Note 29 — Chapter II · EDUCATION AMONG THE GREEKS.

The Socratic method for the discovery of truth can be employed only in those cases where the pupil has the crude materials of the new knowledge actually in store. Psychology, logic, ethics, mathematics, and perhaps grammar and rhetoric, fall within the sphere of the Socratic method; but to apply this method of instruction to geography, history, geology, and, in general, to subjects where the material is inaccessible, is palpably absurd. The Socratic dialogue, in its negative phase, is aimed at presumption, arrogance, and pretentious ignorance; but it is sometimes misused to badger and bewilder an honest and docile pupil. (P.)