642 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



if we choose, the manifestations of their indwelling brutality, but can 

 not hinder its secret permanence, amazing as such impulses seem to 

 close observers. But all who are seriously devoted to progress may 

 keep this truth fixed in view, that all elevation of classical studies at 

 the expense of other branches of knowledge is a step backward into 

 barbarism, and all furtherance of the exact sciences in the teaching of 

 youth is a step forward toward civilization. 



And, in this connection, I find great satisfaction in drawing atten- 

 tion to the address delivered at the opening of the Mason Science Col- 

 lege, at Birmingham, by Huxley, the distinguished English scientist, 

 and published in the number of " Nature " for October 7, 1880. 



It seems that there arose in the mind of Sir Josiah Mason, an Eng- 

 lishman, apparently a money-getter of the purest type, the idea, cer- 

 tainly a most extraordinary one, of spending in his lifetime thousands 

 of pounds, not in buying Krupp guns, but in establishing at Birming- 

 ham an amply endowed college, in which young persons might acquire 

 "sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge." The founder 

 of this institute leaves its managers all possible freedom as to the means 

 for attaining this object, only binding teachers and pupils alike for all 

 coming time in three particulars : Party politics of whatever nature 

 are excluded ; theology is sho^Ti the door once for all ; and, in con- 

 clusion, it is expressly prescribed that the college shall make no pro- 

 vision for mere literary instruction and education. 



There was something that did not occur to the mind of this Eng- 

 lishman, enriched by trade and industry, who felt that every step in 

 his path of life was almost a stumble, by reason of his defective knowl- 

 edge of the exact sciences. " It is not impossible," says Huxley, "that 

 we shall hear this express exclusion of * literary instruction and educa- 

 tion ' 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 educational Jericho." 



The time has come, indeed, and the storm of indignation that arose, 

 among the Levites of classical old England, is still echoing in the 

 newspapers a storm bursting not over the college alone, but specially 

 over Huxley, so eminent in science, who dared in the course of his 

 address to vindicate this idea. 



" For those," he says, " who mean to make science their serious 

 occupation, or who intend to follow the profession of medicine, or 

 who have to enter early upon the business of life for all these, in my 

 opinion, classical education is a mistake ; and it is for that reason that 

 I am glad to see 'mere literary instruction and education' shut out 

 from the curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason's college, seeing that its in- 

 clusion would probably lead to the introduction of the ordinary smat- 

 tering of Latin and Greek. Nevertheless, I am the last person to 

 question the importance of genuine literary education, or to suppose 



