ABSTRACT
Essentially the ideal of education was that the child should acquire the wisdom of the elders. For the ancient notion that there exists a completed body of knowledge, there has been substituted the notion of a growing and changing body of knowledge which is forever tentative and forever incomplete. The scientific spirit now dominates the intellectual classes of the western world. Since the conflict between fundamentalism and modernism is essentially irreconcilable, the teacher who wishes to understand his position in the modern state must abandon the notion that he is a neutral. The statement that the teacher today is a responsible agent of the change from the fundamentalist to the scientific method of thought leads, to certain inferences which may clarify his position somewhat more. The true teacher is not concerned with persuading his hearers to accept his conclusion rather than their own.
