2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cially to education, they have become organized into a system which 

 is gradually growing settled and unified in its methods. With un- 

 bounded means and unlimited authority, these schools have undertaken 

 to form the mental habits of the great mass of the youth of this coun- 

 try. They prescribe the subjects of study, the modes of study, and 

 the extent and duration of studies for all the pupils that come under 

 their charge. The sphere of their operations is, moreover, steadily 

 extending. They are everywhere encroaching upon the province 

 of higher education, everywhei*e trenching upon private schools, and 

 diminishing the interest in home education. 



It may be assumed that the time has fully come when this system 

 must be measured by the standards of science, and approved or con- 

 demned by the degree of its conformity to what these standards re- 

 quire. Science has become in modern times the great agency of 

 human amelioration, the triumphs of which are seen on every hand and 

 felt in all experience. Grave subjects are brought successively under 

 its renovating and reconstructive influence ; and latest and most im- 

 portant among them is the subject of education. Our inquiry now is 

 how far the public-school system has availed itself of the valuable aid 

 that science offers in the proper cultivation of the minds of the 

 young. 



The interest and necessity of such an investigation will hardly be 

 denied ; but there may be a query as to its relevancy to the appropri- 

 ate work of this society. The making of science popular was not 

 among the objects for which our Association was formed. Not that 

 its founders were unmindful of the importance of widely diffusing the 

 results of research ; but they recognized that the interests of science 

 are so vast as to be only efficiently promoted by division of labor. 

 Under the operation of this principle it was made the distinctive pur- 

 pose of the Association to contribute to the extension of original sci- 

 ence by the discovery of new scientific truth, leaving its dissemina- 

 tion to the schools, the press, and the various agencies of public 

 enlightenment. Nor does your committee understand that it is now 

 proposed to depart from this policy ; for the inquiry before us is really 

 most pertinent to our special objects. It certainly can not be a mat- 

 ter of indifference to this body, from its own point of view, how sci- 

 ence is dealt with in the great system of schools which has undertaken 

 the task of molding the youthful mind of the country. We aim to 

 advance science by the promotion of original investigation, which de- 

 pends upon men prepared for the work. Do the schools of the nation, 

 by their modes of scientific study, favor or hinder this object? Do 

 they foster the early mental tendencies that lead to original thought ; 

 or do they thwart and repress them ? We have an undoubted con- 

 cern in this matter, and it is, moreover, strictly identical with that of 

 the community at large ; for there can be no better test than this of 

 the real character of the school system. When we ask whether a mode 



