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THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MOXTHLY 



Yale has taken steps to repair this de- 

 ficiency. He says, tliat university has 

 appointed two gentlemen to lecture- 

 snips upon these subjects, with the fol- 

 lowing qualifications: they are "both 

 of them eminent examples of the ap- 

 plication of thorough intellectual train- 

 ing to practical politics ; " and the hope 

 is expressed that a space will be allowed 

 in the curriculum proportionate to the 

 importance of the subjects. We cor- 

 dially concur with him in this desire, 

 and cannot doubt that advantage will 

 arise from the teachings of the able 

 men selected to take the professor- 

 ships; but we hold that merely to make 

 a "place" for these studies or to en- 

 graft them on the classical stock, or to 

 intrust their exposition to gentlemen 

 whose qualifications are only the ap- 

 plication of "thorough intellectual 

 training to practical politics," is a 

 quite inadequate preparation for the 

 work to be done. 



Social and political sciences are con- 

 fessedly the most complex, obscure, and 

 difficult of all the sciences ; so much so 

 that it is hardly yet understood what is 

 meant by the terms, even by those who 

 use them most freely. We have looked 

 through the reports of the Social-Sci- 

 ence Associations English and Ameri- 

 can for something like a clear defini- 

 tion of what social science is. This 

 question was formally attacked, not 

 long ago, at a convention in Boston, by 

 men whose names are eminent in con- 

 nection with the subject, but there was 

 the most extraordinary disagreement, 

 and a tacit confession of the impossi- 

 bility of the task. The proceedings 

 of these bodies abundantly attest this 

 vagueness and conflict of opinion. 

 They mainly consist of philanthropic 

 projects and reformatory schemes for 

 public improvement plans for repair- 

 ing the defects of society which would 

 be better described as social art than 

 social science. With such loose and 

 erroneous notions in regard to the sub- 

 ject itself, we are hardly to expect any 



clear views of its proper place in edu 

 cation. We have had centuries of that 

 " thorough intellectual training," which 

 it has been the boast of universities 

 to give, applied to " practical politics " 

 without so much as even discovering the 

 existence of a social science. A higher 

 education, which prides itself on the 

 perfection of its mental discipline, and 

 which sacrifices every thing else to this 

 idea, has thrown its graduates by thou- 

 sands, age after age, into political and 

 public life to very little purpose, so far 

 as the increase of our scientific knowl- 

 edge of society is concerned ; and for 

 the obvious reason that the vaunted 

 mental discipline has not been of a sci- 

 entific character, and is therefore value- 

 less for great scientific ends. This in- 

 quiry is, however, being worked out 

 in a series of articles now appearing 

 in the Popular Science Monthly. 

 And it is well here to note that this 

 difficult and important work is being 

 first thoroughly done by a thinker 

 whose intellectual training was not ob- 

 tained at the university, who knows 

 nothing of Greek and Latin, and has had 

 very little to do with practical politics. 

 His preparation, indeed, is such as the 

 universities would not have afforded, 

 and the chances are high that, if he had 

 submitted himself to their guidance, 

 and had his mind drilled in youth by 

 their methods, and filled with their 

 ideas, the great work that he is now 

 doing would have been impossible for 

 him. His preparation has consisted in 

 the life-long study of science. He has 

 mastered its various departments, and 

 attested this mastery by original dis- 

 coveries in its physical and biological 

 branches ; and, having given his whole 

 life to these studies and obtained a 

 knowledge of them which Mr. Mill has 

 pronounced "encyclopaedic," he has 

 the indispensable preparation for the 

 work of extending science in its higher 

 and unexplored applications to social 

 phenomena. 



If there be a social science, it is be- 



