SCIENTIFIC CULTURE. 



579 



book, however well prepared. This method at once makes the subject 

 a task ; and, if in addition the preparation for an examination is the 

 great end in view, it is wonderful how small is the residuum after the 

 work is done. Such subjects can always be made intensely interesting 

 if presented by lectures, with the requisite illustrations, and I do not 

 believe that the cramming process required to pass an examination 

 adds much to the knowledge previously gained. Many teachers, find- 

 ing that the parrot-like learning of a text-book is unprofitable, attempt 

 to make the exercise more valuable by means of problems — usually 

 simple arithmetical problems — depending upon principles of physics 

 or chemistry. And there can be no doubt that such problems do 

 serve to enforce the principles they illustrate ; but I am afraid they 

 also more frequently, by disgusting the student, stand in the way of 

 the acquisition of the desired knowledge. 



It must not be forgotten, in studying the results of science, that 

 the facts are never fully learned unless the learner is made to under- 

 stand the evidence on which the facts rest. The child who reads in 

 his physical geography that the world revolves on its axis, learns 

 what to him is a mere form of words, until he connects this astronomi- 

 cal fact with his own observation that the sun rises in the east and 

 sets in the west ; and so the scholar who reads that water is composed 

 of oxygen and hydrogen has acquired no real knowledge until he has 

 seen the evidence on which this fundamental conclusion rests. Let, 

 then, the sciences be taught as they have been in schools, as important 

 parts of useful knowledge, but let them so be taught as to engage the 

 interest of the scholar, and to direct his attention to the phenomena 

 of Nature. 



All this, however, is not scientific culture, in the sense in which I 

 have constantly used the term, and does not afford any special train- 

 ing for the intellectual faculties. For myself, I do not desire any 

 study of natural history, chemistry, or physics from this point of view 

 as a preparation for college ; simply because, with the large apparatus 

 of the university, all these subjects can be presented more effectively, 

 and be made more interesting, than is possible in the schools. What 

 I desire to see accomplished by our schools is a training in physical 

 science, comparable in extent and efficiency with that which they now 

 accomplish in the ancient languages. And this brings me to another 

 topic, namely, scientific culture as a system of mental training. 



Before attempting to state in what scientific culture consists, we 

 shall do well, even at the expense of some repetition, to show that 

 what often passes for scientific culture is far different from the sys- 

 tem of education which we have so constantly advocated. The acqui- 

 sition of scientific knowledge, however extensive, does not in itself 

 constitute scientific culture, nor is the power of reproducing such 

 knowledge, at a competitive examination, any test of real scientific 

 power. Nevertheless, the examination papers which have been pub- 



