130 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



April 22, 1916. 



A great step will have been made when those 

 responsible for education fully realize that there is no 

 real difference between ordinary and scientific knowl- 

 edge, and that it is an obvious duty on their part to help 

 the youth of a country to understand the affairs of 

 everyday life: this would be teaching science, and 

 would lead to an acquirement of that characteristic, 

 the absence of which painfully marks so man)' of 

 ■our educated Englishmen — -the scientific habit of mind. 

 If this were imbued in early y^oiith, as it readily may 

 be, by directing the attention of every child to the natu- 

 ral surroundings with simple, unobtrdstive guidance 

 tending to secure orderly thiiiking, then we should 

 have our race in full possession of a most important 

 faculty, and scientific thinking would become as natural 

 -and as unconscious an effort as breathing. 



The essential feature is to render the effort 

 unconscious. Vigorous talk about the necessity for 

 scientific study, coupled with mistaken ideas concern- 

 ing the difficulty and abstruseness of the work, is 

 •calculated to defeat its own ends, which must be the 

 acquirement of the scientific habit of mind, and the 

 unconscious exercise of the faculty so acquired. 



This implies that all our children, in all our schools 

 .-shall be afforded opportunities for thinking about the 

 facts in their surroundings, which simply means that 

 they must be helped to think in an orderly way about 

 the plants and animals amongst which they live, about 

 the soil and sea and rivers, add the wind and rain, all 

 those things of which they have daily experience, and 

 ■concerning which they really know a great deal without 

 the conscious efforts of their teachers. They have much 

 knowledge; it merely remains to the teachers to make 

 it scientific by making it orderly and thus inducing 

 the invaluable national characteristic referred to — the 

 scientific habit of mind. This is the source from which 

 it will spring much more readily than from the con- 

 scious efforts of the college and' the university. 



The scientific habit of 'mind reveals itself in 

 the scientific spirit exhibited by individuals, and by 

 ■ communities. In its individual manifestation it leads 

 ■to a critical examination of ideas presented for accep- 

 tance; it causes the supporting facts to be carefully 

 weighed, and requires evidence before; acceptance: 

 authority counts for little in comparison with the 

 actual weighing of evidence: if the evidence is 

 conclusive, then authority, if opposed, must give way, 

 and the facts must be accepted. 



The scientifically minded individual is, therefore, 

 prepared to change his mind as evidence accumulates 



and facts require: he exhibits little of that unreasoning, 

 dogged pertinacity in' which some take pride; but his 

 changes of mind are evidences of strength, not of 

 weakness: of new ^knowledge acquired, and of new 

 outlooks gained, and not of the vacillation of being 

 blown about by every new wind of doctrine. 



In its communistic manifestation the scientific 

 spirit requires that those who lead shall be sound 

 in their methods of thinking and working, and that 

 they shall appeal to what is natural rather than 

 endeavour to play upon men's credulity, or excite their 

 passions or rouse their cupidity. It requires that the 

 reality of things shall be sought, the presentment of 

 them in distorted form in order to gain particular ends, 

 finding no favour. Such a spirit in its endeavour to 

 arrive at truth discourages and kills self-advertise- 

 ment and the wiles of expediency. 



The foregoing menial characteristics can be 

 inculcated without the profound study of technical 

 science, and it is these characteristics which one 

 most desires to see common to every inhabitant of 

 Great Britain, and of the Empire generally. 



Much is being done in our West Indian schools 

 of all classes to give effect to these ideas; the Codes of 

 instruction emplo}'ed have in them features directed to 

 this end, and it is felt that some progress is being made. 

 The early efforts are difficult owing to want of knowledge 

 and lack of sympathetic appreciation, but progress will 

 be manifestly accelerated as the spirit thus eiio'en- 

 dered spreads through the communities. 



Nor will this scientific habit of mind have only an 

 aesthetic effect; it will have a direct bearing on 

 national industries leading to great economic progress, 

 and to wide-i'eaching economies, the object to which 

 so much attention is now being directed in the vigorous 

 campaign in progress in the Mother Country. 



An instance may be given of the economic eft'ect 

 of the artificial ac(juirement of the scientific habit of 

 mind in a particular case. James Watt took as pay- 

 ment for his engines one-third of the saving of the 

 coal which resulted .from their use; this led to accurate 

 measurements and to great savings. When, in 1800, 

 those measurements ceased, deterioration followed. Joel 

 Lean again started these duty trials and published re- 

 ports. The practice of reporting is thought to have been 

 attended with more benefit to the country than any 

 other single event, excepting only the invention of the 

 steam engine itself.* Here we see the effect of the 



*Unwin Forest lecture, Nature, May 23, 1896. 



