530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ested also in their pupils, and understand how to direct them aright. 

 Above all, the teachers must see to it that their pupils study with 

 the understanding and not solely with the memory, not permitting a 

 single lesson to be recited which is not thoroughly understood, 

 taking the greatest care not to load the memory with any useless lum- 

 ber, and eschewing merely memorized rules as they would deadly 

 poison. The great difficulty against which the teachers of natural 

 science have to contend in the colleges are the wretched tread-mill hab- 

 its the students bring with them from the schools. Allow our students 

 to memorize their lessons, and they will appear respectably well, but 

 you might as easily remove a mountain as to make many of them think. 

 They will solve an involved equation of algebra readily enough so 

 long as they can do it by turning their mental crank, when they will 

 break down on the simplest practical problem of arithmetic which re- 

 quires of them only thought enough to decide wJiether they shall mul- 

 tiply or divide. Many a boy of good capabilities has been irretrieva- 

 bly ruined, as a scholar, by being compelled to learn the Latin gram- 

 mar by rote at an age when he was incapable of understanding 

 it ; and I fear that schools may still be found where young minds are 

 tortured by this stupefying exercise. Those of us who have faith in 

 the educational value of scientific studies are most anxious that the 

 students who resort to our colleges should be as well fitted in the 

 physical sciences as in the classics, for otherwise the best results of 

 scientific culture cannot be expected. As it is, our students come to 

 the university, not only with no preparation in physical science, but 

 with their perceptive and reasoning faculties so undeveloped that the 

 acquisition of the elementary principles of science is burdensome and 

 distasteful : and good scholars, who are ambitious of distinction, can 

 more readily win their laurels on the old familiar track than on an un- 

 tried course of which they know nothing, and for which they must 

 begin their training anew. We have improved our system of instruc- 

 tion in the college as fast as we could obtain the means, but we are per- 

 suaded that the best results cannot be reached without the coopera- 

 tion of the schools. We feel, therefore, that it is incumbent upon us, 

 in the first place, to do every thing in our poVer to prove to the 

 teachers of this country how great is the educational value of the 

 physical sciences, when properly taught ; and, secondly, to aid them 

 in acquiring the best methods of teaching these subjects. It is with 

 such aims that our summer courses have been instituted, and your 

 presence here in such numbers is the best evidence that they have met a 

 real want of the community. We welcome you to the university and 

 to such advantages as it can aflbrd, and we shall do all in our power 

 to render your brief residence here fruitful both in experience and in 

 knowledge ; hoping also that the university may become to you, 

 as she has to so many others, a bright light shining calmly over the 

 troubled sea of active life, ever suggesting lofty thoughts, encouraging 



