488 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



could not get this in the existing colleges for it was not 

 regarded as valid as knowledge or as education. 



How were they to get such an education? First, there 

 should be a National Institute of Sciences ' ' to operate as 

 the great central luminary of the national mind". He 

 thought we possessed this in the Smithsonian Institute. 

 In addition each class should have its own university, 

 with subordinate institutions. Each department should 

 conduct annually a series of experiments. This, he 

 thought, would be a means of good to all classes, would 

 "evolve and diffuse practical knowledge and skill, true 

 taste, love of industry, and sound morality". 



This view naturally involved criticisms of the assump- 

 tions of the classical tradition in higher education, in par- 

 ticular, the validity of the claims made for language 

 study and the doctrine of mental discipline. Education, 

 he thought, should be liberal. But he doubted the ef- 

 fectiveness of mental discipline even for the professional 

 classes. His view of mental training is a good example 

 of realistic thinking. He said, "No inconsiderable 

 share of mental discipline that is attributed to this pe- 

 culiar course of study arises from daily intercourse for 

 years with minds of the first order in their teachers and 

 comrades, and would be produced under any other course 

 if the parties had remained harmoniously together". His 

 definition of mental discipline would be difficult to im- 

 prove. "The most natural and effectual mental dis- 

 cipline possible for any man", he said, "arises from 

 setting him to earnest and constant thought about 

 things he daily does, sees, and handles, and all their 

 connected relations and interests". This is at once a 

 defense of the value and the validity of knowledge con- 

 cerned in the so-called practical concerns of life and a 

 criticism of the looseness characteristic of much present- 

 day education, for it involves earnest and constant 

 thought as well as a vital relationship to daily pursuits 

 or concrete problems. 



Professor Turner thought it absurd "to educate the 

 man of work in unknown tongues, abstract problems and 

 theories, and metaphysical figments and quibbles". He 

 knew the sensibilities of the orthodox, however, and 



