December 14, 1899] 



NATURE 



159 



blast. The cranial ganglia take their entire origin from Froriep's 



" Kiemenspaltenorganen." These structures were first discovered 



by Froriep.and independently by Beard, who identified them 



I as the foundations of the lateral sense organs, and termed them, 



I because of their genetic relations to the gill-clefts, the " bran- 



^ chial sense-organs." Moreover, as previously stated, these 



I patches of sensory epithelium, the " placodes " of Kupffer, were 



shown to be the Sources of ganglionic elements, forming the 



lateral ganglia. Goronowitsch has now, therefore, endeavoured 



to limit the cranial ganglia in their origin to these lateral 



sources alone. ^ 



Peculiar, though not confined to himself, are the views main- 

 tained by Dr. Goronowitsch as to the mode of attachment of the 

 ganglion with the central organ, and as to the formation of 

 nerve-fibre in general. 



In the solutions offered of these problems — which, of course, 

 are really one and the same, to wit, that of the development of 

 nerve— he places himself entirely on the side of A. Sedgwick. 



The latter zoologist has maintained, without thus far illus- 

 trating his thesis by figures, that nerve-fibres arise in situ in the 

 mesodermic reticulum, connecting together the various portions 

 of the developing embryo and filling all the spaces between skin 

 and central nervous system. 



The logical conclusion attaching to this view is that nerve is 

 mesodermal in origin. This conclusion Goronowitsch does not 

 hesitate to draw. In his own words in literal translation he says 

 {inter alia on p. 40) " the nerve-forming tissue of the complex 

 nerve-trunk is furnished by axial mesoderm." 

 ^ Incidentally he, like Sedgwick, rejects the doctrines of His, 

 Golgi and their followers, that nerve-fibres arise as processes 

 of ganglion-ceils. Naturally ! The two views are mutually ex- 

 clusive. If nerve-fibres arise in a reticulum of mesoderm or 

 mesenchyme, they cannot also be processes of ganglion-cells. 



Whatever is to be said for the full acceptance of the process- 

 theory of His and Golgi, and whatever the ultimate fate of the 

 germ-layer theory, no fact in vertebrate embryology stands on a 

 firmer basis than the origin of all nervous structures from the 

 outer layer, the ectoderm or skin, and to fall back upon the 

 mesoderm or its reticulum as the source of nerve appears to us 

 a retrograde step to the embryological standpoint of thirty years 

 ago. 



While readily and willingly acknowledging Goronowitsch's in- 

 dustry and zeal in working out this memoir, evidenced by the 

 detailed and laborious description, the carefully drawn and 

 beautifully lithographed plates, his main thesis must remain in 

 abeyance until proof further and more convincing, that this is 

 so for representative members of each of the great vertebrate 

 classes, can be brought forward. 



THE UtiLITY OF KNOWLEDGE-MAKING 



AS A MEANS OF LIBERAL TRAINING.' 



'T'lIE subject on which I wish to address a few remarks to you 



to-day, by way of opening the fortieth session of our 



College, is the utility of knowledge-making as a means of 



liberal training. 



That the main work of the highest of educational insti- 

 tutions should consist of original research, and that ability 

 to make additions to knowledge should form the chief test of 

 qualification for the highest academic distinction, may be said to 

 have received world-wide recognition ; but the value of research 

 work in institutions or departments of a lower grade has not 

 been similarly recognised, and the tests for lower academic de- 

 grees and certificates do not, in general, at least formally, include 

 a research test. I wish to bring to your notice some considera- 

 tions which go to show that the work of all educational institu- 

 tions, from the highest to the lowest, should be, to a considerable 

 eJrtent, at least, of the nature of original research— understand- 

 ing by that term, however, the effort to make additions to our 

 owm knowledge, not necessarily to the knowledge of the race. 



In this sen^ we have all been engaged more or less in 

 original research from our earliest years ; and we probably 

 attained greater success in infancy than in youth or in later life. 

 The young child is completely cut off from all external sources 

 of information ; and it could acquire no knowledge beyond a 

 ibrance of confused sensations, if it did not possess the 



Jnaugural address delivered at the opening of the fortieth session of 

 £r-„!^!'*L*'°"*^^' Wa''fa'f. Nova Scotia, on S^tember 13, by Prof. J. G. 



NO. 1572. VOL. 61] 



power of "putting that and that together" and finding things 

 out for itself. By applying this power, however, the child 

 succeeds in bringing a large measure of order out of the chaos 

 ofsensations which it experiences. The method which it uses 

 is the scientific or knowledge-making method. It finds out the 

 usage of a word, for example, by. putting together various 

 instances of its use, constructing a theory as to the meaning of 

 the word, testing the theory by subsequent observation, and 

 modifying the theory as experience widens — in fact, by subject- 

 ing its experience to imagination, induction and deduction, and 

 thus, as the logicians would say, generalising such experience. 

 How exactly the process is carried out, even the New Psychology 

 has not yet told us. But it certainly gets carried out somehow ; 

 and the result is a series of brilliant, though possibly to some 

 extent sub-conscious, discoveries. The evolutionist would tell 

 us, perhaps, in his learned phraseology, that this phenomenon is 

 a case of the ontogenetic recapitulation of phylogeny, by which 

 he would mean that the young animal in learning its mother- 

 tongue passes in a few months or years through an epitome of 

 the course of development for which the race required as many 

 sons. Even so, the phenomenon does not lose its suggestive- 

 ness from our present point of view. 



Whether it be because, when the mother-tongue has been 

 acquired, the period of octogenetic recapitulation is complete, 

 and the child brought thereby up to date, or because it is then 

 brought into communication with encyclopsedic friends, I cannot 

 say ; but certainly once the child is able to question its mysterious 

 neighbours and to understand their answers, its power of apply- 

 ing the scientific method rapidly diminishes, becoming weakened 

 apparently because of the readiness with which information may 

 now be obtained by simple appeal to authority. But though 

 weakened the power is not wholly lost ; for it exhibits itself, 

 more or less, in the study both of language and of natural 

 phenomena, during the period of tutelage between early child- 

 hood and incipient manhood, and it comes into greater or 

 smaller activity when the young man goes forth to engage in the 

 work of life. And what his degree of success is to be in such 

 work as his hand may find to do will depend, in no small 

 measure, upon his power of putting that and that together and 

 making knowledge for himself from his own experience. 



The value of experience in the direction of the work of life 

 does not need to be established by argument. It has become 

 proverbial. But the connection of its value as a directing 

 agency with the making of knowledge may need a few words of 

 exposition. That the mental process which enables us to learn 

 by experience in later life is a knowledge-making process— the 

 same as that used by the child in acquiring its mother-tongue, 

 though perhaps more consciously performed — becomes obvious 

 if we consider any particular kind of work in which men engage. 

 The merchant, to take a single case, in order that he may be able 

 to foresee what kinds and qualities of the many articles in which 

 he deals it will be desirable for him to have in stock, must watch 

 the purchases of his customers, and make mental note of their 

 satisfaction or discontent. The transactions are too numerous 

 to be carried in the memory or to admit of written memoranda. 

 If he is to make progress in judging as to what his stock should 

 include, he must put related experiences together, weld the 

 lessons he learns from them into general rules, 5ind make these 

 rules more and more accurate as time goes on. And the same 

 is true of many other questions which he must settle for him- 

 self. Unless, in fact, he can generalise his mercantile experi- 

 ence, as a child generalises its linguistic experience, he must 

 continue to buy and sell with no greater intelligence than he 

 did at the outset of his business career. 



"Till old experience do ;<ttain 

 To something like prophetic strain," 



as Milton puts it, he can have no complete success. 



A similar statement may be made with respect to the 

 physician, the farmer, the investigator, the housewife, the 

 artisan, the politician, the clerk, — with respect, in fact, to all 

 classes of workers, whatever the form of work in which they 

 may be engaged. It may be made also, not only in regard to 

 their main work, but in so far as they may in addition be 

 engaged in athletic, literary, artistic, political, social, religious, 

 or any other effort, and whether that effort take the form o' 

 work or play. In short, it is applicable to a greater or smaller 

 extent to at least the great bulk of the various forms of 

 activity of which the lives of most of us are piade up. The 

 subject-matter of experience, the material with which we must 

 deal, is different in different cases ; but there is one condition 



