i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



exclusion of " literary instruction and education " from a college 

 which, nevertheless, professes to give a high and efficient education, 

 sharply criticised. Certainly the time was that the Levites of culture 

 would have sounded their trumpets against its walls as against an edu- 

 cational Jericho. How often have we not been told that the study of 

 physical science is incompetent to confer culture ; that it touches 

 none of the higher problems of life ; and, what is worse, that the con- 

 tinual devotion to scientific studies tends to generate a narrow and 

 bigoted belief in the applicability of scientific methods to the search 

 after truth of all kinds ! How frequently one has reason to observe 

 that no reply to a troublesome argument tells so well as calling its 

 author a " mere scientific specialist " ! And, as I am afraid it is not 

 permissible to speak of this form of opposition to scientific education 

 in the past tense, may we not expect to be told that this, not only 

 omission, but prohibition of " mere literary instruction and education " 

 is a patent example of scientific narrow-mindedness ? 



I am not acquainted with Sir Josiah Mason's reasons for the action 

 which he has taken ; but, if, as I apprehend is the case, he refers to 

 the ordinary classical course of our schools and universities by the 

 name of " mere literary instruction and education," I venture to offer 

 sundry reasons of my own in support of that action. For I hold very 

 strongly by two convictions : The first is, that 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 valu- 

 able time upon either ; and the second is, that, for the j)urpose of 

 attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific education is at least as i 

 effectual as an exclusively literary education. I need hardly point out ' 

 to you that these opinions, especially the latter, are diametrically op- 

 posed to those of the great majority of educated Englishmen, influ- 

 enced as they are by school and university traditions. In their belief 

 culture is obtainable only by a liberal education, and a liberal educa- 

 tion is synonymous not merely with education and instruction in litera- 

 ture, but in one particular form of literature, namely, that of Greek 

 and Roman antiquity. They hold that the man who has learned Latin' 

 and Greek, however little, is educated ; while he who is versed in : 

 other branches of knowledge, however deeply, is a more or less re- 

 spectable specialist, rot admissible into the cultured caste. The stamp 

 of the educated man, the university degree, is not for him. 



I am too well acquainted with the generous catholicity of spirit, 

 the true sympathy with scientific thought, which pervades the writings 

 of our chief apostle of culture to identify him with these opinions ; 

 and yet one may cull fi'om one and another of those epistles to the 

 Philistines, which so much delight all who do not answer to that 

 name, sentences which lend them some support. Mr. Arnold tells us 

 that the meaning of culture is "to know the best that has been 

 thought and said in the world." It is the criticism of life contained 



