SCIENTIFIC COURSES OF STUDY. i 95 



ables him to represent pictorially what he sees. All three studies give 

 him power, and two of them help to train his sense of beauty. 



Now for the main features of the course the natural and physical 

 sciences. How shall they be taught, and with what purposes in view ? 



It is a proposition of self-evident truth that a scientific course which 

 gives the student no real insight into the aims and methods of scientific 

 research and scientific thought is a failure. Certainly, a Bachelor of 

 Science ought to clearly understand what science is, what it has accom- 

 plished, and what it is trying to do. He should be able to appreciate 

 both its capacities and its limitations, and have some idea of the rela- 

 tions which connect its several branches. He must see that Nature is 

 an organized whole, with all its parts dependent upon one another, 

 governed by inviolable laws, subject to no caprices. If he fails to gain 

 these broad, general conceptions, his work will remain incomplete, and 

 of little intellectual value. Such statements as these are undoubtedly 

 truisms ; and yet there are many colleges in which their force is seem- 

 ingly never recognized. 



In order that these general purposes may be properly carried out, it 

 is best that every student should choose some one science as a specialty. 

 Close and exact work can hardly be done otherwise. He who divides 

 his time equally among all the sciences will not catch the real spirit of 

 any one. He will merely pick up information empirically, without 

 gaining genuine insight into anything, or acquiring much intellectual 

 power. Not that he should confine himself to a single branch alone, 

 for that would not be in accordance with the principles already laid 

 down ; but he ought, in his special science, to do as much work as in 

 all the others collectively. 1 



We often hear a great outcry against the danger of making special- 

 ists. This outcry is only in part well-founded. A man who is so 

 trained as to be blind to everything beyond his own department is 

 indeed weak whether that department be a science, art, music, the- 

 ology, or commerce. A certain amount of versatility is essential to 

 breadth of view ; but it is not necessary that the student should be 

 superficial. It is of the utmost importance that there shall be thor- 

 oughness somewhere ; and yet this fact, of all others, is the one most 

 frequently overlooked in our smaller colleges. If a student in classics 

 were to ask the privilege of continuing both Latin and Greek through 

 the whole four years of his college course, his teachers would probably 

 regard the desire as eminently praiseworthy, and deserving of en- 

 couragement. And yet he would be in a measure becoming a special- 

 ist in those languages. Why, then, should it not be considered equally 



1 In the University of Cincinnati every regular student, whether classical or scientific, 

 is obliged to choose a specialty. This study must be announced to the faculty at the 

 beginning of the sophomore year, and is to be continued to the end of the course. This 

 modification of the elective system insures thoroughness in something, and bids fair to 

 yield most excellent results. 



