ae Spay 
i ' 
SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 59 
The dominant purpose of our education should be, therefore, 
to prepare our pupils for a rich and varied intellectual and 
spiritual experience in life. To secure such an end we should 
not have a series of disconnected science courses filled with 
interesting information which the pupil can safely forget as 
soon as he has passed the semester examination, but a graded 
course in science running through four years arranged in such 
a manner that each part rests upon that which precedes. The 
natural sequence might be physiology, botany, zoology, physics, 
chemistry. I place chemistry at the end because it is better 
adapted than any other science to bring, with its own special 
contribution, a correlation of all the scientific knowledge which 
precedes it. It would be well to give an examination at the end 
which should cover in a comprehensive manner the work of 
the four years. The older education secured such a consecutive, 
eraded course by the study of Latin. Scientific studies will 
never satisfactorily replace Latin in genuine educational value 
until we secure some such graded work as I have outlined. I 
think that some of our smaller schools, with a limited program, 
follow a better pedagogical model than the large, strong schools 
with their hodge-podge of electives, often administered without 
demanding a proper sequence of subjects. 
In the presentation of chemistry or of any other scientific 
subject the attempt should not be made to give merely interest- 
ing information about a series of disconnected facts but rather 
to develop scientific habits of thought and the ability to under- 
stand clearly those simple, fundamental principles which are 
our most valuable heritage from the past. Above all the pupil 
should learn that these principles are not to be taken on 
authority but are logically connected with facts easily under- 
stood, some of which he can reproduce for himself. While the 
laboratory work should doubtless begin with experiments 
which illustrate the facts of general inorganic chemistry, 
qualitative analysis, if properly taught is better adapted than 
any other subject with which I am acquainted for the develop- 
ment of accurate, scientific methods of thinking. 
The opinion is all too common that no study is “practical” 
which does not directly minister to the student’s ability as a 
money-getter. If we accept the ideal which I have put before 
