28 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



our Ameriean universities. The experimental method adopted by 

 science and its practice of original investigation have compelled other 

 departments of learning to become its imitators. Archaeology now 

 has its workroom; language its photographs and lantern, its casts and 

 reproductions of ancient life and times; while psychology has appro- 

 priated the apparatus of the physicist along with his methods. 



Fifty 3'ears ago the laboratory method of teaching chemistry even 

 was a novelty. It was not till a later date that physics adopted the 

 same method and founded physical laboratories. The remarkable inves- 

 tigations of Kegnault near the middle of this century were made pos- 

 sible at first by the appliances furnished by the Royal Porcelain Works 

 at Sevres, of which he was the director, and later by the gift of 

 English money. In England science was advanced by the enthusiastic 

 labors of gentlemen of fortune, who devoted their time and money to 

 this purpose. A fortunate combination of talent and talents secured 

 for England much scientific renown. Now every scientific department 

 in a university the world over is a constant contributor to the advance- 

 ment of science. The scientific method and the scientific spirit have 

 become general. In such an environment the place of physics in a 

 liberal education is more readily ascertained than under the old condi- 

 tions prevailing at the middle of the last century. 



The first proposition which I wish to establish appears to be almost 

 or quite self-evident. An education can not at this period of the world 

 be broad, cojnprehensive, free from narrow limitations, inclusive of the 

 best things that go toward the making of a man, unless it comprises 

 more than the time-honored humanities. It is unnecessary at this point 

 to dilate on the humanistic element in science, those features that 

 connect it indissolubly with human interests, nor to depreciate linguistic 

 and x>hilosophical studies. For if a study of the highest types of an- 

 cient literature gives an insight into the thoughts and. feelings of the 

 cultured past; and if it makes the student feel that he is allied to all 

 that is most glorious in ancient history; so also does the study of his- 

 tory in the mother tongue have an equally emancipating effect on the 

 mind. No one group of related subjects possesses the exclusive con- 

 tj-ol of culture. If today the humanities should form a trust in their 

 exclusive product of liberal culture, they could not control the out- 

 put. The range of liberalizing studies has been greatly extended within 

 fifty years. It is at the present time no less illiberal to contend that a 

 liberal education is the exclusive function of the traditional subjects 

 than to claim that it is the exclusive product of scientific study. The 

 well-trained, evenly-cultured man is one who has laid a broad founda- 

 tion for his specialized superstructure. Intellectual power is the prime 

 object of education; but the power imparted by a single subject is 

 usually specific and not general. Any study may have a tendency to 

 fit one for special activities, but it rarely fits for activities in every 

 direction. Hence the student whose intellectual diet is limited to the 

 traditional menu may or may not acquire an easy, graceful and dis- 

 criminating use of his mother tongue. It is of the highest importance 

 that he should do so, but the study of mathematics and the classics 

 chiefly or alone can never give mastery in dealing with the many sided 

 activities of life in which language is not the most important factor. 

 If to the traditional subjects are added science, civics, history and com- 



