Harkness Seminar Discussions and The Seven Laws of Teaching

(The Seven Laws of Teaching, John Milton Gregory, 2004, Veritas Press (unabridged))

“The lecture is useful in its place, but its place is small in a school for children. It will be shown elsewhere that a too talkative teacher is rarely a good teacher.” (77)

“…the awakening and setting in action the learner’s mind, the arousing of his self-activities…knowledge cannot be passed from mind to mind like apples from one basket to another, but must in every case by re-cognized, rethought by the receiving mind.” (100)

“’Leave the pupil to discover the truth for himself—make him a truth-finder’”. (101)

“…the true and only function of a teacher is to stimulate and help the learner to do what he might otherwise do by himself and without a teacher.” (102)

“It may be said that he teaches best who teaches least; or, better still, he teaches most whose pupils learn most without his teaching.” (103)

“…to assist the mind to shape and put forth its own conceptions.” (103)

“The cautionary clause of our law which forbids giving too much help to pupils will be needless to the teacher who clearly sees his proper work, and who is eager only to get his pupil’s mind into free and vigorous action…It is only the unskillful and self-seeking teacher who prefers to hear his own voice in endless talk, rather than watch the working of his pupil’s thoughts.” (114)

“Questioning is not, therefore, one of the modes of teaching, it is the whole of teaching; it is the excitation of the self-activities to their work of discovering truth, learning facts, knowing the unknown.” (115)

“It is to form in his own mind, by the use of his own powers, a complete and truthful conception or notion of the facts and truths in the lesson…” (124)

“His constant aim should be to rise from being a learner at other men’s feet, to become an independent searcher of truth for himself.” (125)


“The learner shows higher work still when he begins to seek the evidences of the statements which he studies. He who can give a reason for the faith which is in him is a much better learner, as well as a stronger believer, than the man who believes, he know not why. The true investigator seeks proofs, and a large part of the work of a student of nature is to prove the truths which he discovers.” (127)

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