The Philosopher. It delights me. I feared at first you might be a Hegelian, or even a Platonist. Now that I find you are a Pragmatist like myself—
The Lady. Pragmatist? Yes, I have heard of Pragmatism. William James—summer course in Philosophy. But why do you think I am a Pragmatist?
The Philosopher. A school-teacher must be a pragmatist, madam, or go mad. If you really believed the human brain to be an instrument capable of accurate thinking, your experiences with your pupils and your principal, not to speak of your boards of education, would furnish you a spectacle of human wickedness and folly too horrible to be endured. But you realize that the poor things were never intended to think.
The Lady. That’s true; they’re doing the best they can, aren’t they? They just can’t believe anything they don’t want to believe!
The Philosopher. That is to say, man is not primarily a thinking animal—he is a creature of emotion and action.
The Lady. Especially action. They are always in such a hurry to get something done that they really can’t stop to think about it! But I’m afraid all this is really beside the point. What we want to know is why the school fails so miserably in its attempt to teach children to think?
The Philosopher. Perhaps it is in too much of a hurry. But are you sure you really want children to learn to think?
The Lady. Of course we do!
The Philosopher. The greatest part of life, you know, can be lived without thought. We do not think about where we put our feet as we walk along an accustomed road. We leave that to habit. We do not think about how to eat, once we have learned to do it in a mannerly way. The accountant does not think about how to add a column of figures—he has his mind trained to the task. And there is little that cannot be done by the formation of proper habits, to the complete elimination of thought. The habits will even take care of the regulation of the emotions. For all practical purposes, don’t you agree with me that thinking might be dispensed with?
The Lady. I hardly know whether to take you seriously or not—