote! What teacher has not seen children wrestling with fractions who had no idea of a fraction save that of two figures, one above the other, with a line between them! How many of our arithmetics are full of problems involving business transactions of which the pupil cannot possibly have an adequate idea! Not having clear ideas of the things to be compared, how can the learner form clear and accurate judgments and conclusions?
So essential to correct thinking is the development of the concepts and ideas which lie at the basis of each science, that we may designate the giving to the pupil of something to think about as the first and most important step in the solution of the educational problem before us. In other words, the furnishing of the proper materials of thought is the first step in teaching others to think. The force and the validity of this proposition are easily seen if we reflect upon the essential oneness of the manifold diversities of thinking as they appear at school and in subsequent years.