SCIENCE IN THE HIGH SCHOOL. 723 



appear to answer the purpose tolerably well and is cheaper, which 

 it never is in the long run." In other words, we try to satisfy the 

 public by a show of teaching those subjects which we can not 

 really teach. And so, in the sciences we study books instead of 

 Nature, because books are plenty and cheap, and can be finished 

 quickly, while Nature herself is accessible only to those who want 

 something of her. 



The high school would do well not to attempt to give a general 

 view of science. This is possible only in a " Chautauqua course " 

 or in a "school of all sciences." It is better to select some two or 

 three of the number, a physical and a biological science, perhaps, 

 and to spend the available time on these. The choice should 

 depend mainly on the interest or the skill of the teacher. Teach 

 those sciences that you can teach best. 



President Hill, of Rochester University, has well said : " Thou- 

 sands of our youth have studied chemistry without ever seeing an 

 experiment, physics without seeing an air-pump, and astronomy 

 without ever looking through a telescope. A professor of the 

 ancient type maintained that this is a great advantage, like the 

 study of geometry without figures, because it stimulates the imagi- 

 nation. It is an invigoration of stupidity and conceit, sealing the 

 mind to reality by substituting subjective fancies for experimental 

 proofs, and the pretense of knowing for clear ideas. Its effect 

 upon the morals is as pernicious as its effect upon the mind, for 

 it weakens the reverence for truth and engenders the habit of 

 mental trifling." 



Even so wise a schoolmaster as Dr. William T. Harris excludes 

 science-teaching (and science-teaching with him means simply 

 giving information about scientific subjects) from the funda- 

 mental requirements of education, because the knowledge of na- 

 ture is not one of the five windows through which the soul looks 

 out on life. These windows, according to Mr. Harris, are reading 

 and writing, grammar, arithmetic, geography, and history. The 

 simile is a happy one. The soul, confined in the watch-tower of 

 mediaeval education, looks out on the world through these five 

 windows, and they are but windows, for they give no contact with 

 the things themselves. The study of nature throws wide open 

 the doors, and lets the soul out to the fields and woods. It brings 

 that contact with God through his works which has been, through 

 all the ages, the inspiration of the poets and prophets, as well as 

 of those long-despised apostles of truth whom we call men of 

 science. 



A second difficulty is this: Our towns will not pay for teach- 

 ers enough to do the work as it should be done, and of the few 

 teachers we have the people make no demand for thorough prepa- 

 ration. Very few of them are broadly educated or have had any 



