218 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



out all time. We cannot yield the companionship of our 

 loftier brothers of antiquity of our Socrates and Cato 

 whose lives provoke us to sympathetic greatness across the 

 interval of two thousand years. As long as the ancient 

 languages are the means of access to the ancient mind, 

 they must ever be of priceless value to humanity; but 

 surely these avenues might be kept open without making 

 such sacrifices as that above referred to, universal. We 

 have conquered and possessed ourselves of continents of 

 laud, concerning which antiquity knew nothing; and if 

 new continents of thought reveal themselves to the explor- 

 ing human spirit, shall we not possess them also? In 

 these latter days, the study of Physics has given us 

 glimpses of the methods of Nature which were quite hidden 

 from the ancients, and we should be false to the trust 

 committed to us, if we were to sacrifice the hopes and 

 aspirations of the present out of deference to the past. 



The bias of my own education probably manifests itself 

 in a desire I always feel to seize upon every possible 

 opportunity of checking my assumptions and conclusions 

 by experience. In the present case, it is true, your own 

 consciousness might be appealed to in proof of the tendency 

 of the human mind to inquire into the phenomena pre- 

 sented to it by the senses; but I trust you will excuse 

 me if, instead of doing this, I take advantage of the 

 facts which have fallen in my way through life, refer- 

 ring to your judgment to decide whether such facts are 

 truly representative and general, and not merely individual 

 and local. 



At an agricultural college in Hampshire, with which I 

 was connected for some time, and which is now converted 

 into a school for the general education of youth, a society 

 was formed among the boys, who met weekly for the pur- 

 pose of reading reports and papers upon various subjects. 

 The society had its president and treasurer; and abstracts 

 of its proceedings were published in a little monthly 

 periodical issuing from the school press. One of the most 

 remarkable features of these weekly meetings was, that 

 after the general business had been concluded, each 

 member enjoyed the right of asking questions on any sub- 

 ject on which he desired information. The questions 

 were either written out previously in a book, or, if a ques- 

 tion happened to suggest itself during the meeting, it was 



