EDITOR >S 



TABLE. 



37 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



OBSERVATION IN EDUCATION. 

 A N excellent article in the Tribune 

 U ~\ . urges the need of more and 

 better-educated observers to carry on 

 the work of science. Prof. Agassiz is 

 quoted as urging the establishment, in 

 San Francisco, of a college for the 

 training of skilled scientific observers. 

 It is stated that the Signal-Service Bu- 

 reau is engaged in training a large 

 number of students in the use of in- 

 struments of observation, with a view 

 to taking charge of signal-stations for 

 the promotion of meteorological sci- 

 ence. We publish an able and inter- 

 esting paper on the claims of physical 

 laboratories, in connection with insti- 

 tutions of learning, which shall afford 

 the necessary opportunity of training 

 in phys : cal observation. Of the im- 

 portance of this work the writer in the 

 Tribune observes : " We think the day 

 is coming when it will be generally 

 recognized that careful scientific obser- 

 vation is the most valuable labor per- 

 formed in the world." And regarding 

 its delicacy and difficulty, lie further 

 observes : 



" Of the nicety of observation -which sci- 

 ence requires, it is difficult to convey to the 

 uninitiated any idea, A man who has never 

 before looked through a telescope would not 

 probably be able to see Biela's comet, upon 

 whose vagaries hang so much speculation, if 

 he gazed through any of the instruments by 

 which the observations on it have been ob- 

 tained. The hest microscopists, in approach- 

 ing the more difficult class of investigations, 

 prepare their physical systems by fasting and 

 rest, so that even their skilled eyesight may 

 give a purer service. Already men are train- 

 ing themselves in certain specialties of obser- 

 vation, with reference to the fevr minutes 

 of work they expect to perform, two years 

 hence, at the transit of Venus." 



Kow all this is most true. Excepting 

 that higher intellectual work by which, 

 from the facts of observation, laws are 



arrived at, so that general principles 

 can be substituted for ever-accumulat- 

 ing details, there is no labor performed 

 in the world so valuable as that of 

 careful scientific observation, and it is 

 also true that its difficulty equals its 

 importance. 



But there is a vital consideration 

 connected with the subject, which the 

 writer seems to have overlooked: it is 

 that the capacity of educated observa- 

 tion is just as necessary for people 

 generally as for men of science. Facts 

 bear the same relation to principles, in 

 common life, that they do in the higher 

 departments of technical science. The 

 question is, at last, simply one of evi- 

 dence: what is fact, and what is not fact? 

 Imperfect observations vitiate reason- 

 ing, and lead to erroneous conclusions 

 in the workshop, on the farm, in the 

 counting-room, the church, and the 

 legislative ball, just as much as in the 

 laboratory or the observatory. The 

 objects are different; the mental pro- 

 cedure is the same. But that which 

 is a universal necessity should be pro- 

 vided for by universal means, and sys- 

 tematic training in observation should 

 therefore be a recognized part of our 

 common education. Even for purposes 

 of the higher science, this truth is not 

 to be neglected ; for you can no more 

 make first-class observers out of young 

 men who first take up the business in 

 college, than you can make first-class 

 musicians by beginning with adults. 

 Skill in doing the most important work 

 in the world is not to be so cheaply 

 and readily acquired. For the sake of 

 science itself, training in observation 

 should begin in childhood, and become 

 an early mental habit. There are na- 

 tive aptitudes here as in all other de- 

 partments of intellectual exertion; and 

 only by beginning with the young can 



