EDITOR'S TABLE. 



495 



ties devoted to each of the great branches 

 of science, local institutions, naturalists' 

 clubs, and large popular associations 

 for the advancement of science, as in 

 Germany, France, England, and this 

 country, which hold their meetings in 

 the different cities so as to act upon 

 large numbers of people all these are 

 illustrations of the tendency to organize 

 for the promotion of science by increas- 

 ing observations, experiments, and ori- 

 ginal researches for the improvement 

 and extension of this kind of knowledge. 

 Nor are there many obstacles to these 

 modes of work, save those which spring 

 from its inherent difficulties. It is a 

 very expensive kind of study, involving 

 costly instruments, elaborate investiga- 

 tions, and extensive collections the 

 sending of expeditions into remote and 

 unknown regions, and of ships around 

 the world to scrape the bottom of the 

 sea. The universally confessed impor- 

 tance of such inquiries has already se- 

 cured large appropriations for these 

 objects, and it may be expected that 

 in future private enterprise and govern- 

 mental aid will become still more avail- 

 able for these objects. 



But there is another agency for the 

 promotion of science, which we hold to 

 be of far greater importance than all 

 these immediate means and instrumen- 

 talities, and which the world has hardly 

 yet begun seriously to consider. We 

 refer to the alliance between science 

 and general education. Science has 

 hitherto accomplished its work with 

 but very imperfect assistance from this 

 source. Education in all its grades has 

 been in the interest of other classes, 

 and it does not even yet distinctly, or 

 fairly, recognize as a class the students 

 of Nature. There have been innumer- 

 able institutions strongly endowed, and 

 ably equipped for the intellectual train- 

 ing of lawyers, clergymen, physicians, 

 linguists, metaphysicians, historians, and 

 literary men, but the facilities, for the 

 systematic training of scientific students 

 have been scanty, defective, or alto- 



gether wanting. Education was highly 

 organized before science arose, and the 

 old institutions not only did not en- 

 courage the experimental study of Na- 

 ture, but resisted it, with the whole 

 weight of their influence, for centuries. 

 The universities were creatures of the 

 church and the state, and devoted to 

 ideas, and ideals of culture, which were 

 unfavorable for the study of natural 

 things, and obstructive to scientific in- 

 vestigation. The old educational insti- 

 tutions have been, of course, greatly 

 modified and liberalized, in recent times, 

 yet tradition continues in the ascendant, 

 so that, although science has forced its 

 way into many of them, it is still re- 

 garded with jealousy and treated as an 

 intruder. Though within the pale of 

 official recognition, it is dealt with as 

 something outside of the venerated cur- 

 riculum of liberal study. It has not 

 been assimilated so as to become an 

 integral and necessary part of our mod- 

 ern eulture, and college authorities are 

 still perplexed to decide how much to 

 concede to it, and what to do with it. 

 Scientific men have, therefore, grown 

 up under unfavorable conditions, and 

 have not had those advantages of early 

 preparation, of cordial encouragement, 

 and of long and faithful discipline, which 

 the students in other departments have 

 freely enjoyed. It is under these grave 

 disadvantages that science has, thus far, 

 advanced. Education ha3 been made 

 only very partially tributary to its prog- 

 ress. "When it takes its rightful place 

 in our schemes of study, when it is 

 honored as other acquirements are 

 honored, and when the higher insti- 

 tutions offer the same facilities for pro- 

 longed and thorough scientific disci- 

 pline that they offer for training in 

 classics and mathematics, a step will 

 have been taken toward the general 

 promotion of science, more important 

 in its consequences than any measures 

 that have been hitherto adopted. 



And yet this will be but a partial 

 step in the right direction. The bring- 



