SCIENCE-TEACHING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 209 



of teaching and a manner of study are calculated to awaken the spirit 

 of inquiry, to cultivate the habit of investigation, and rouse independ- 

 Jent thought, our question goes to the root of all true education. 



All sciences are the products of a method of thinking, and it is 

 that method which concerns us when we propose to regard it as a 

 means of mental cultivation. Science is an outgrowth of common 

 knowledge, and the scientific method is but a development of the 

 ordinary processes of thought that are employed by everybody. The 

 common knowledge of people is imperfect because their observations 

 are vague and loose, their reasoning Tiasty and careless, their minds 

 warped by prejudice and deadened by credulity, and because they 

 find it easier to invent fanciful explanations of things than to discover 

 the real ones. For thousands of years the knowledge of nature was 

 rude and stationary because the habits of thought were so defective. 

 But, with a growing desire to understand how the world around is 

 constituted, men improved their processes of thinking. They began, 

 and were compelled to begin, by questioning accepted facts, and 

 doubting current theories. The first step was one of self-assertion, 

 implying that degree of mental independence which led men to think 

 for themselves. They learned to make their own observations and to 

 trust them against authority. It was found, as a first and indispen- 

 sable condition of gaining clear ideas, that the mind must be occupied 

 directly with the subject to be investigated. In this way scientific 

 inquiry at length grew into a method of forming judgments which 

 was characterized by the most vigilant and disciplined precautions 

 against error. Of the mental processes involved in research it is un- 

 necessary here to speak ; we are only concerned to know that the sci- 

 entific method is simply a systematic exercise in truth-seeking, and is 

 the only mode of using the human mind when it is desired to attain 

 the most accurate and perfect form of knowledge. The whole body 

 of modern scientific truth, disclosing the order of Xature and guiding 

 the development of civilization, must be taken as an attestation of the 

 validity of the scientific method of thought by which these results 

 have been established. We here get rid of all cramping limitations. 

 The scientific method is applicable to all subjects whatever that in- 

 volve constancy of relations, causes and effects, and conform to the 

 operation of law. It is applicable wherever evidence is to be weighed, 

 error got rid of, facts determined, and principles established. Our 

 public schools, unhappily, make but little use of this method in the 

 work of mental cultivation, and we shall find some explanation of this 

 by referring to the way they grew up. 



The American public-school system originated in the theory that 

 the State owes to every child the rudiments of a common education, 

 or an elementary knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic, as im- 

 plements of after mental improvement. But it was early found difficult 

 to separate this primary use of tools from the acquisition of knowledge. 



VOL. XXIII. 14 



