selves, but that are common property and demand no special ability either to discover or to understand. The teacher's business is to guide his pupils in their approach to a new subject, to warn them of pitfalls, and to present matters in such a way as to avoid unnecessary expenditure of time. He must, above everything, see that the subject is treated in such a way as to meet the special needs of the pupils here and now before him. He must mediate between the text-book and his pupils. That is what a teacher is for.
Instead of taking the book and talking round it, the real teacher deals with the subject itself and falls back upon the book to supply illustrative matter, and to give in a permanent form isolated facts that otherwise would be forgotten if they were presented only once to the pupil in the course of a lesson, however excellently that lesson had been given. In the hands of a good teacher the main function of the text-book is to secure careful preparation and steady revision. The poorest teacher of all is the one who does nothing more than prescribe a certain portion of the text-book to be prepared for each day's lesson and in the class hour find out by questions whether the pupils have learned the portion set for their study. If this is the only use made of text-books the value of the teacher does not appear to be very great. All that he does is to act as a sort of external conscience and see that the pupils do their work. A student with a good working con-
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