742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lettres and no more. And this is no sufficient equipment, he argues, 

 for a criticism of modern life. But as I do not mean, by knowing 

 ancient Rome, knowing merely more or less of Latin belles-lettres, and 

 taking no account of Rome's military and political and legal and ad- 

 ministrative work in the world ; and as, by knowing ancient Greece, I 

 understand knowing her as the giver of Greek art, and the guide to a 

 free and right use of reason and to scientific method, and the founder 

 of our mathematics and physics and astronomy and biology I under- 

 stand knowing her as all this, and not merely knowing certain Greek 

 poems, histories, and speeches so as to the knowledge of modern na- 

 tions also. By knowing modern nations, I mean not merely knowing 

 their belles-lettres, but knowing also what has been done by such men 

 as Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin. "Our ancestors learned,". 

 says Professor Huxley, " that the earth is the center of the visible uni- 

 verse, and that man is the cynosure of things terrestrial ; and more 

 especially was it inculcated that the course of nature had no fixed 

 order, but that it could be, and constantly was, altered." But for us 

 now, says Professor Huxley, " the notions of the beginning and the 

 end of the world entertained by our forefathers are no longer credible. 

 It is very certain that the earth is not the chief body in the material 

 universe, and that the world is not subordinated to man's use. It is 

 even more certain that nature is the expression of a definite order, 

 with which nothing interferes. . . . And yet," he cries, " the purely 

 classical education advocated by the representatives of the humanists 

 in our day gives no inkling of all this ! " 



In due place and time we will, perhaps, touch upon the question of 

 classical education, but at present the question is as to what is meant 

 by knowing the best which modern nations have thought and said. 

 It is not knowing their belles-lettres merely that is meant. To know 

 Italian belles-lettres is not to know Italy, and to know English belles- 

 lettres is not to know England. Into knowing Italy and England 

 there comes a great deal more, Galileo and Newton among it. The 

 reproach of being a superficial humanism, a tincture of belles-lettres, 

 may attach rightly enough to some other disciplines ; but, to the par- 

 ticular discipline recommended when I proposed knowing the best 

 that has been thought and said in the world, it does not apply. In 

 that best I certainly include what in modern times has been thought 

 and said by the great observers and knowers of nature. 



There is, therefore, really no question between Professor Huxley 

 and me as to whether knowing the results of the scientific study of 

 nature is not required as a part of our culture, as well as knowing the 

 products of literature and art. But to follow the processes by which 

 those results are reached ought, say the friends of physical science, 

 to be made the staple of education for the bulk of mankind. And 

 here there does arise a question between those whom Professor Hux- 

 ley calls with playful sarcasm " the Levitcs of culture " and those 



