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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: The germs of two valuable principles of education may also be gathered from
the 'words of priests and priestesses:' (1) that true knowledge is a
knowledge of causes (compare Aristotle's theory of episteme); and (2) that
the process of learning consists not in what is brought to the learner, but
in what is drawn out of him.
Some lesser points of the dialogue may be noted, such as (1) the acute
observation that Meno prefers the familiar definition, which is embellished
with poetical language, to the better and truer one; or (2) the shrewd
reflection, which may admit of an application to modern as well as to
ancient teachers, that the Sophists having made large fortunes; this must
surely be a criterion of their powers of teaching, for that no man could
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