THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



SEPTEMBER, 1884. 



SCIENTIFIC CULTUEE: 



ITS SPIRIT, ITS AIM, AND ITS METHODS.* 



Br JOSIAH PAESONS COOKE. 



I ASSUME that most of those whom I address are teachers, and 

 that you have been drawn here by a desire to be instructed in the 

 best methods of teaching physical science. It has therefore seemed 

 to me that I might render a real service, in this introductory address, 

 by giving the results of my own experience and reflection on this sub- 

 ject ; and my thoughts have been recently especially directed to this 

 topic by the discussion in regard to the requisites for admission, which 

 during the past year have actively engaged the attention of the faculty 

 of this college. 



At the very outset of this discussion we must be careful to make a 

 clear distinction between instruction and education — between the ac- 

 quisition of knowledge and the cultivation of the faculties of the 

 mind. Our knowledge should be as broad as possible, but, in the 

 short space of human life, it is not, as a rule, practicable to cultivate, 

 for effective usefulness, the intellectual powers in more than one 

 direction. 



Let me illustrate what I mean from that department of knowledge 

 which is at once the most fundamental and the most essential. I refer 

 to the study of language. No person can be regarded as thoroughly 

 educated Avho has not the power of speaking and writing his mother- 

 tongue accurately, elegantly, and forcibly; and scholars of the present 

 day must also command, to a considerable extent, both the French 



* An address delivered at the opening of the Summer School of Chemistry at Harvard 

 College, July 7, 1884. 



TOL. XXV. — 37 



