solution of his problem.
Before we can engage in deliberative thinking we must be confronted by some
problem, some such "split-road" situation in our mental stream—we must have
something to think about. It is this fact that makes one writer say that the great
purpose of one's education is not to solve all his problems for him. It is rather to
help him (1) to discover problems, or "split-road" situations, (2) to assist him in
gathering the facts necessary for their solution, and (3) to train him in the
weighing of his facts or evidence, that is, in deliberative thinking. Only as we
learn to recognize the true problems that confront us in our own lives and in
society about us can we become thinkers in the best sense. Our own plans and
projects, the questions of right and wrong that are constantly arising, the social,
political and religious problems awaiting solution, all afford the opportunity and
the necessity for deliberative thinking. And unhappy is the pupil whose school
work does not set the problems and employ the methods which will insure
training in this as well as in the assimilative type of thinking. Every school
subject, besides supplying certain information to be "learned," should present its
problems requiring true deliberative thinking within the range of development
and ability of the pupil, and no subject—literature, history, science, language—is
without many such problems.
2. THE FUNCTION OF THINKING
All true thinking is for the purpose of discovering relations between the things
we think about. Imagine a world in which nothing is related to anything else; in
which every object perceived, remembered, or imagined, stands absolutely by
itself, independent and self-sufficient! What a chaos it would be! We might
perceive, remember, and imagine all the various objects we please, but without
the power to think them together, they would all be totally unrelated, and hence
have no meaning.
Meaning Depends on Relations.—To have a rational meaning for us, things
must always be defined in terms of other things, or in terms of their uses. Fuel is
that which feeds fire. Food is what is eaten for nourishment. A locomotive is a
machine for drawing a train. Books are to read, pianos to play, balls to throw,
schools to instruct, friends to enjoy, and so on through the whole list of objects
which we know or can define. Everything depends for its meaning on its relation
to other things; and the more of these relations we can discover, the more fully
do we see the meaning. Thus balls may have other uses than to throw, schools