6io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



cal progress ; the greater mobility of all womanly functions being less 

 readily stiffened into inactivity. This principle, applied to the nervous 

 system, should prolong the period of greatest mental activity, and hold 

 the balance which measures the working value of the sexes with even 

 justice. 



Is it true that average women to-day are less versed than average 

 men in abstract thinking, feeling, or acting? Not in New England! 

 Not in any locality where they have equal education. They have not 

 become savqnts! But circumstances have not yet impelled them to be- 

 come such. In these days, philosophers grow by steady accretions, like 

 every thing else. No full-armed Minerva can be expected to spring by 

 simple heredity from a paternal Jupiter; but the laws of mental in- 

 heritance are too little known to enable us to decide that the daughters 

 of the nineteenth century are less gifted than the sons. When women 

 are convinced that the antagonisms between growth and reproduction, 

 though embracing all personalities, must yet leave them all intact, 

 every thing else may be left to adjust itself, with no solicitude for tlie 

 ultimate results. 



THE NOBILITY OF KNOWLEDGE.^ 



Bt JOSTAH p. COOKE, Jr., 



EEVIIN^G- PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AJTD MINERALOGY IN HARVARD COLLEGE. 



WITHIN a comparatively few years schools for the instruction of 

 artisans have become a prominent feature in the educational 

 systems both of this country and of Europe, and seem destined to 

 supersede the old system of apprenticeships. The establishment of 

 these schools has been an important step in human progress, not because 

 any great advantage has been gained in the cultivation of mechanical 

 skill, but because here the future mechanic acquires culture of the mind 

 as well as skill of the hand. Indeed, it may be doubted whether our 

 utilitarian age can ever successfully compete with those " elder days 

 of art " when 



^'Builders wrought with greatest care 

 Each minute and unseen part." 



But, if our industrial schools do not make better mechanics than the 

 workshops of the olden time, they certainly educate better men, and, 

 by adding to skill, knowledge, they are elevating the mechanic and 

 ennobling his calling. 



If, therefore, these schools are the representatives in our age of the 

 workshops with their bands of apprentices in the days of yore, then 



' An address delivered before the Free Institute at Worcester, Mass., July 28, 1874. 



