680 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



offerings of talent and of genius at the altar of the common 

 wealth and health. 



The apprentice must first learn at the feet of his masters, 

 believe what he is told, imitate what he sees done, copy good 

 models, be the echo and the assistant of the experienced crafts- 

 man along well-beaten paths. But life is short and the arts are 

 complicated, and even the apprentice who is never to become 

 more than an efficient journeyman, still more so the apprentice 

 of rarer clay who shall contribute to the commonwealth of 

 knowledge and of power, is required to be something more than 

 the faithful imitator of his teacher. He will be required to 

 initiate ; he should learn early from his teacher, by example 

 rather than by precept, that the end and aim of his apprentice- 

 ship is not merely the actual knowledge and skill that experience 

 can confer, but the ability of his own brain to deal with new or 

 unexpected conditions. 



In all provinces of human activity success is a resultant of 

 the happy blend between these two complementary principles — 

 imitation, the conservative principle — initiation, the progressive 

 principle. But while in all provinces the conservative element 

 — being, so to say, the means and the consequence of wholesale 

 economy in nature — must bulk the larger, the progressive 

 element, as the activating ferment that animates the mass, 

 weighs but little in the scales of practical life. Yet fortunately, 

 perhaps, while the pure ferment is of such rarity and tenuity 

 that it fails sometimes to turn the scale even in the laboratory, 

 it is the all-pervading and quickening leaven ; and the rough 

 goods of the market-place contain it and carry it abroad in the 

 unceasing stream of useful applications to human wants. 



The Method of Experiment and the Method of Least Change. — 

 In every province of human activity — and in particular in that 

 whereby knowledge and the power to use knowledge are 

 continuously transmitted from generation to generation, namely, 

 in the province of education — the faculty of imitation is easier 

 to exert and easier to develop than is the more costly and more 

 capricious faculty of initiation. Yet this rare and costly and, 

 we must add, dangerous ingredient is of primary necessity in 

 education. " Dangerous " we have said. Yes. Since we cannot 

 surely tell, among the countless novelties issued from the genius 

 or the vagary of the exceptional brain, which may be the hits 



