122 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



CORRESPOI^DENCE. 



SCIENCE AT PEINCETON COLLEGE. 

 Messrs. Editors. 

 ri"^HERE are statements in the " Corre- 



.1_ spondence " of the last number of 

 '' The Popuhir Science Monthly " fitted to 

 leave an unjust impression as to what is 

 taught in Princeton College. I do not enter 

 upon the argument of that article, which is 

 palpably illogical. It is that we have had low 

 fever, taking a tvphoid shape, because we do 

 not teach physiology to our students. Two 

 scientific adepts have reported as to our 

 sanitary state, and what they have testified 

 is likely to be accepted by the public. Nor 

 do I look on this as the fitting opportunity 

 to enter on the discussion as to what branch- 

 es should be taught in colleges which im- 

 part a high and refining education, and con- 

 fer the Bachelor's, the Master's, and the Doc- 

 tor's degrees. My opinions on this subject 

 have often been given to the world. I be- 

 lieve that, in our higher educational institu- 

 tions, there should be a due combination of 

 literature (including languages), of science, 

 and philosophy. We have endeavored to 

 unite these, and give a proper place to each 

 in our curriculum. It is only thus that we 

 can fulfill the grand end of education, that 

 of developing the man and the full man. I 

 do not regard a youth as fully trained who 

 knows merely Latin and Greek ; but as lit- 

 tle do I look upon him as educated if he 

 knows only his own bodily frame and ma- 

 larial disease. Nor am I ashamed to add 

 that religion has an important part to act 

 in a college, if we would impart the proper 

 spirit to our young men. The favorites of 

 " The Popular Science Monthly," Professor 

 Huxley and Herbert Spencer, have avowed 

 that there is no adequacy in physical sci- 

 ence to make youths moral ; and the former 

 wishes the Bible taught in the public schools 

 of London, and the latter seems to be trust- 

 ing to a development which will make peo- 

 ple moral in a million of years, if in the 

 mean time the world is not burnt up by 

 the conflagration which he says must come. 

 But my special object in this communica- 

 tion is to correct certain statements and in- 

 sinuations as to our teaching. The impres- 

 sion is left by the article that we give ex- 

 clusive, or, at least, our chief attention, to 

 classics and certain old branches, and that 

 we neglect the study of our own bodily frame 



and of tlie laws of health. After this dec- 

 laration, your readers may be surprised to 



learn that of our thirty instructors thirteen 



are employed in teaching the various sci- 

 ences, including the very latest. As to the 

 special branches which we are said not to 

 teach, the Professor of General Chemistry 

 reports : " All students of the college have 

 a full course of instruction in the outlines 

 of human anatomy and physiology, with so 

 much of hygiene as there is time for ; and 

 this has been done in the college for nearly 

 half a century. We do not profess to be a 

 medical college, or to train physicians, but 

 no student leaves us without a fair knowl- 

 edge of his own bodily system." The Profes- 

 sor of Analytical Chemistry reports : " The 

 question of sewage, from a chemical point 

 of view, is fully investigated by all the stu- 

 dents of the scientific course and by those 

 of the academic course who elect applied 

 chemistry. Its injurious effects on the at- 

 mosphere and on the water are described 

 and the laws of the diffusion of all gases 

 are applied at this present time, and have 

 always been, to this question." The Profes- 

 sor of Natural History writes : " The students 

 in science go through a course of physiol- 

 ogy, using ' Huxley' s Elements ' as a text- 

 book, along with ^Youmans's Chapters on 

 Hijgienc,^ to which special attention is giv- 

 en. The subjects which are said to be neg- 

 lected are all taught with some degree of 

 fullness." I have an idea that some of the 

 readers of " The Popular Science Monthly " 

 will be gratified to notice that Professor 

 Youmans is allowed to teach hygiene to our 

 young men ; but they will also discover that 

 this fact undermines his argument, which is 

 that, where hygiene is taught, there should 

 be no fever. 



James McCosh. 

 Pkinceton College, August 14, ISSO. 



THE SENSE OF DIRECTION IN ANIMALS. 



Messrs. Editors. 



I WAS very much interested in the ac- 

 count, published in your July number, of 

 the experiments with the intelligent Cin- 

 cinnati dog, and I think the facts there 

 developed tend strongly to the proof of a 

 theory that I have long believed to be cor- 

 rect, viz., that some of the lower animals 

 are endowed with a sense of location and 

 direction which at most is only rudimen- 

 tarily possessed by man. I do not think 

 that the feats of the carrier-pigeon can be 

 accounted for on the theory of any finite 



