454 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nity was supposed to have Lis friends who would vouch for the truth 

 of his statements, and he stood best before the courts whose vouching 

 friends or compurgators were the most influential. No device for the 

 establishment of despotism and wrong has ever been more efiicient than 

 the system of compurgation. 



In modern legal practice all this has been changed, and the law of 

 evidence has been vastly developed, until it constitutes one of the 

 most important departments of law ; and to-day, in the hearing of 

 cases, the larger share of the time is devoted to the establishment of 

 the facts, and the greatest skill of attorneys is exercised in this branch 

 of the case ; and every great lawyer and jurist now understands that 

 it is easier to grasp the principles of the law than to reach the facts 

 which should guide in their application. Thus it is that a knowledge 

 of the facts and the principles of science is essential to him who would 

 be successful as advocate or as judge. 



Perhaps the student aspires to be an historian, ' In the past, history 

 has been devoted chiefly to the exploits of heroes and the story of 

 wars ; but history is now being speedily reorganized and rewritten 

 upon a scientific basis, to exhibit the growth of culture in all its grand 

 departments. History itself is now a science, and is no longer an art 

 in which men exploit in rhetorical paragraphs. 



In many ways and on every hand it can be shown that scientific 

 education furnishes the training that is needed for life in modern 

 civilization. 



I refrain from alluding to the relations of such a school to the 

 stupendous industrial accomplishments of modern civilization, and to 

 the training demanded thereby ; first, because that field has already 

 been well cultivated ; and, second, because it has been lately assumed 

 that scientific education is wholly utilitarian. It is true that all utili- 

 tarian training is scientific, but that is not the only characteristic of 

 scientific training — it is catholic, it is universal. 



Scientific education gives the highest mental training ; scientific 

 education means a training in modern scientific culture. What this 

 culture is, has already been outlined. It is the product of all the 

 mental endeavor of the race to which we belong. This struggle for 

 improvement, this grand endeavor to secure happiness through human 

 activities, which have been defined as the humanities, began in remote 

 antiquity. Where our race lived in savagery, we know not. All we 

 know is that at some time and in some place our ancestors were 

 savages. In Asia and in Europe and in Africa this struggle was con- 

 tinued. Slowly and painfully, with many misfortunes and many rever- 

 sions, the Aryan race has steadily moved forward in the march of cult- 

 ure, and every branch of the race has contributed its part. Every 

 great artisan and artist, every great statesman, every great linguist, 

 every great philosopher, every great thinker in all that time, has con- 

 tributed his part ; and, more than this, our race has borrowed from 



