148 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tern. Even where these well-trained officers are not in command, their 

 influence is felt, and every member of the organization works in ac- 

 cordance with their more efficient systems. The whole nation is rapidly 

 learning how to make the most and best of its powers, as well as how to 

 profit by growing opportunities and acquisitions. 



Thomas Huxley, admittedly an authority on the subject of scientific 

 training, said, in his Mason College address: 



"Neither the discipline nor the subject-matter of classical education is of 

 such direct value to the student of physical science as to justify the expenditure 

 of valuable time on either." . . . "For the purpose of attaining real culture, 

 an exclusively scientific education is at least as effectual as an exclusively lit- 

 erary education." 



Huxley was a member of nearly all the royal commissions on educa- 

 tion of his time, and had large opportunities for observation and in- 

 vestigation in this field. His views were founded on extensive and rare 

 experience and sound knowledge; none could speak with greater author- 

 ity. He says in one of his addresses on this subject: 



"The great mass of mankind have neither the liking nor the aptitude for 

 either literary or scientific or artistic pursuits; nor, indeed, for excellence of any 

 sort. Their ambition is to go through life with moderate exertion and a fair 

 share of ease, doing common things in a common way. And a great blessing and 

 a comfort it is that the majority of men are of this mind; for the majority of 

 things to be done are common things, and are quite well enough done when com- 

 monly done. The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. What men 

 need is as much knowledge as they can assimilate and organize into a basis for 

 action; give them more and it may become injurious. One knows people who 

 are heavy and stupid from undigested learning, as others are from over-fulness of 

 meat and drink. But a small percentage of the population is born with that most 

 excellent quality, the desire for excellence, or with special aptitude of some sort 

 or other. . . . Now, the most important object of all educational schemes is 

 to catch those exceptional people and turn them to account for the good of so- 

 ciety. No man can say where they will crop up; like their opposites, the fools 

 and the knaves, they appear sometimes in the palace, sometimes in the hovel ; 

 but the great thing aimed at, I was almost going to say the important end of all 

 social arrangements, is to keep these glorious sports of Nature from being cor- 

 rupted by luxury or starved by poverty, and to put them into the positions in 

 which they can do the work for which they are specially fitted. ... I weigh 

 my words well when I say that if the nation could purchase a potential Watt or 

 Davy or Faraday at the cost of a hundred thousand pounds down, he would be 

 dirt cheap at the money." * 



But our modern educations are producing many Watts and Davys 

 and Faradays, and as progress continues and research becomes more and 

 more the privilege of these 'glorious sports of Nature,' and as more and 

 more men of genius become revealed by systematic, scientific education, 

 the outcome must inevitably be a vastly more complete exploration of 



•Mitchell's sketch of The Life and Work of Huxley; Leaders in Science 

 Series; Putnams; 1900; Chap. XI. 



