78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



a few departments with thorough equipment, a small curriculum with sound 

 methods, and he opposed everything that savored of the superficial. His 

 first plea was for men — thoroughly live, enthusiastic, inspiring men, quite 

 convinced that where a great teacher labors in library or laboratory there 

 will students be gathered together. And he would not be content with teaching 

 men, they must be producing men, men seeking after truth, investigators, 

 ever pushing back the boundaries of the known. Regarding the relation be- 

 tween the college of liberal arts and the professional school he took an advanced 

 position and advocated the introduction into the former as a part of the 

 undergraduate course whatever subjects in the professional school were 

 largely academic, in order that a man might shorten to a reasonable degree 

 the time required for preparation for his (4iosen profession. 



Tn the fall of 1889 Dr. John delivered the presidential address before the 

 Indiana Academy of Science, his subject being "Religion and the Law of 

 Continuity." Upon the evidence of certain breaks in the foundation of 

 inductive Science— the Law of Continuity, Continuity of matter, Con- 

 tinuity of phenomena. Continuity of law, he preceded to construct an argu- 

 ment to show that the Christian religion is at least not unscientific. His 

 own summary will serve to illustrate the logical processes of his mind. 

 "Tlierc are in the history of the Universe, some apparent breaches of the 

 principle of continuity. Other apparent breaches of the principle ai*e. there- 

 fore, equally possible. As Science demands some api)arent failures of the 

 law, any other system may equally demand failuri-s without thereby becoming 

 unscientific. Whether such a system be really unscientific or not is a question 

 of fact and not necessarily of how it stands related to our conception of the 

 law of continuity. The Christian religion, like Science, is not to be judged by 

 its apparent strain upon this law for no finite mind completely knows the 

 law; but, like science, it is to be judged by the ends it proposes and the means 

 by which it seeks to achieve them." 



In December 1891, in his presidential address before tlir liidiaiui College 

 Association he spoke on "The College in the New Education," pointing out 

 that the difference between the old and the new education lay chiefly in 

 method. He took the ground that time is an important element in the attain- 

 ment of culture and that continuity of effort along a single line is more effi- 

 cient than an equal total amount of separate efforts along numerous lines, 

 and that this particular line must be left largely to the student's ciioice. 

 It is still a source of instruction and inspiration to read this address. 



Dr. John was well aware of the increasing demands made upon the codege 

 or university in the call for more subjects, a broader, more extensive curri- 

 cuhnu, and the greater demands made upon the teacher by the newer method, 

 the lecture method. He saw as clearly as anyone the need of greatly increased 

 financial resources and the necessity of i)ro\'iding professors with competent 

 assistants. In advocating the lecture method \n college teaching, he refused 

 to surrender in the least the vital princijile of personal contact between 



