ITS DEFECTS 285 



somewhere. And it is well to look these defects in 

 the face, and, as far as may be possible, remove them. 

 In considering how I might best discharge the duty 

 with which I have been honoured of addressing the 

 students of Mason College this evening, I have 

 thought that it might not be inappropriate if, as a 

 representative of science, I were to venture to point 

 out some of the drawbacks as well as the advantages 

 of the position which science has attained in our edu- 

 cational system. 



At the outset no impartial onlooker can fail to 

 notice that the natural reaction against the dominance 

 of the older learning has tended to induce an under- 

 valuing of the benefits which that learning afforded 

 and can still bestow. In this College, indeed, and in 

 other institutions more specially designed for instruc- 

 tion in science, provision has also been made for 

 the teaching of Latin, Greek, and the more im- 

 portant modern languages and literatures. But in 

 such institutions, these subjects usually hold only a 

 subordinate place. It can hardly be denied that 

 generally throughout the country, even although the 

 literary side of education still maintains its pre- 

 eminence in our public schools and universities, it is 

 losing ground, and that every year it occupies less of 

 the attention of students of science. The range of 

 studies which the science examinations demand is 

 always widening, while the academic period within 

 which these studies must be crowded undergoes no 

 extension. Those students, therefore, who, whether 

 from necessity or choice, have taken their college 

 education in science, naturally experience no little 



