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Social Science Teaching*

Abstract

THE position of the teacher in any field of study becomes constantly more difficult and onerous as the years pass and as the accumulations of knowledge become greater and we hope richer, and as the proper scope and methods of further study and research become daily more intricate and urgent and harder to define or embody in graduate or postgraduate curricula. The accumulations of knowledge do indeed increase, but progress is often slow and tortuous and much has to be thrown into the discard under processes of selection more or less ruthless and impartial; for what is sound and apparently unquestionable knowledge to one generation may appear to the next as perfectly untenable. Nevertheless, the net result in most directions and during the past half-century is steady advance, especially and most remarkably in the physical sciences. In the social and moral sciences the acquisition of real and durable knowledge is more difficult to evaluate and sort out from a great mass of questionable matter, hazy hypotheses, and unfounded opinion; but here also there remains, after these necessary deductions, a solid residuum of accumulated fact and sound deduction. For the teacher in moral and social philosophy the main difficulties are to discover the solid ground in a country where treacherous swamps and shaking morasses abound, and to guide and stimulate his students to follow the right path and strike out new ones of their own; to strengthen and consolidate existing positions, and establish new ones.

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L. C., W. Social Science Teaching*. Nature 125, 881–883 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/125881a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/125881a0

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