SCIENCE AND THE THOUGHT OF THE WORLD 



of the civilised world which are being wrought by their 

 practical applications to the cheapening of paper, and to 

 improvements of the automatic printing-press, which, 

 combined with the linking together of all parts of the 

 earth by a network of telegraphic communications, put 

 it in the power of even the poor of the realm to read daily 

 the news of the world, and for a few shillings to provide 

 themselves with a library of classical works. Of scarcely 

 less educational influence upon the public mind are the new 

 methods of photography and mechanical reproduction, 

 by which pictures of current events and the portraits of 

 those who are making contemporary history, and also 

 copies of the world's masterpieces of painting and of 

 sculpture, are widely disseminated with the cheap news- 

 papers and magazines among the mass of the people. 



I have not spoken of the influence of science upon its 

 own students, nor of the place it should take in general 

 education. My purpose has been to point out the pro- 

 found changes which science has wrought upon the habits 

 of thinking of the general public, who themselves have no 

 personal knowledge of science methods, changes which 

 have revolutionised every activity of the human mind. 



Golden will be the days when, through a reform of our 

 higher education, every man going up to the Universities 

 will have been from his earliest years under the stimulating 

 influence of a personal training in practical elementary 

 science ; all his natural powers being brought to a state 



of high efficiency, and his mind actively proving all things 



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