52 THE KINGDOM OF MAN 



should be required of all those who desire to pursue 

 their studies in this University, and accordingly 

 whether the teaching of the elements of this language 

 should form a prominent feature in the great schools 

 of this country. It seems to us that this is only part 

 of a much larger question ; namely, whether it is desirable 

 to continue to make the study of two dead languages 

 and of the story of the deeds of great men in the past 

 the main if not the exclusive matter to which the minds 

 of the youth of the well-to-do class are directed by our 

 schools and universities. We have come to the con- 

 clusion that this form of education is a mistaken and 

 injurious one. We desire to make the chief subject 

 of education both in school and in college a knowledge 

 of Nature as set forth in the sciences which are spoken 

 of as physics, chemistry, geology, and biology. We 

 think that all education l should consist in the first 

 place of this kind of knowledge, on account of its com- 

 manding importance both to the individual and to the 

 community. We think that every man of even a 

 moderate amount of education should have acquired a 

 sufficient knowledge of these subjects to enable him at 

 any rate to appreciate their value, and to take an interest 

 in their progress and application to human life. And 

 we think further that the ablest youths of the country 

 should be encouraged to proceed to the extreme limit 



1 It is, perhaps, needful to point out that what is aimed at is that the 

 education of all the youth of the country, both of pass-men and of 

 class-men, of girls as well as of boys, of the rich as well as of the poor, 

 should be primarily directed to imparting an acquaintance with what 

 we already possess in respect of knowledge of Nature, and the training 

 of the pupil so as to enable him or her (a) to make use of that konw- 

 ledge, and (b] to take part in gaining new knowledge of Nature, at this 

 moment needed but non-existent. This does not involve the complete 

 exclusion of other subjects of instruction, to which about one-third of 

 the time and effort of school and college life might be devoted. 



