5o8 



NATURE 



[November i8, 19 15 



interest which will continue when schooldays are 

 over. 



That is the standard — abiding^ interest — by 

 which successful teaching- may be judged ; and 

 we are disposed to think that the descriptive and 

 qualitative school science of a generation or two 

 ago was better adapted to promote such continued 

 attention than is the quantitative work in the 

 narrow fields mapped out for instruction to-day. 

 In their anxiety to impress pupils with a sense of 

 scientific accuracy and cautious conclusion, advo- 

 cates of the methods now in vogue have forgotten 

 that it is even more important to present a view 

 of science which shall be human as well as pre- 

 cise. To the general neglect of this aspect of 

 scientific study, which appeals to all, must be 

 ascribed the fact that science has lost much of its 

 former popularity, and has become a task in which 

 only a favoured few can hope to excel. 



It is a thousand pities that science should be 

 considered to be merely a burden of material fact 

 and precise principle which needs a special type 

 of mind to bear it. We want much more of the 

 spirit, and less of the valley of dry bones, if 

 science is to be made of living interest, either 

 during school life or afterwards. We want every- 

 one to know something of the lives and work of 

 such men as Galileo and Newton, Pasteur and 

 Lister, Darwin and Mendel, and many other 

 pioneers of science. The way to inspire wide in- 

 terest in the achievements of men like these is 

 not by the laboratory teaching of a few, but by 

 suitable descriptive literature for all. In books 

 intended for general reading, information should 

 be made subordinate to inspiration, and broad out- 

 lines of great discoveries or fruitful ideas should 

 be presented instead of tedious detail. It should 

 be shown that self-sacrifice, persistence, courage, 

 duty, accuracy, love of truth, and like attributes 

 of greatness, may all be abundantly exemplified 

 from the careers of men of science. 



The achievements of science represent increase 

 of knowledge, not alone for the man who makes 

 it, not alone also for the nation or country to which 

 he belongs, but for the whole human race. The 

 conquests of science do not mean the aggran- 

 disement of one country or people at the expense 

 of another, but gifts to all who will receive them. 

 The only domain which it is desired to penetrate 

 is that of ignorance ; and the fight is against the 

 physical and mental death which is its heritage. 

 Ignorance made plague the terror of Europe in the 

 Middle Ages ; science has proved that the disease 

 is due to a bacillus which is conveyed by fleas 

 from rat to rat, and from rats suffering from the 

 NO. 2403, VOL. 96] 



disease to mankind. Ignorance ascribed malaria 

 to a miasma or bad air arising from marshy 

 places ; science has shown it to be carried from 

 one human being to another by a certain species of 

 mosquito. Ignorance of the cause of yellow fever 

 made the regions around the Caribbean Sea the 

 White Man's Grave, where the risk of death for 

 the visitor was greater than in a battle; know- 

 ledge that the disease is communicated from an 

 infected to a healthy person by the bite of a parti- 

 cular mosquito has been the means of converting 

 the same places into tropical health resorts. One 

 practical result of the discovery of the cause of 

 yellow fever was that it made possible the con- 

 struction of the Panama Canal. It was not a 

 hostile army or political difficulties that obstructed 

 the work commenced by de Lesseps, not moun- 

 tain chain or desert waste, but an insect which 

 raised a barrier of disease and death between en- 

 deavour and accomplishment. 



We have in uplifting stories of this kind — and 

 there are many others — plenty of themes for epics 

 which, rightly used, will stimulate interest in 

 science, in both old and young. When a place for 

 such literature is found in every educational 

 course, the number of people who will follow 

 scientific work with sympathetic minds will be 

 greatly increased. At present school science 

 means mostly determinations of specific heats or 

 chemical equivalents, and similar exercises, while 

 the deeds and thoughts which give living interest 

 to material studies are neglected altogether. We 

 do not ask that science students only should be 

 given much broader views of natural knowledge 

 than can be acquired through laboratory manuals 

 and class text-books, but that the historical and 

 literary studies in all schools and colleges should 

 include works in which great scientific achieve- 

 ments and generalisations are expounded. We are 

 confident that such subjects can be made attrac- 

 tive to almost every mind, and that the want of 

 general and intelligent interest in them is due 

 largely to the neglect of descriptive scientific 

 literature in all stages of instruction. 



It is unfortunately true that men of science 

 themselves are often interested only in their own 

 special field of work, and pay little attention to 

 what is being done in other directions. These are 

 the days of specialised study, and though the high 

 powers used for the eyepieces enable new details 

 to be discerned, the field of view is greatly re- 

 stricted in extent, and the sense of true propor- 

 tion is lost. Specialisation is essential for ad- 

 vance, but when it also means indifference to ex- 

 ternal movements and influences, it does not repre- 



