218 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
out all time. We cannot yield the companionship of our 
loftier brothers of antiquity of our Socrates and Cato 
whose lives provoke us to sympathetic greatness across the 
interval of two thousand years. As long as the ancient 
languages are the means of access to the ancient mind, 
they must ever be of priceless value to humanity; but 
surely these avenues might be kept open without making 
such sacrifices as that above referred to, universal. We 
have conquered and possessed ouiselves of continents of 
land, concerning which antiquity knew nothing; and if 
new continents of thought reveal themselves to the explor- 
ing human spirit, shall we not possess them also? In 
these latter days, the study of Physics has given us 
glimpses of the methods of Nature which were quite hidden 
from the ancients, and we should be false to the trust 
committed to us, if we were to sacrifice the hopes and 
aspirations of the present out of deference to the past. 
The bias of my own education probably manifests itself 
in a desire I always feel to seize upon every possible 
opportunity" of checking my assumptions and conclusions 
by experience. In the present case, it is true, your own 
consciousness might be appealed to in proof of the tendency 
of the human mind to inquire into the phenomena pre- 
sented to it by the senses; but I trust you will excuse 
me if, instead of doing this, I take advantage of the 
facts which have fallen in my way through life, refer- 
ring to your judgment to decide whether such facts are 
truly representative and general, and not merely individual 
and local. 
At an agricultural college in Hampshire, with which I 
was connected for some time, and which is now converted 
into a school for the general education of youth, a society 
was formed among the boys, who met weekly for the pur- 
pose of reading reports and papers upon various subjects. 
The society had its president and treasurer; and abstracts 
of its proceedings were published in a little monthly 
periodical issuing from the school press. One of the most 
remarkable features of these weekly meetings was, that 
after the general business had been concluded, each 
member en joyed the right of asking questions on any sub- 
ject on which he desired information. The questions 
were either written out previously in a book, or, if a ques- 
tion, happened to suggest itself during the meeting, it was 
