THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE IN OUR SCHOOLS 427 



ments used apply as much to schools as to colleges — to the 

 whole period of scholastic training, in fact. 



To quote a few more of Mr. Birdseye's aphoristic passages : 



" We realise that this is the age of new and gigantic 

 problems, coming daily, thick and fast, any one of which 

 would have staggered our forefathers. It is no longer the 

 improbable but that which was (yesterday) the impossible 

 which happens. . . . We should not attempt to make mental 

 storehouses of men but mental factories, men so trained that 

 they are not daunted by any difficulty, able to concentrate their 

 best powers, at a moment's notice, upon any question that 

 may arise. . . . 



" As we go through cities we see crowds of corner loafers, 

 young men probably of bad habits and with no special 

 training in any one special line. . . . We are attempting to 

 stuff our students with knowledge instead of teaching them 

 to think. W T e are overlooking the fact that we can best train 

 them when they see how they are to be directly benefited. 

 There is the greatest difference between our trying to stuff 

 all the learning possible into students and their willing and 

 eager effort to absorb all the learning possible. The college 

 should bring to bear every influence to make students eager to 

 learn ; the rest of the training will be easy and delightful. . . . 



" Before they can be successful in the world, students as 

 individuals must learn to do things right and not to be 

 satisfied until they have done them right. They must be 

 made to appreciate the value of small things and of accuracy. . . . 

 So our students should be content to be nothing less than 

 the best possible in their lessons and in anything else they 

 undertake. There should be no let up until they understand 

 that ' moderately accurate knowledge is like a moderately 

 fresh egg.' From this standpoint and with varied illustra- 

 tions, they should be made to appreciate the vital necessity 

 to them in the future of learning to go on only so fast as 

 they are right up to that point. This one trait, thoroughly 

 ingrained in them, will almost assure success in life. Not 

 only should they be taught to do a thing over and over 

 again until it is done right but also to verify things fulry as 

 they go along." 



These things will be done, more or less effectually, when 

 the teaching in our schools is conducted on scientific lines — 

 neither according to mere tradition nor to modern syllabus 

 but with forethought and good intent. 



What can be done by way of revolution is to be seen at 

 the Osborne and Dartmouth Colleges — although perhaps some 



