426 Edivard Livingston Youmans. 



speak with authority and who are not : and they either have no faith 

 at all in the testimony of science, or are the ready dupes of charlatans 

 and impostors. They alternate between ignorant distrust, and blind, 

 often misplaced, confidence. Besides, who is there who would not 

 wish to understand the meaning of the common physical facts that 

 take place under his eye ? Who would not wish to know why a 

 pump raises water, why a lever moves heavy weights, why it is hot 

 at the tropics and cold at the poles, why the moon is sometimes 

 dark and sometimes bright, what is the cause of the tides ? Do we 

 not feel that he who is totally ignorant of these things, let him be 

 ever so skilled in a special profession, is not an educated man but an 

 ignoramus ? It is surely no small part of education to put us in in- 

 telligent possession of the most important and most universally in- 

 teresting facts of the universe, so that the world which surrounds us 

 may not be a sealed book to us, uninteresting because unintelligible. 

 This, however, is but the simplest and most obvious part of ^ the 

 utility of science, and the part which, if neglected in youth, may be 

 the most easily made up for afterward. It is more important to 

 understand the value of scientific instruction as a training and dis- 

 ciplining process, to fit the intellect for the proper work of a human 

 being. Facts are the materials of our knowledge, but the mind itself 

 is the instrument : and it is easier to acquire facts, than to judge 

 what they prove, and how, through the facts which we know, to get 

 to those which we want to know. 



The most incessant occupation of the human intellect throughout 

 life is the ascertainment of truth. We are always needing to know 

 what is actually true about something or other. It is not given to 

 us all to discover great general truths that are a light to all men and 

 to future generations ; though with a better general education the 

 number of those who could do so would be far greater than it is. 

 But we all require the ability to judge between the conflicting opin- 

 ions which are offered to us as vital truths ; to choose what doctrines 

 we will receive in the matter of religion, for example ; to judge 

 whether we ought to be Tories, Whigs, or Radicals, or to what 

 length it is our duty to go with each ; to form a rational conviction 

 on great questions of legislation and internal policy, and on the 

 manner in which our country should behave to dependencies and to 

 foreign nations. And the need we have of knowing how to dis- 

 criminate truth, is not confined to the larger truths. All through 



