746 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mere lesson-learning experiences of the 

 school, and should, in fact, deter- 

 mine the efficiency of the school-agen- 

 cies themselves, is simply inevitable. 

 TThether a child has the advantages of 

 a quickening home, or is the victim of a 

 stupefying home, is of far more moment 

 than the quality of the school it attends. 

 Home education is, after all, the great 

 fact, whether it awakens or whether it 

 quenches the young minds exposed to 

 it, and it becomes a momentous ques- 

 tion whether our exaggerated estimate 

 and desperate cultivation of school- 

 houses and public education are not at 

 the expense of the far more important 

 domestic influences by which the char- 

 acters of children are formed. For we 

 are learning every day that, as this 

 world is constituted, one thing is at the 

 expense of another. If parents believe 

 that the school is all in all, and can do 

 every thing for their children, such are 

 the pressures and strains of social life 

 that they will evade and neglect their 

 own responsibilities. Their children 

 will be committed to stupid and vicious 

 servants, hustled out of the way, turned 

 into the street, or left to themselves; 

 and no pains will be taken to make the 

 home medium one of elevation, stimu- 

 lation, and improving to the mental 

 characters of their offspring. Where 

 men are exhausted in business, and 

 women are exhausted by society, and 

 there is blind faith in teachers and 

 school-rooms, we may be pretty sure 

 that but little will be done to shape 

 and conduct the home with reference to 

 the higher mental needs of the children 

 who live in it. There are, no doubt, 

 noble examples of parents who appre- 

 ciate schools and strive to do their cor- 

 responding part of the work of exalting 

 and enriching the intellectual life of 

 those committed to their charge; but 

 such cases are lamentably few, and 

 there is reason to fear that, with the 

 increasing faith in public appliances of 

 culture, their proportion will not in- 

 crease very rapidly. 



FEOFESSOR TYXDALVS ADDRESS. 



"We publish in full the masterly in- 

 augural address delivered August 19th, 

 before the British Association at Bel- 

 fast, by Prof. Tyndall, its President, 

 for the present year. No scientific 

 paper ever before published has pro- 

 duced so extensive and profound an 

 impression as this. The eminent abil- 

 ity of the speaker, the dignity of the 

 occasion, the confessed importance of 

 the subject, and the eloquence and 

 power of the statement, have all con- 

 curred to this result ; but it has also 

 been greatly due to that rapid diffusion 

 of information upon the general ques- 

 tion which has taken place within the 

 last few years, and to the ripening of 

 public judgment that has followed. In 

 regard to this, Prof. Tyndall has cal- 

 culated with great sagacity. Could the 

 question have been submitted to the 

 intelligent classes as to the propriety 

 of such an experiment, probably nine 

 out of ten would have condemned its 

 folly and predicted its failure. Yet the 

 address has actually been received with 

 a unanimity of commendation that has 

 fairly bewildered those who make it a 

 business to study the drifts and cur- 

 rents of public sentiment. Some of the 

 leading organs of public opinion, how- 

 ever, still affect to think that Prof. 

 Tyndall has made a mistake, and that 

 to spring upon the public mind this 

 hitherto obnoxious discussion, under 

 such peculiar circumstances, was in a 

 high degree unwise, injudicious, and 

 impolitic. 



For example, the Saturday Review^ 

 while according to Prof. Tyndall's ad- 

 dress much qualified praise, is still dis- 

 satisfied and captious, and objects to it 

 as follows : " TTe confess that we were 

 surprised that the President so wholly 

 abandoned himself to elaborating one 

 idea, and that one so distasteful to a 

 large portion of those interested in sci- 

 ence. ... He has more than once, 

 it is true, incurred great odium by the 



