268 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



what is being done to make honest citi- 

 zens ? We know lots of smooth-spoken 

 individuals who are very scrupulous 

 about various matters — much interested 

 perhaps in Sabbath observance; strongly 

 opposed to certain forms of amusement 

 for the young ; grieved, possibly, to think 

 that there are people bad enough to 

 hope for the salvation of unevangelized 

 heathen — there are plenty such ; but 

 where are the people who hate a lie 

 when they see one, and that without 

 regard to the question as to whose in- 

 terest is served by it ? Where are the 

 men who do not want sophistries 

 served up to them in their favorite 

 newspaper, and who are at all times 

 willing to allow fair weight to a fair 

 argument ? In this wide land there are 

 doubtless many thousands who have not 

 bowed the knee to the Baal of political 

 trickery, and who have not imprisoned 

 their souls in any narrow and arbitrary 

 scheme of moral doctrine ; but, com- 

 pared with other types, these are few 

 in number. We meet the man full of 

 church-taught scrupulosities ten times 

 for once that we meet a tlioroughly 

 open-minded, honest man. We meet 

 the man who is terribly afraid of doc- 

 trinal errors ten times for once that we 

 meet the man who detests the campaign 

 lie. Now, there is nothing to be said 

 against scrupulosity in conduct, nor in 

 favor of doctrinal errors ; but false- 

 hoods, the makers of falsehoods, the 

 willing beneficiaries and condoners of 

 falsehoods, and all who leave out of 

 their scheme of life the duty of oppos- 

 ing falsehoods in all their shapes and 

 guises can not be too strongly con- 

 demned. 



Where is the remedy for this dan- 

 gerous national habit of political lying ? 

 It is to be sought in a reorganized na- 

 tional education. Instead of filling the 

 minds of children with fables, as to a 

 large extent we do, we need to cultivate 

 in them the sense for reality by teaching 

 them to know things in their properties 

 and relations, and natural processes in 



their definiteness and certainty. In 

 other words, science has to take hold of 

 education and remodel it, until it gives 

 us a generation of citizens too intelligent 

 and with too practiced a sense for truth 

 to fall the easy prey that so many thou- 

 sands now do to the arts of the political 

 trickster. One may be excused for 

 doubting whether at this moment the 

 political honesty of our nation is reaUy 

 on the increase ; but we shall hope that 

 the time may come before very long 

 when science shall do for politics and 

 for morality what it has done for our 

 knowledge of the physical world and of 

 human nature, and give us a regenerated 

 state, the outcome of an intellectually 

 nobler type of manhood. 



WORK AT THE LICK OBSERVATORT. 

 The great thirty-six-inch telescojje of 

 the Lick Observatory has not only more 

 than satisfied the most confident antici- 

 pations of what it would be able to do, 

 it has taken the astronomical world by 

 surprise with its revelations. It is not 

 too much to say that it has opened up 

 new vistas of creation, and given to the 

 eye of man so much wider and deeper a 

 range in the universe that, as Prof. Hol- 

 den, the director of the observatory, has 

 remarked, when looking through this 

 telescope the observer must view ob- 

 jects as if seen for the first time. Ce- 

 lestial phenomena present an appear- 

 ance, in many cases, so different from 

 that familiar to observers with less pow- 

 erful instruments that the impression 

 they make is entirely new. 



Of course, primarily, the great size 

 and exquisite figuring of the giant ob- 

 ject-glass must have the credit for all 

 this, and yet much (very much more, 

 probably, than the general public ima- 

 gine) is due to the director and his able 

 assistants. Prof. Holden has applied the 

 unrivaled equipment of Mount Hamil- 

 ton Observatory to the observation of 

 the heavens in a broad-minded way 

 that is decidedly refreshing and encour- 



