760 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



plies a knowledge of "biology, and biology has its foundations in 

 chemistry and physics. I do not think there is any one whose 

 opinion one would care for who disputes these relations, but the 

 necessities of them there are many who do not see ; they are those 

 whose ideas of physical relations are misty and unsound. 



These are the essential things that every man ought to know 

 whatever else he may know, for they have to do with the every-day 

 life of every man. With them he is best prepared to act wisely 

 in every calling in life, and without them right acting is a hap- 

 hazard affair, as one is likely as not to be at war with the na- 

 ture of things, even when his intentions are irreproachable. The 

 stars in their courses fought against Sisera, but Nature never be- 

 gins a contention. When one is initiated, she never asks for the 

 character of the litigant. No distinction is made between igno- 

 rance and intention, piety and depravity, and no contention is ever 

 settled by compromise, it is always an unconditional surrender. 

 These are therefore the things that a college should teach, what- 

 ever else it might offer. But these are not to be learned from 

 books. They must be got at first hand to be useful. It may be 

 noted that these things are not to be learned so much for the 

 facts presented as for the relations implied, though a true rela- 

 tion is as much a fact as any illustration of it can be. The law 

 of gravitation is as much a fact as water running down hill is, 

 and the continuity of phenomena is of vastly more importance to 

 the race to know than all the mental efforts of the race before 

 the time of Newton. If once accepted it dominates everywhere. 



This is the condition of things that confronts us. The past has 

 already been broken from, whether all are conscious of it or not. 

 Its great ones are no longer our teachers and leaders in knowl- 

 edge. The point of view of human affairs is not only changed, 

 but there is demanded a change in the ideals of the race. Science 

 has given us a new heaven and a new earth. The education of 

 the past has proved not only inadequate, but wholly incompetent 

 to train a mind so that it can assimilate or appreciate genuine 

 knowledge. The names of those who have built up this new 

 body, with few exceptions, can not be found on the registers of 

 the great schools. Does it not appear to the disadvantage of the 

 great schools that the discoveries which have so revolutionized 

 men's ways of thinking and doing were nearly all made by men 

 who had few or no opportunities for school education ? To name 

 but a few, think of Watt, of Stephenson, of Dalton, of Faraday, 

 of Joule, of Huxley, of Spencer, of Franklin, of Henry, of Edison. 

 There are no corresponding names to stand beside them for at- 

 tainments, and the record of the exceptions is mostly for stu- 

 pidity in the school work, while the opposition and hindrance to 

 the general reception of new truth in any field have always been 



