622 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion in the sciences. Many of the teach- 

 ers in our schools know something of 

 these sciences, and do what they can to 

 expound them. This, of course, is use- 

 ful, but it is the lowest agency for the 

 diffusion of science. Of the uses of 

 science to themselves as professors of 

 the art of teaching, or of its value in 

 guiding the processes of education, it 

 is not too much to say that the mass of 

 teachers as yet know nothing. This, 

 however, is the main and essential thing 

 now to be imperatively demanded, and 

 which, when attained, will do more tow- 

 ard the universal promotion of science 

 than all other modes of influence com- 

 bined. Scientific education is far less 

 a question of the number of hours per 

 week that are to be devoted to this 

 kind of study than a question of bring- 

 ing scientific knowledge to bear upon 

 the operations of the school-room. 



We took this ground decisively 

 twenty years ago. When applied to 

 by Mr. Greeley to write some articles 

 for the Tribune on " Scientific Educa- 

 tion," we devoted them to a statement 

 of the ground that science requires all 

 intelligent teachers to take in the pur- 

 suit of their profession. We illustrated 

 and enforced the position that, to de- 

 velop the mind and form the character, 

 the starting-point of the teacher must 

 be a knowledge of the brain and of 

 nervous physiology, and that all teach- 

 ing without this knowledge must be 

 empirical, is certain to be faulty, and 

 liable to be injurious. The discussion 

 was premature. We sowed upon un- 

 prepared ground. It was objected that 

 all beyond the bare introduction of more 

 chemistry and physics in the schools 

 was impracticable and fanciful ; while to 

 talk of " brain " instead of " mind " was 

 dreaded as dangerous, and condemned as 

 leading " straight down to materialism." 



In a work published a dozen years 

 ago, " On the Culture demanded by 

 Modern Life," this view was reaffirmed 

 and more fully illustrated. It was in- 

 sisted that to gain definite ideas of the 

 laws of mind so as to work the forces of 



education quantitatively, if we may so 

 speak, for the production of permanent 

 effects, we must recognize the law of 

 mental limitations that is educible from 

 cerebral physiology. In an essay treat- 

 ing of the philosophy of mental disci- 

 pline we said : 



" It no longer admits of denial or cavil 

 that the Author of our being has seen fit to 

 connect mind and intelligence with a ner- 

 vous mechanism ; in studying mental phe- 

 nomena, therefore, in connection with this 

 mechanism, we are studying them in the 

 relation which God has established, and 

 therefore in the only true relation. Noth- 

 ing is more certain than that, in future, mind 

 is to be considered in connection with the 

 organism by which it is conditioned. When 

 it is said that the brain is the organ of the 

 mind, it is meant that in thinking, remem- 

 bering, reasoning, the brain acts. The basis 

 of educability, and hence of mental disci- 

 pline, is to be sought in the properties of 

 that nervous substance by which mind is 

 manifested. When it is perceived that what 

 we have to deal with in mental acquirement 

 is organic processes which have a definite 

 time-rate of activity, so that, however vigor- 

 ously the cerebral currents are sustained by 

 keeping at a thing, acquisition is not in- 

 creased in the same degree ; when we see 

 that new attainments are easiest and most 

 rapid during early life the time of most 

 vigorous growth of the body generally ; 

 that thinking exhausts the brain as really 

 as working exhausts the muscles, while rest 

 and nutrition are as much needed in one 

 case as the other ; when we see that rapidity 

 of attainment and tenacity of memory in- 

 volve the question of cerebral adhesions, 

 and note how widely constitutions differ in 

 these capabilities, how they depend upon 

 blood, stock, and health, and vary with 

 numberless conditions we become aware 

 how inexorably the problem of mental at- 

 tainment is hedged round with limitations, 

 and the vague notion that there are no 

 bounds to acquisition except imperfect ap- 

 plication disappears forever." 



The general view (here illustrated in 

 a special application) has been main- 

 tained in The Popular Science Month- 

 ly from the outset. We have published 

 papers from the ablest scientific men of 

 different countries, illustrating the con- 

 trol of physiological and psychological 

 principles over the objects and methods 



