242 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



could be completed in a college course ! For the 

 first term or the first year spent in the study of 

 any subject whatever, cannot give that subject. It 

 gives only the elements of it, the dregs of it, the 

 juiceless skeleton, on which future work must add 

 the flesh and blood. Culture does not consist in 

 the knowledge of any particular subject or set of 

 subjects, nor is it the result of any order or method 

 by which such studies are taken. Its essential 

 feature is in the attitude which its possessor holds 

 towards the world and towards the best that has 

 been or can be thought or done in it. Its central 

 quality is growth. The student gets nutriment 

 from what he digests. " A cultivated woman," 

 says a wise teacher of women, ** can afford to be 

 ignorant of a great many things, but she must 

 never stop growing." Just so with the cultivated 

 man. And to the young man or young woman 

 who would grow, there is no agency so effective as 

 the influence of a great teacher. '* Have a univer- 

 sity in shanties, — nay, in tents," says Cardinal 

 Newman, " but have great teachers in it." " Under 

 and around and above all mere acquirements," says 

 the writer whom I have just quoted, '* is this subtle 

 infection of character, making the essence of the 

 higher education as different from mere erudition as 

 the fresh smell of the tender grape is from sheep- 

 skin." The school of all schools in America which 

 has had the greatest influence on American scien- 

 tific teaching was held in an old barn on an unin- 

 habited island some eighteen miles from the shore. 

 It lasted barely three months, and in effect it had 

 but one teacher. The school at Penikese existed 



