No abstract

CONFERENCE ON TEACHING ELEMENTARY ECONOMICS 689not uncommon interpretation of the professor's duty-that he has done enough when he has given the student opportunity. In our opinion, he has fallen far short of his obligations unless he has done his best to make certain that the student improves the opportunity.But, again, what we try to insure is that the student carries away a body of economic doctrine. He is getting ready for the more specific courses which the later years offer, or in any case for the practical duties of citizenship; and he should be thoroughly indoctrinated in fundamentals.Not some vague notions; not some insight into method and spirit; not some sentiments, liberal or illiberal; but a body of knowledge, is what we consider it our duty to demand.Still again, we feel that the body of doctrine which the student is expected to carry away should have a high degree of definiteness. Personally, after teaching political economy for twenty-five years, I have become very impatient with the vagueness which commonly characterizes the economic ideas of even our graduate students. So much importance do I attach to this quality of definiteness that for its sake I am willing to sacrifice something of precision-something of the fullest measure of truth. If erroneous doctrines are sharply defined and clearly apprehended, there is always some chance of successfully combating them; while it is useless to waste one's time on the man who does not really know what he thinks.But we also conceive it to be our business to try to insure that our students come through with a firm and certain grasp upon their knowledge. It seems to us important, not only that their ideas of economic truths should be definite, but also that those truths should be mastered; that the student's hold on them should be so firm and certain that he will be prepared to reproduce, illustrate, and defend them with reasonable facility and effectiveness.The third element which we emphasize as an important characteristic of the stuclent's economic knowledge, I have called availability.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract