INFLUENCE OF EDUCATION ON OBSERVATION 361 



partly very observant ; by the one quality he doubtless incommoded 

 himself grievously, by the other he discovered how to predict eclipses, 

 saved mankind from a certain amount of irrational panic, and won for 

 himself a great reputation. To Thales the balance was for good ; but 

 it would not be safe to affirm that this would be the case with every 

 one who walked with his head in the air looking at the stars. 



Thus the direction in which observation may be most usefully 

 practiced varies with the circumstances of the case ; with the circum- 

 stances of the pupil when education is in question ; and is not the 

 same in the different ranks of society. The problem has, we think, 

 been most successfully solved at present in the colleges, more or less 

 recently founded, of our great northern towns. There, physical sci- 

 ence is in demand for practical purposes, and educational institutions 

 accommodate themselves to the demand. But, in the elder universities 

 and the elementary schools alike, an equal measure of solution has not 

 yet been attained. Oxford and Cambridge students (to begin with 

 the higher rank) have not, as a rule, any plain and visible necessity 

 for physical science as an aid in their future employments. But there 

 is another side of science besides the immediately practical one a side 

 which ought to be held of especial value in institutions that have un- 

 der their survey the largest interests of humanity. The great sciences 

 of observation astronomy, geology, and the natural history of ani- 

 mals and plants are more noticeable for their ideal than for their 

 practical side, though they do touch on practice also. They give sub- 

 lime views of the universe, such as it is a refreshment and consolation 

 to possess, and such as touch not remotely on the destiny and happi- 

 ness of man. We in England, at any rate, are not hopeless of the 

 reconciliation of these views with the religious ideal that we have re- 

 ceivecl. But it is the apparent collision, on certain points, between 

 the new and the old that has impeded the reception of these sciences 

 in those respects in which they are so calculated to elicit human feel- 

 ing, and therefore so appropriate as studies in our elder and chief uni- 

 versities. In astronomy, indeed, the collision with religion has been 

 long ago practically surmounted. But the observational side of astron- 

 omy has been rather sunk at Cambridge and Oxford in comparison 

 with its mathematical side. It may be suspected that many students 

 of astronomy (though not astronomers prcmer) have less knowledge of 

 the actual face of the heavens than had those Chaldean shepherds who 

 roamed the plains of the East thousands of years ago, in whom the 

 science originated. 



When we come to the poorer extreme of society, though the ele- 

 mentary education of the country does not quite ignore the cultivation 

 of the observant faculties, neither does it, in our opinion, lay sufficient 

 stress upon them. The arts of reading and writing, and the study of 

 arithmetic, taken simply by themselves, have a tendency to withdraw 

 the mind from the outer world, and it needs a corrective to restore 



