OP dENIsoK universitv 75 



discovery and conquest and the growth of repubh'cs fell to America 

 and she has dealt nobly with them. In the wider and multifarious prov- 

 inces of art and science, she runs neck and neck with the mother 

 country and is never left behind." 



With all this ever present before the American community, it is 

 not suri)rising that enormous gifts have been made for the foundation 

 of scientific and technical schools ; but it is surprising that the educa- 

 tional value of scientific training is so little appreciated and that, in so 

 many cases, technical courses, those involving direct application of 

 scientific priciples, are regarded as of less pedagogic value than are 

 those which concern merely the operations of man's intellect or the 

 immediate products of that intellect. Let us inquire for a little into 

 the educational value of the observational sciences as well as of the 

 technical science growing out of their applications. 



Education of to-day is necessarily different from that of one or two 

 centuries ago ; then culture alone was sought, often perfunctorily, usu- 

 ally by the wealthier classes and with a view to one of the learned pro- 

 fessions, then only three, law, medicine and theology ; education then 

 was for the few ; now it is for all ; then it was a luxury ; now it is a 

 necessary preparation for life's work ; it is a training, that a man may 

 be able to make the most of himself in some one of the now many 

 learned professions or in some one of the complicated groups of com- 

 mercial operations. But it is more than mere training, for it has two 

 important provinces : first, to draw out and to train the mental powers; 

 secondly, to imjiart knowledge. Too long, a disproportionate stress 

 was laid on the former ; there is a tendency now in many quarters to 

 lay too great stress upon the latter. The former is the more important, 

 but it must not be separated from the latter. 



Mental faculties or powers are not independent, even in the sense 

 that a man's limbs are independent portions of his body ; the notion of 

 this independence is but a make-shift arising in the class room. Let 

 the mind be regarded as an entity, manifesting itself in many ways, and 

 capable of forming habits or tendencies to act in one direction prefer- 

 ably to another ; unguided in its formative period it will come to work 

 along narrow paths, determined by prejudice rather than by reason. 

 Here, as is usually the case, the intellectual powers alone are consid- 

 ered, for ordinary educational work has comparatively little to do 

 directly with culture of morals, though it has much to do with it indi- 

 rectly ; a true culture of the intellect leads to a genuine ethical culture 



