494 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



spiritual change — a change, so great, indeed, that it is well-nigh impos- 

 sible for us thoroughly to sympathize with our grandfathers ? Do they 

 realize that science has thrust us into a new world and that our new 

 surroundings have made us new men? Unless they appreciate this 

 they can not be in real communion with the life of this age. They must 

 live more or less apart, and move away from the great current that is 

 sweeping the world along. Like Bernard Shaw, they must find that 

 they were born in the seventeenth century and that they have not yet 

 outlived it. 



I might express this last test of efficiency otherwise by saying that 

 you must look to the cultural element in the teaching of science — but 

 I am afraid of the word " culture." It has been so terribly abused. 

 Some speak as if the test of culture were the knowledge of Latin, or 

 of Greek, or of French literature, or of Italian painting, or of what not. 

 As a matter of fact it is none of these things, for I take it that the 

 root of culture in any worthy sense of that word is the possession of 

 an ideal that is broad enough to form the basis of a sane criticism of 

 life. I hope that I need not turn aside to demonstrate the competency 

 of science to present such an ideal. I willingly admit that some such 

 ideal may be reached by various paths, through the study of literature, 

 or of art, or of science. I should be the last to suggest that these are 

 rival or mutually exclusive pursuits or that any one can justly claim a 

 monopoly of culture. To know the best that has been said in literature 

 and to use this as a touchstone in the criticism of the life of to-day, 

 or to reach through art the ideal of perfection in form and color and 

 make this broad enough to embrace life as a whole — each opens a 

 promising avenue to culture. But how can a criticism of life be 

 broadly enough based to-day unless the main results of scientific investi- 

 gation lie at its roots and the method and the spirit of science be in 

 the atmosphere that surrounds it ? It can not, I think, be broad enough, 

 unless we greatly exaggerate the part that science has played and is 

 playing in the modern world. And I do not think that we exaggerate 

 it, for practically all must recognize that there are few important 

 problems of life to-day that science does not touch and touch most 

 closely. This being the case, can a school be declared efficient that 

 fails to give its students a vision and a grasp of the scientific ideal — 

 an ideal that will guide them in the solution of all the complex prob- 

 lems that face individuals and face the state? 



