698 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



This is not to depreciate the value of other subjects or of other 

 modes of culture. It is only to refer them to their proper place. 

 Grammar, philology, logic, human history, belles-lettres, philosophy 

 all these things will be seized with avidity and pursued with pleasure 

 by a mind judiciously prepared to receive them. On this point we 

 shall do well to learn, and I believe we are beginning to learn some- 

 thing, from contemporary peoples upon the Continent of Europe. Ob- 

 ject-teaching is beginning to be introduced, if only sparingly, into our 

 primary schools. It should be so introduced universally. And in all 

 our schools, but especially in those in which the foundation is laid of 

 what is called a liberal education, the knowledge of visible things 

 should be made to precede the study of the artificial structure of lan- 

 guage, and the intricacies of grammatical rules and forms. 



The knowledge of visible tilings I repeat these words that I may 

 emphasize them, and, when I repeat them, observe that I mean knowl- 

 edge of visible things, and not information about them knowledge 

 acquired by the learner's own conscious efforts, not crammed into his 

 mind in set forms of words out of books. Our methods of education 

 manifest a strong tendency in these modern times to degenerate in 

 such a sort of cramming. Forty years ago, the printed helps to learn- 

 ing, now supplied to the young men of our colleges in so lavish pro- 

 fusion, were almost unknown ; and teachers lent about as little aid, at 

 least during the earlier years, as books. What the student learned 

 then he learned for himself by positive hard labor. Now we have 

 made the task so easy, we have built so many royal roads to learning 

 in all its departments, that it may be well doubted if the young men 

 of our day, with all their helps, acquire as much as those of that earlier 

 period acquired without them. 



The moral of this experience is that mental culture is not secured 

 by pouring information into passive recipients ; it comes from stimu- 

 lating the mind to gather knowledge for itself. When our systems of 

 education shall have been remodelled from top to bottom, with due 

 attention to this principle, then, if we have minds among us which are 

 capable of pursuing Nature into her yet uncaptured strongholds, we 

 shall find them out and set them at their work. Then neither " mute 

 inglorious Miltons " on the one hand, nor on the other silent, unsus- 

 pected Keplers, nor Newtons " guiltless " of universal gravitation, 

 6hall live unconscious of their powers, or die and make no sign. 

 Then the progress of science will no longer be dependent, as in 

 the past it has been to so great a degree, ou the chance struggles 

 of genius rebelling against circumstances, such as have given us a 

 Herschel, a Franklin, a Hugh Miller, or a Henry ; nor will the world 

 be any more astonished to see the most brilliant of the triumphs of the 

 intellect achieved by men who have cloven their own way to the fore- 

 front, in defiance of all its educational traditions ; as it has seen in the 

 case of a Rumford, a Davy, a Faraday, and a Tyndall. 



