NATURE AND MAN. 437 



tion is a mistaken and injurious one. We desire to make the chief 

 subject of education both in school and in college a knowledge of 

 nature as set forth in the sciences which are spoken of as physics, chem- 

 istry, geology and biology. We think that all education should consist 

 in the first place of this kind of knowledge, on account of its com- 

 manding importance both to the individual and to the community. 

 We think that every man of even a moderate amount of education 

 should have acquired a sufficient knowledge of these subjects to enable 

 him at any rate to appreciate their value, and to take an interest in 

 their progress and application to human life. And we think further 

 that the ablest youth of the country should be encouraged to proceed 

 to the extreme limit of present knowledge in one or other branch of 

 this knowledge of nature so as to become makers of new knowledge, 

 and the possible discoverers of enduring improvements in man's con- 

 trol of nature. No one should be educated so as to be ignorant of the 

 importance of these things; and it should not be possible for the 

 greatest talent and mental power to be diverted to other fields of 

 activity through the fact that the necessary education and opportunity 

 in the pursuit of the knowledge of nature are withheld. The strongest 

 inducements in the way of reward and consideration ought, we believe, 

 to be placed before a young man in the direction of nature-knowledge 

 rather than in the direction of other and far less important subjects 

 of study. 



In fact, we should wish to see the classical and historical scheme 

 of education entirely abandoned, and its place taken by a scheme of 

 education in the knowledge of nature. 



At the same time let me hasten to say that few, if any of us — and 

 certainly not he who now addresses you — would wish to remove the 

 acquirement of the use of languages, the training in the knowledge 

 and perception of beauty in literary art, and the feeding of the mind 

 with the great stories of the past, from a high and necessary position 

 in every grade of education. 



It is a sad and apparently inevitable accompaniment of all discus- 

 sion of this matter that those who advocate a great and leading position 

 for the knowledge of nature in education are accused of desiring to 

 abolish all study of literature, history and philosophy. This is, in 

 reality, so far from being the case that we should most of us wish to 

 see a serviceable knowledge of foreign languages, and a real acquaint- 

 ance with the beauties of English and other literature, substituted for 

 the present unsuccessful efforts to teach effectively either the language 

 or literature of the Greeks and Eomans. 



It should not be for one moment supposed that those who attach 

 the vast importance which we do to the knowledge of nature imagine 

 that man's spirit can be satisfied by exclusive occupation with that 

 knowledge. We know, as well as any, that man does not live by bread 



