EDITOR'S TABLE. 



413 



climbing the ascent to a higher moral 

 state and better social relations; but 

 what all reasonable persons should 

 recognize is that it is not merely 

 knowledge that is needed to sway 

 men in the direction of right action. 

 Whether knowledge is effectual in 

 prompting to any action depends 

 upon the manner and circumstances 

 in which it is applied. Men sometimes 

 gain wisdom from experience, and 

 sometimes their moral natures re- 

 spond to the appeals of some great 

 teacher; but it is probable that the 

 most solid gains which humanity 

 makes result from the action of se- 

 lection — the kind of selection which 

 social life sets in operation. To say 

 that science puts forward claims 

 which it can not make good is a mis- 

 representation, as we have often 

 shown in these columns. Science 

 gathers knowledge and makes this 

 knowledge available for all the 

 world. If it is not more actively en- 

 gaged in missionary work we fail to 

 see matter for surprise. There are, 

 as there have always been, divei^sities 

 of gifts in the world, and it is not 

 only possible but probable that the 

 skilled observer, or the acute induc- 

 tive reasoner, might not have any 

 great talent for evangelizing the 

 masses. Still, in a world where 

 knowledge and theory are both so 

 much required, such laborers are 

 surely worthy of their hire. Why 

 they should be singled out for the 

 taunts and reproaches of eminent 

 men of letters it is difficult to see. 

 It would come with belter grace from 

 these gentlemen if they would direct 

 their strictures first to those of their 

 own craft, and ask the critics, essay- 

 ists, and novelists of to-day why they 

 do not take in hand the regeneration 

 of society instead of spending their 

 energies, as so many of them do, in 

 the search for mere literary adorn- 

 ment or in striving to say cleverly 

 things that might better never be 



said at all. But the great truth 

 which should never be lost sight of 

 is that moral progress is for every 

 individual a personal question and 

 is a matter of personal endeavor. 

 Whether virtue can be taught is a 

 question as old as Plato and proba- 

 bly much older. However that ques- 

 tion may be decided, one thing is cer- 

 tain, that growth in virtue can not 

 come from teaching alone, and that 

 to blame men of science for not con- 

 verting the world by means of lec- 

 tures on moral philosophy is idle in 

 the extreme. 



SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION IN GIRLS' 

 SCHOOLS. 



The article on this subject by 

 Mrs. Caroline W, Latimer which we 

 published in our last number is one 

 deserving of careful attention. A 

 careless reader might possibly dis- 

 miss it as a plea for less science and 

 more literature in girls' schools; but 

 we do not oui-selves so understand 

 the writer. The contention is that 

 in many, if not in most, schools sci- 

 entific instruction is not judiciously 

 imparted ; that too many different sci- 

 ences are driven abreast, as it were; 

 and that, in seeking to cover too 

 wide a field of knowledge and em- 

 brace too great a multiplicity of facts, 

 the best results of scientific study are 

 lost. We hold it entirely possible 

 that such is the case, and when our 

 contributor says that she knows from 

 experience that it is so, it is reason- 

 able to allow considerable weight to 

 the statement. At the same time 

 the very overloading of school cur- 

 riculums with scientific studies — ad- 

 mitting all that our contributor says 

 on the subject — must be regarded as 

 an encouraging sign, for it shows 

 that science has fairly conquered a 

 domain from which only a genera- 

 tion ago it was almost wholly ex- 

 cluded. If it has overi'un the terri- 

 tory in too promiscuous a mannei% 



