i 24 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



only twenty years ago. Things have 

 not changed much in that time. If 

 the spirit of competition was stamped 

 into him, he will want it stamped 

 into his children. If money is his 

 chief preoccupation, he would not 

 like to hear that a public- school 

 teacher was doing anything to lessen 

 the importance of money in their 

 eyes. He would be willing enough 

 that other children should learn that 

 lesson, but not his own. The case, 

 we are persuaded, is far from being 

 an imaginary one. The average par- 

 ent sends his children to school with 

 no other view than that they shall 

 be prepared for some money-making 

 occupation ; and he expects that that 

 object shall be kept uppermost by 

 the school authorities. This being 

 the case, the "soul" that M. Brune- 

 tiere desiderates runs a great risk 

 of being contraband of our modern 

 school systems; because it can not 

 enter without coming at once into 

 conflict with the spirit of money- 

 worship, and also with that of self- 

 ish ambition. Of course, if we had 

 every reason to be satisfied with the 

 moral progress of our people and the 

 signs of the times generally, there 

 would be no need to raise this ques- 

 tion ; we might assume that the 

 schools were doing all that was re- 

 quired of them : but such is not the 

 case; the signs of the times are in 

 many respects unsatisfactory. The 

 state has wrenched education from 

 private hands, and now we have to 

 consider what can be done to human- 

 ize the teaching which it is bestow- 

 ing on the millions of our youth. 

 Very many individual teachers are 

 doubtless occupying themselves with 

 the problem, but their efforts will 

 not make up for general public in- 

 difference to it. A nation can not 

 thrive on love of money, nor live on 

 the virtues of a small minority. We 

 must have '' soul," or, to speak with 

 more precision, the spirit of social 



duty and of moral responsibility, at 

 the very base of our educational sys- 

 tems; otherwise education itself be- 

 comes a fraud and a snare, and the 

 very agencies which should consoli- 

 date the social fabric will work for 

 its disruption. 



THE ALLEGED DOGMATISM OF 



SCIENCE. 



In the above article we have 

 touched, in passing, upon a change 

 very frequently and very carelessly 

 made against men of science that 

 they are intolerant of opposition to 

 their scientific theories, and in effect 

 set up a kind of orthodoxy to which 

 all must bow who desire to be con- 

 sidered rational and intelligent be- 

 ings. The charge is utterly frivo- 

 lous, as the most obvious facts attest. 

 Consider first how it applies to some 

 of the most prominent scientific 

 workers of the century. Surely 

 nothing of this kind could truth- 

 fully have been said of such men as 

 Sir Humphry Davy and Michael 

 Faraday, of Sir Charles Lyell or of 

 Agassiz, of our own geologist Dana 

 or our great botanist Gray. As to 

 Darwin, all the world knows that 

 candor and modesty were of the 

 very essence of his character. We 

 might pass rapidly in review a num- 

 ber of other eminent names the very 

 mention of which would be a vindi- 

 cation from the charge, but it would 

 be superfluous. When dogmatism 

 appears it is nearly always on the 

 part of men who have adopted their 

 opinions at secondhand, and who 

 have either ignored altogether, or 

 paid little attention to, those elements 

 of uncertainty which were not only 

 fully present to the minds of the 

 originators of the theories in ques- 

 tion, but also fully expressed in 

 their published works. This simply 

 means that scientific leaders have 

 the same experience that other lead- 

 ers have had, and need to join in the 



