Chapter 8, The Limits of the Teacher's Function, part 1

One of the greatest causes of mental and moral confusion, as well as of absolute insanity, in modern Europe, is the fact that numbers of people plunge into the second and third great Hebrew algebras before they rightly understand the first. Even if they are silent about their results, this distracts their own minds, and sows the seeds of bad habits and mental confusion in their own constitutions. Many of these people give to the world their own wild guesses about the second and third algebras, and that puts the rest of the world into confusion. We are, therefore, not going to enter on the question of the second algebra till I have provided you with the possibility of understanding and practising the first. In the next few chapters I hope to give you a series of stories of people who used, and sometimes mis-used, the algebra of Moses, in order that you may see how to work the rules strictly and how mistakes might creep in.

But, before we begin our stories, there is one principle to which I must call your attention: it is the business of your teachers at school to see that you acquire skill in using certain implements or tools; it is not their business nor mine to decide what use you shall make, when you are grown up, of the skill which you have acquired. It is their business to see that you learn to read and to speak properly; it is not their business to decide beforehand whether you shall recite in public or only read to your own family and your sick friends. It is their business to see that you know how to sew; but not to settle whether you shall, in future, make your own clothes or work for the poor. So it is with the tools of the mind, such as algebra and logic. It is our business to see that you know how to use algebraic and logical method accurately and skilfully; it is not our business to decide whether, in the future, you shall use your skill to deceive other people or to show them the truth. It is our business to see that you do not deceive yourself, because deceiving yourself distorts your brain and ruins the possibility of using logical methods skilfully to arrive at the knowledge of truths.