244 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that they are competent to carry it 

 on. 



Now, the result of such an alliance 

 as is here proposed could not be other 

 than salutary upon the institutions 

 themselves. The effect of giving them 

 a certain definite and responsible scien- 

 tific work in their localities, the results 

 of which would be brought to the test 

 of public criticism, would inevitably be 

 to elevate and sustain the standard of 

 instruction in their laboratories and 

 lecture-rooms. It is a grave difficulty 

 with these higher institutions that their 

 work cannot be brought to judgment 

 and submitted to fixed and recognized 

 tests. They are often the places for 

 careless, slipshod, and aimless work. 

 Mental results are not easy of inspec- 

 tion or valuation ; sham and cram are 

 showy and telling, and the constant 

 temptation is to put them in the place 

 of solid attainment ; and, when college 

 authorities can constantly fall back 

 upon the pretext that their aim is dis- 

 cipline, and that knowledge is a quite 

 subordinate matter, they open a door 

 which allows any amount of loose and 

 slovenly work, and at the same time 

 permits the teachers to escape respon- 

 sibility and criticism. But if a college 

 were publicly placed in the scientific 

 charge of the region in which it is sit- 

 uated, and required to make such re- 

 ports thereof as could be accepted for 

 guidance by the community,and brought 

 into conspicuous comparison with simi- 

 lar work in other localities, the whole 

 being under the supervision of able 

 superintendents, a standard would be 

 introduced that could not fail to give 

 a high and authoritative tone to the 

 work of the place. 



But the effectual carrying out of 

 the plan now proposed would not only 

 insure able and qualified men as pro- 

 fessors, but much more ; it would call 

 the students to the work, and secure 

 the grand object of scientific education 

 by bringing their minds into direct and 

 systematic relation with natural phe- 



nomena. It would bring them out of 

 their dormitories and class-rooms into 

 the field, and, while favoring health and 

 cultivating a sympathy with natural 

 tilings, it would bring to bear the stim- 

 ulus of curiosity and the love of search, 

 while the intellectual work, being of 

 the nature of independent observation 

 and discovery, would be promotive of 

 self-education the best of all educa- 

 tion. It is as notorious as it is deplo- 

 rable that the scientific teaching of our 

 colleges is grossly defective. Geology, 

 botany, chemistry, physics, and zool- 

 ogy, are taught from books like Latin 

 and history, with the aid, perhaps, of 

 a few demonstrations by the lecturer. 

 The information acquired is super- 

 ficial and second-hand, and does not 

 deserve the name of scientific knowl- 

 edge. We believe the effect upon stu- 

 dents of bringing them into close men- 

 tal relation with surrounding Nature, 

 of putting them in charge of a district, 

 and requiring them to observe, classify, 

 and describe its various objects, under 

 the incitement that their useful work 

 would have fair recognition, would be 

 to give inspiration to study, solidity 

 to acquirement, and the highest possi- 

 bilities of usefulness to subsequent life. 

 An important consequence of such a 

 plan would be, the growth of scientific 

 museums which would represent the 

 character and resources of the locality. 

 As there is no educational appliance 

 more important than a good museum, so 

 there is no educational process more val- 

 uable than the formation of it. Those 

 crude, miscellaneous, rubbishy collec- 

 tions of curiosities, and odd things gath- 

 ered by accident, that are often thrown 

 together, without method, in some un- 

 appropriated corner of an institution, 

 are not entitled to the name of museums. 

 Specimens are nothing except as illus- 

 trating ideas, and they require to be so 

 arranged as to teach the science to 

 which they belong. As we ordinarily 

 find them, museums are hardly more in- 

 structive than so much blank space. A 



