7 zz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



we find depression and darkness enough without going back 

 very far. 



I arn still numbered, I trust, with the young men. I am sure 

 that I have never yet heard the word " old " seriously joined to 

 my name. When they speak of " old Jordan," I know that they 

 mean the river, and not me. Yet, in the few years during which 

 I have taught biology, the relation of science to education has 

 undergone most remarkable changes. 



I remember very clearly that, twenty years ago, when, in such 

 way as* I could, I had prepared myself for the two professions of 

 naturalist and college professor, I found that these professions 

 were in no way related. I remember having in 1872 put the re- 

 sults of my observations into these words : " The colleges have no 

 part or interest in the progress of science, and science has no 

 interest in the growth of the colleges." 



The college course in those days led into no free air. A priori 

 and ex cathedra, two of its favorite phrases, described it exactly. 

 Its essentials were the grammar of dead languages, and the mem- 

 orized results of the applications of logic to number and space. 

 Grammar and logic were taught in a perfunctory way, and the 

 student exhausted every device known to restless boys in his 

 desire to evade the instruction he had spent his time and money 

 to obtain. Then, when all the drill was over, and the long strug- 

 gle between perfunctory teachers and unwilling boys had dragged 

 to an end, the students were passed on to the president to receive 

 from him an exposition of philosophy. This was the outlook on 

 life for which three years of drill made preparation. And this 

 philosophy was never the outgrowth of the knowledge of to-day, 

 but simply the debris of the outworn speculations of the middle 

 ages. 



We well remember the first invasion of science in the conven- 

 tional programmes of study. This came in response to an outside 

 demand for subjects interesting and practical. It was met in 

 such a way as to silence rather than to satisfy the demand. A 

 few trifling courses, memorized from antiquated text-books, and 

 the work in science was finished. The teachers who were capable 

 of higher things had no opportunity to make use of their powers. 

 Their investigations were not part of their duties. They were 

 carried on in time stolen from their tasks of plodding and prod- 

 ding. It is to the shame of the State of Indiana that she kept 

 one of the greatest astronomers of our time for forty years 

 teaching boys the elements of geometry and algebra. That he 

 should have taught astronomy and made astronomers occurred 

 to no one in authority until Daniel Kirkwood was seventy years 

 old, and by the laws of Nature could teach no longer. What was 

 true in his case was true in scores of others. The investigator 



