542 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Of course the ability to run off a long list of names of scientists, 

 or of artists is not necessarily accompanied by a knowledge of science, 

 on the one hand, or by a knowledge of art, on the other. But it is 

 evidence, even though slight, of interest in the achievements of the 

 scientists and artists and probably some degree of respect, even admira- 

 tion, for the great names in those two fields. On the other hand, it is 

 safe to say that pupils will not become zealous in the study of either 

 science or art without, at the same time, becoming deeply interested 

 in the heroes in those subjects. It is likely, for example, that a 

 person who knows something of music and is interested in it will be 

 familiar with a number of names of the world 's great musicians. And 

 it is also highly probable that if one does not know these great names 

 in music one has little knowledge of, or interest in, that art. In a 

 word, the presumption is strong that if a pupil is interested in a given 

 field of activity he will also know the great names in that field. It is 

 also true that one of the surest and quickest ways to get pupils inter- 

 tested in a given line of study is to arouse their interest in the lives 

 of persons distinguished in that line. President Stanley Hall puts the 

 matter admirably in his article on ' Criticisms of High School Physics. '* 

 What Dr. Hall says with reference to physics, holds true of the other 

 sciences. "Boys in their teens," he writes, "have a veritable passion 

 for the stories of great men, and the heroology of physics, which, if 

 rightly applied, might generate a momentum of interest that would 

 even take them through the course as laid out, should find a place. . . . 

 Physics has its saints and martyrs and devotees, its dramatic incidents 

 and epochs, its struggles with superstition, its glorious triumphs, and 

 a judicious seasoning perhaps of the whole course with a few references 

 and reports by choice with material from this field would, I think, do 

 much." The practical point in mind is teachers of science should 

 do more in the way of acquainting pupils with the lives of scientists, 

 first from a sense of justice to the memory of those who have wrought 

 so vastly for the good of mankind, and for the further purpose of in- 

 spiring young persons to take up science as a life work. 



The bearing of our figures upon the fact of the general neglect of 

 art in the public schools of America is worth noticing briefly. Presi- 

 dent Butler of Columbia University defines education as a gradual ad- 

 justment to the spiritual possessions or inheritances of the race, these 

 inheritances being literary, scientific, esthetic, institutional and relig- 

 ious. With reference to the importance of the esthetic inheritance and 

 its place in a well-rounded education he says, "We should no longer 

 think of applying the word cultivated to a man or woman who had no 

 esthetic sense, no feeling for the beautiful, no appreciation of the sub- 



Pedagogieal Seminary, IX., p. 194. 



