366 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the material world " nearly out of our store of force." But it were 

 wisdom in us to husband the forces we have, that we may hand down 

 to our successors a thoroughly well-ordered system in all things. And 

 in nothing should we be so careful and scrupulous as in our schemes 

 of education, which affect, in a very direct way, the judgment of the 

 generation which follows us. 



Sooner or later there is created in most American colleges what is 

 thereafter known as its astronomical observatory, and in respect to 

 this portion of the college we are frequently called on to lament over 

 some glaring instances of wasted force force misapplied. One of the 

 forms of these prevalent errors is a mania for " instruments of the 

 largest size," which are not unfrequently bought at large cost, and 

 used perhaps a dozen times a year to allow the senior class, and per- 

 chance a few ladies, to view such objects as Jupiter, Saturn, the moon, 

 perhaps a double star, and, more unlikely yet, a nebula. Its kindred 

 error is an immense and vague desire for the multiplication of appa- 

 ratus, so that one walks amid a labyrinth of chronographs, transits, 

 meridian circles, and equatorials, upon each of which the rust of long 

 inaction lies. We must remember that each of these instruments rep- 

 resents a large outlay of money, and also an expenditure of faith in the 

 giver of them. It is bad enough to allow so much mere capital to lie 

 idle, but it is worse not to return to the benefactor of a college some- 

 thing which may be the sign of a good investment, something which 

 shall encourage him and others to believe that their gifts are doing 

 real, practical educational good. It is here intended to speak only of 

 the college observatory as a means of education, and a distinct differ- 

 ence is made between the ordinary institution of this kind, and the 

 working observatories of such colleges as Dartmouth, Harvard, the 

 University of Michigan, and others. 



It is taken for granted that the ordinarily-constituted observatory 

 is for the purpose of teaching certain specific things and certain im- 

 portant methods to the average class of college pupils, and it will be 

 the endeavor of this paper to point out a remedy for some of the 

 abuses that undoubtedly exist in this respect. 



Most certainly there are but few subjects which have a greater edu- 

 cational value than Astronomy. As a continuation of the most advanced 

 mathematical course, Theoretical Astronomy is of immense importance 

 and of endless extent. The effect of its study upon the mind is of a 

 much higher order, most of us will agree nowadays, whatever Pythag- 

 oras might have said, than the study of even the most abstract rela- 

 tions of number and space. It is supplementary to these last-named 

 subjects, which are, so to say, its raw material, which it elaborates 

 into more complex and higher forms. But let us remember, it is the 

 boast of Theoretical Astronomy that it is purely a science of the closet, 

 dependent upon observation only for its data. Its greatest master, 

 Laplace, thus speaks in the " Systeme du Monde : " " II est tres re- 



