A Discussion of Tools by Arthur W. Spaulding

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 7, 1908

A Discussion of Tools

By Arthur W. Spaulding

“You told the students,” said the Youngest Member, looking straight at the First Member, “that study of books is necessary only when we can find no better means of getting knowledge. When are you going to act on that belief?”

“It depends on what you want,” spoke up the Oldest Member. “Some people who devote their time to books can get what they want better from books than from life itself. A glittering array of facts in the mind of a student is much like a display of surgical instruments in an operating-room: they give the impression of great resource and great skill. As a matter of fact, it is the trained hand and eye and brain that make them effective. Yet if one is wanting just a transient reputation, he can get it by studying books or buying surgical instruments.”

“Well now,” said the Pleasant Member, “books do contain the wisdom of our fathers. In depreciating their value, are you not unduly exalting the wisdom of the present generation?”

“Let us not depreciate their value,” replied the First Member; “they do have for us information which sometimes we can obtain nowhere else so easily or so completely. When there is need of them in the student’s life, let him consult the books. But why should he study books when he has no need for that which he gets from them?”

“Possibly in anticipation of the time he will need it.”

“So far as the anticipation is possible, and the coming need certain, that is admissible. Still, there is another thing to be considered: how long will the student retain directions gotten from books, or anywhere else, before he is able to put them into practise?”

“That depends upon the student,” answered the Oldest Member, “but we know that most of what is studied is forgotten before being put to use.”

“And the uncertainty of being able to retain the information,” resumed the First Member, “is due to the fact that reading or hearing is not knowing. We get opinions, beliefs, from the evidence of our senses, but we never know until we have experience. Whatever one gets from books or from others in any way, must, before he can know it, be put into his experience. And only what we know can we use to get positive results.”

“History, for instance,” suggested the Doctor, “how would you have that put into the experience? It is a record of past events.”

“The study of history is of no use,” said the Oldest Member, “if it does not teach us the ordering of our lives to-day. And it is a fact that few persons can understand history because their own lives are so poor in experience, so narrow, so self-centered. The character of any person in history can not be appreciated except by one who has had similar experiences,—or with lesser results, opposite experiences,—even as we can not know Christ until, through his indwelling, we have had his experiences.”

“The question to me,” said the Lady Teacher, “is whether we are reaching results we want by our present system. That is a fair test of the value or non-value of book study. How many of our students are being made independent thinkers, resourceful men and women in practical matters? Can they get that training from books? Or is it not our object to make such men and women?”

“My tests,” said the First Member, “give unsatisfactory results. At the same time, mere mental tests are faulty. What is the record outside the school-room?”

“The boys most trusty in the home and most resourceful in everything,” said the Youngest Member, “are those who have been solving practical problems.” (And he named this one with the engine, that one with the cows, these three or four who had borne the brunt of the building.) “And they appreciate the value of books, though they have not given so much time to them as such and such another one.”

“They appreciate them more,” spoke out the Oldest Member, “because they have known what to get from them, and have, to a greater or less degree, applied what they got. It proves the point.”

“No, I do not depreciate books,” said the First Member, barking back. “We ought to have more books; we ought to have a better library, more varied and bigger, and students should be taught better how to use it. Given a good library

and knowledge of how to use it, the ideal industrial school of the Youngest Member might be realized. At present we waste at least half of our eight-hour book-study period; some waste it all. Those four hours ought to be saved, and how better than in actual living of life in the practical study of practical things? For intellectual work does not necessarily cease when manual work begins.”

“Can you get as much progress through a reform method of using books as you can with the present class-assignment method?”

“More,” said the First Member.

“You have more problems in that project than appear at first sight,” finished the Oldest Member.

A. W. SPAULDING.