5 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in the first half of the present. It was then that chemistry led 

 us to understand the composition of matter. It was then that 

 physics developed the co-ordination of the known forces and 

 showed the existence of a new one. It has been during this time 

 that biology has been changed from the chaos of natural history 

 into a hopeful cosmic science. 



In the matter of chemistry, the record of what we owe to these 

 universities is shamefully short. While the intellectual world 

 was ringing with the discoveries of Priestley, Black, and Lavoi- 

 sier, the universities were concerned with the insignificant squab- 

 bles of philologists. While Faraday and Dumas, Liebig and 

 Darwin were at work, what was, say, Oxford doing ? Future 

 generations will scarcely credit it. The leading lights in that 

 university had nothing better to do apparently than to issue and 

 discuss tracts on the difference between " tweedle-dum and twee- 

 dle-dee." 



And even now, in spite of many vigorous efforts and encour- 

 aging successes, in spite of the notable men who have filled and 

 are filling the posts of teachers, the universities under considera- 

 tion can not be considered as centers of science. The very best 

 men connected with the universities are the first to admit this. 

 For such centers those who wish to become masters of the craft 

 have had to look abroad, or to the metropolis, or to our provinces. 



In regard to the teaching of science in the most widely known 

 of our English public schools, we must regard it as being for the 

 most part abortive. This has, without doubt, been brought about 

 chiefly by the narrowness of culture of the head masters and their 

 subordinates. 



In such a school the unhappy science teacher is the worst off. 

 If he be also a teacher of classics, who undertakes to teach sci- 

 ence by reason of some smattering of it which he may have 

 picked up in a desultory manner, his task is distasteful to him, 

 and we may be sure he is not slow to contaminate his scholars 

 with such distaste. He detests his duties partly because his 

 ignorance is a disagreeable revelation to himself, but mainly 

 because he feels that quick-witted lads soon discover his incom- 

 petence. 



If, on the other hand, a highly qualified scientific man is em- 

 ployed, he finds himself out of sympathy, almost out of touch, 

 with the rest of the school. The absolute necessities for teaching 

 his science are denied to him or grudgingly dribbled out. His 

 colleagues regard him without any feeling of comradeship, and 

 so again the boys get to look on him as a sort of pariah, and on 

 his occupation with contempt. 



Observe the vicious circle. With ignorances and prejudices 

 such as those I have mentioned the scholars from such schools go 



