598 



NATURE 



[October 22, 1903 



ness and incompleteness with which reorganisation is going 

 on in the studies concerned with man is an undesirable, 

 even a dangerous, fact. The disparity between the two 

 halves of human knowledge has grown so great that there 

 is a fear that almost all young men of original or inventive 

 mind will turn to the study of material nature. It would 

 be foolish to make any comparison between the importance 

 of the knowledge of man's surroundings and the know- 

 ledge of his nature, his works, and his history. Both are 

 beyond value. But if the two halves of the human brain, 

 so to speak, work on different plans, what will become of 

 th° unity of man himself? 



A reason why the votaries of natural science should have 

 some sympathy with those who are endeavouring to re- 

 model humanist studies is that it is from the natural sciences 

 that methods and ideas have flowed into those relating to 

 man. The ideas of continuity, of adc^tation to environ- 

 ment, of evolution, were transplanted into historic studies 

 from those of biology, and it was soon found that they 

 flourished almost as well, and bore almost as much fruit, in 

 the new field as in the old. But whereas the highly trained 

 and scientific worker in history, psychology, archaeology, 

 and kindred studies is quite alive to the use of the new 

 scientific methods, they have as yet only partially affected 

 education in these subjects, even in our universities. The 

 books used by the students are changed in character, but 

 not the ways of working. Undergraduates are not 

 thoroughly taught the principles of weighing evidence, they 

 are not accustomed to work on the comparative method, 

 they do not acquire historic imagination. They have not 

 learned to judge by evidence rather than by authority, nor 

 rigidly to distinguish degrees of probability. 



Of course, education is not, and cannot be, only scientific. 

 To everyone's education there should be other sides. There 

 should be a religious side, in some ways the most important 

 of all. There should be an artistic side. Every boy and 

 every girl should be taught to draw or to play some instru- 

 ment, and to appreciate good work done in the art which 

 is thus practised. And every student should be taught to 

 use the English language to some purpose, and to appreciate 

 what has been best written in that language, and in one 

 or two other languages. But at present I am not speaking 

 of_ religious, of artistic, or of literary education, but of 

 scientific education, of the direct training of the faculties 

 for dealing with the facts of the world ; and it is my con- 

 tention that this scientific side of education has been com- 

 paratively neglected in the case of those who have not taken 

 up some branch of physical science. In fact, so completely 

 has the really scientific character of such studies as history 

 and archaeology and economics and the like been, at least 

 in this country, overlooked that when we hear of a man 

 studying science it is at once assumed that he is giving 

 his attention to the facts of the natural rather than of the 

 human world. But the word science has not and cannot 

 rightly have any meaning but "ordered knowledge." 

 Whatever can be surely known is matter of science. 



But I must come to the practical question of the organ- 

 isation of study, and especially of university study. Know- 

 ledge of the physical world has so greatly grown by two 

 things, the improvement of method and the organisation 

 of research. Improved methods of investigation in the study 

 of man and of history have fairly come in : they are scarcely 

 yet fully recognised in schools and universities^ but the best 

 authorities in the various branches of the subject are 

 acquainted with them. What is most needed is a new 

 oiganisation of research. 



At present in our universities the spread of better methods 

 in the human studies has principally effected this, that the 

 student works on better text-books. ' This in itself is some- 

 thing, but not very much. Compare, for example, such a 

 subject as geology. Would it be regarded as sufficient if 

 the students of geology read books in which the latest and 

 most approved views are expressed ? Surely not ; until the 

 student has grubbed for himself in the chalk pit and the 

 chff, and learned in museums to recognise the substances 

 belonging to various strata of the earth, he has done nothing 

 worth doing. He must not take results ready made but 

 must work for himself, see for himself, learn 'the value of 

 evidence and the touch of fact. I venture to think that 

 the case is the same in human studies. Here also it is of 

 little use to accept the best results, unless the student grasps 

 NO. 1773. VOL. 68] 



the grounds on which they are reached. Here also he 

 must for himself work on the data, see why one view is 

 more probable than another, map out the exact stale of the 

 evidence. 



Our remedy is to adopt in the human sciences organ- 

 isation and methods of study which have triumphed in the 

 natural sciences. In every college and university there 

 should be, beside the laboratory of the chemist and the 

 dissecting room of the physiologist, work-rooms for the 

 students of man. As regards psychology and anthropology, 

 which are two foundation stones of the arch, this is already 

 conceded. Specimens and apparatus are there acknow- 

 ledged to be necessary. The same necessity exists as re- 

 gards other branches of human study. Work-rooms are 

 needed in which the student should be, so far as possible, 

 brought into contact with evidence. All the important 

 books, dictionaries and the like should, of course, be there. 

 And besides, the authorities for the books should be so far 

 as possible put together, facsimiles of documents and of 

 inscriptions, maps, chronicles, coins, seals, and the like. 

 In the economic section every kind of statistics should be at 

 hand. In the department of ancient history there should 

 be casts of inscriptions, photographs of sites, facsimiles of 

 manuscripts, casts of statues and of coins. Even when 

 such objects are not direct authorities for the points of 

 which the student is in search, they form his mind by bring- 

 ing him into contact with fact and evidence, and thev 

 greatly stimulate his imagination by placing him in presence 

 of some of the surroundings of history. The result of work 

 of this kind would be a change of outlook and of method, 

 the substitution of investigation for theory, of science for 

 fancy. It would prepare the "student for wider work in the 

 actual world, for which, of course, it would be no sub- 

 stitute but a propaedeutic. 



Those who teach and organise natural studies are fully 

 alive to the great demands made by the changed state of 

 the world, and are demanding endowment with energy and 

 persistency. They are quite right. But the teachers of 

 human studies are more inert and less keenly alive to the 

 need of expansion. But science, ordered knowledge, is, in 

 spite of all divisions, one, and it will be a great misfortune 

 for the country if in the extension and re-endowment of 

 our university system the necessity of thorough and 

 elaborate investigation of man in all his aspects, his histcrv 

 and his works, falls into the background. 



Oxford, October. p. Gardner. 



Uniformity in Scientific Literature. 



In 1894 a committee was appointed by the British Associ- 

 ation to inquire into the question of uniformity in the size 

 of the pages of proceedings, transactions, and scientific 

 journals in which original papers are published. The 

 appearance of a number of Proceedings of the London 

 Mathematical Society of a different size from its predecessors, 

 in accordance with an announcement circulated as recenth' 

 as the end of August, suggests that it may be desirable to 

 direct attention to the report of this committee (Brit. Ass. 

 Rep., 1895, p. 77). 



In this country all the more important octavo journals 

 in question are printed on either medium or demv paper ; 

 as examples we may cite the Royal Society's Proceedings, 

 the Philosophical Magazine, the Proceedings of the 

 Physical Society, &c. A considerable number of foreign 

 journals (e.g. Wiedemann's Annalen) are of practically the 

 same size. The difference between medium and demy 

 octavo is too small to cause any inconvenience either in 

 placing the volumes together on a shelf or in binding 

 together reprints of papers. In the case of certain American 

 and Italian journals a somewhat larger sized page has 

 been adopted, but the difference is entirely in the margin, 

 the printed portion being in some cases smaller even than 

 in our demy octavo journals. This allows of reprints being 

 cut down for binding with others from the Philosophical 

 Magazine or British Association Report, and still leaving 

 plenty oi margin. Where papers are too long to be pub- 

 lished in octavo form, medium and demy quarto are the 

 most prevalent sizes. Here again there is not much to 

 choose between the two, and, as in the case of octavo, the 

 committee decided to recommend the demy size as a 

 standard. The most inconvenient pamphlets to deal with 

 are those in which the paper is too small for binding up 



