294 SCIENCE IN EDUCATION 



knowledge and appreciation of the world in which we 

 live. But we are not all equally endowed with the 

 gift of intelligent vision. On the contrary, in no 

 respect, perhaps, do we differ more from each other 

 than in our powers of observation. Obviously, a 

 man who has a quick eye to note what passes 

 around him must, in the ordinary affairs of life, stand 

 at a considerable advantage over another man who 

 moves unobservantly on his course. We cannot 

 create an observing faculty any more than we can 

 create a memory, but we may do much to develop 

 both. This is a feature in education of much more 

 practical and national importance than might be sup- 

 posed. I suspect that it lies closer than might be 

 imagined to the success of our commercial relations 

 abroad. Our prevalent system of instruction has 

 for generations past done nothing to cultivate the 

 habit of observation, and has thus undoubtedly left 

 us at a disadvantage in comparison with nations that 

 have adopted methods of tuition wherein the observing 

 faculty is regularly trained. With our world-wide 

 commerce we have gone on supplying to foreign 

 countries the same manufactured goods for which 

 our fathers found markets in all quarters of the 

 globe. Our traders, however, now find themselves 

 in competition with traders from other nations who 

 have been trained to better use of their powers of 

 observation, and who, taking careful note of the 

 gradually changing tastes and requirements of the 

 races which they visit, have been quick to report 

 these changes and to take means for meeting them. 

 Thus, in our own centres of trade we find ourselves 



