EDITOR'S TABLE. 



5ii 



old and established opinion. The studies 

 that have held their supremacy for 

 ages, on the ground of their eminent 

 suitableness for mental discipline, are 

 at last losing their ascendency because 

 of defects in this respect; and the stud- 

 ies which were long resisted because 

 of their alleged unfitness to train the 

 mind, are now coming into wide recog- 

 nition as the best and indispensable 

 means of attaining this end. 



The educational advance here indi- 

 cated is of the highest significance, for 

 the old scholastic scheme which vaunted 

 its perfect adaptation to the work of 

 mental development was chiefly re- 

 markable because it did not include a 

 single branch of study which brought 

 the mind into direct relations with Na- 

 ture. It was, in fact, a scholastic cur- 

 riculum in which Nature was entirely 

 left out, and its discipline could hardly 

 be other than partial and artificial. On 

 the other hand, it now begins to be 

 seen and acknowledged that the com- 

 pletest discipline of the human mind 

 must come from the comprehensive 

 and systematic study of Nature itself. 

 This step is an immense gain to ra- 

 tional culture by putting an end to the 

 old anomaly that the most valuable 

 knowledge for application in life is an- 

 tagonistic to that required for mental 

 development. It is now perceived that 

 " it would be utterly contrary to the 

 beautiful economy of Nature if one 

 kind of culture were needed for the 

 gaining of information, and another 

 kind were needed as a mental gymnas- 

 tic. Everywhere throughout creation 

 we find faculties developed through the 

 performance of those functions which 

 it is their office to perform ; not through 

 the performance of artificial exercises 

 devised to fit them for these functions." 



"With the growing study of Nature, 

 and the creation of those perfected 

 forms of knowledge which we call sci- 

 ence, the grave defects of the old meth- 

 ods of study have become more and 

 more apparent, and are affirmed with 



emphasis by men of broad cultivation 

 and the highest intellectual eminence. 

 Mr. Mill shows that logic, the very sci- 

 ence by which truth is investigated, 

 was paralyzed for two centuries by the 

 habit, prevailing in the universities, of 

 regarding logical propositions as involv- 

 ing the relations of ideas instead of the 

 relations of the phenomena of Nature. 

 So long as logic and the connected 

 branches of mental philosophy assumed 

 that the investigation of truth consisted 

 merely in contemplating and handling 

 ideas, little was done in the way of 

 discovery. Mind wrongly trained was 

 barren of valuable results. It was only 

 by the inversion of this procedure, and 

 the adoption of the scientific method 

 of study which brought the mind face 

 to face with natural phenomena and 

 gave it a new discipline, that the great 

 and fruitful truths of modern knowl- 

 edge have been attained. Dr. Whe- 

 well, late Master of Trinity College, 

 in the Cambridge University, and a 

 man of high scholarship, in his va- 

 rious works upon education, protested 

 strongly against the deficiencies of the 

 old system in the matter of disci- 

 pline, and demanded the larger intro- 

 duction of the sciences to repair their 

 defects. He said : " The period ap- 

 pears now to have arrived when we 

 may venture, or rather when we are 

 bound to endeavor to include a new 

 class of fundamental ideas in the ele- 

 mentary discipline of the human intel- 

 lect. This is indispensable if we wish 

 to educe the powers which we know 

 that it possesses, and to enrich it with 

 the wealth which lies within its reach." 

 In an able lecture by Prof. Helm- 

 holtz, just published in this country, 

 " On the Relation of Natural Science 

 to General Science," he considers the 

 several branches of study as exercises 

 for the intellect, and as supplementing 

 each other in that respect. Admitting 

 that a certain kind of discipline is ob- 

 tained by the study of grammar and 

 philology, he shows that it is radically 



