236 MODERN SCIENCE READER 



is a thing to be held in honor both as a means for reaching 

 mechanical results, and still more, as a way to train the 

 mind. . . . Fifty years ago many men who called them- 

 selves educated were mere untrained, undeveloped children 

 in manual skill, and some of them were proud of their 

 incompetency, for nothing would have more surprised 

 them than an assertion that their inability to help them- 

 selves with their hands was a badge of ignorance. . . . 

 While the high character and sterling worth of the medical 

 man has always won respect, their skill in the use of their 

 hands was long held by those who were superior to such 

 weakness to place them beneath the lawyers and the clergy- 

 men in the social scale.'/ Recently I came upon this old 

 idea within college walls. In the college connected with 

 the Johns Hopkins University there are several groups of 

 studies which lead to the degree of bachelor of arts. 

 Group I is largely, made up of the classics, and it is there- 

 fore generally called the classical group. I happened 

 once to be dining with a gentleman whose son was a stu- 

 dent in Group I in our college. Our professor of Latin 

 was also present. Turning to my colleague, the professor 

 of Latin, our host, the father of the classical student, ex- 

 claimed: "How those fellows in Group I look down upon 

 all the others!" I afterward learned that this feeling 

 undoubtedly existed among the students, those who studied 

 the classics, especially, forming, in their own opinion at 

 least, a well-characterized aristocracy. I have referred to 

 these cases simply for the purpose of showing that the 

 pernicious idea that hand-work is a sign of inferiority is 

 not yet dead. But it has nevertheless been disappearing 

 rapidly for some years past, and with its disappearance 

 the development of science has kept pace. Which is the 

 cause and which the effect it would perhaps be hard to say. 

 At all events, the growth of every department of science 

 has been more rapid within the last fifty years than during 

 the preceding fifty years, though we should be doing gross 

 injustice to our predecessors were we to belittle their work. 



