i 9 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



be admitted to the colleges was right and just ; but that low standards 

 should be set up for badly -prepared students, either male or female, 

 was never intended by the advocates of the new departure. 



Wo now see that the general low character of our scientific courses 

 of study may be traced to two distinct causes : first, to the crudeness 

 due to the novelty of the subject ; and, second, to the competition for 

 students. With the latter cause we have in the present paper little to 

 do, save to distinctly recognize its baneful action. The former is the 

 one to be particularly discussed. 



When courses of study in science were first proposed, our colleges 

 were controlled almost exclusively by men of classical training and 

 bias men wholly outside of scientific life, unacquainted with scientific 

 work, the scientific method, or the scientific spirit. Upon these men 

 devolved at first the organization of the new courses. With them, study 

 was mainly a matter of book-work ; such as recitations and written ex- 

 ercises, aided by an occasional lecture. Laboratory or experimental 

 instruction was rarely thought of, save when a professor exhibited a 

 few specimens upon his lecture-table, or performed some showy experi- 

 ment. Students went to the professor of chemistry much as they 

 would go to see a conjurer ; expecting to be stunned, dazzled, and de- 

 lighted, but dreaming of no real study except an occasional recitation 

 and the cram for examinations at the end of a term. Mental discipline 

 from such study was out of the question ; real scholarship had nothing 

 to do with it ; systematic research on the part of either student or 

 professor was almost unheard of. The study of science consisted in 

 empirically memorizing a few disconnected facts, without reference to 

 their mutual relations, or to the growth of any specific department of 

 knowledge. This was the rule ; but, fortunately, there were some 

 exceptions. In a few of the larger colleges a better state of things ex- 

 isted a state which was by no means perfection, but one which afiorded 

 a starting-point for healthy growth and improvement. In these col- 

 leges the scientific work was controlled by distinctively scientific men, 

 and under their guidance the adverse influences were in part at least 

 overcome. From such centres the scientific spirit has spread ; and, now 

 that the early crudeness has worn away, we are able to see clearly what 

 a scientific course of study ought to be, and in what quarters our greater 

 deficiencies lie. 



Now, the problem before us is easily stated. It is to devise a course 

 of study in which language is subordinate to the natural and physical 

 sciences, and which shall be fully equal in requirements for admission 

 and in subsequent mental training to the old-fashioned classical cur- 

 riculum. In such a course the student must receive as solid and sys- 

 tematic a training as was ever furnished by a study of the classics ; and 

 for less than this no diploma should be granted. Of course, it is to be 

 understood that the two systems of education cannot lead to identical 

 results : each is in certain respects superior to the other ; the equality 



