34 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



[March, 1888. 



metal, is a striking illustration of the effect of 

 induced currents ; and the experiment with 

 the top is especially well adapted to illus- 

 trate it in the lecture-room or before a class 



of students. 



— ( — 



[Original in Popular Science News-I 

 ON THE STUDY OF NATURE. 



BT PROFESSOR N. 8. SHALER. 

 I. 



Modern science has done much to better the 

 condition of humanity. It is easy to see on every 

 side the vast advantages accruing to man from 

 the discoveries of recent years. A thousand bur- 

 dens have been lightened ; from the cheapening of 

 food to the lengthening of days, men have found 

 their profit in science. It is pfobable, however, 

 that the greatest gain which can come from our 

 better understanding of nature is one which is still 

 to be appropriated by the masses of men ; viz. , the 

 good which will accrue from the better under- 

 standing of the universe in which they dwell. 



The old view of the world — a view which ren- 

 dered it hopeless for man to be intellectually recon- 

 ciled to his surroundings — was unhappy, in that 

 it placed men in an attitude of conflict with nature. 

 The realm of Providence was limited to those things 

 in which the Infinite directly interfered with the 

 course of nature for the benefit of those who might 

 receive such comforts. The world at large was 

 looked upon as a vast chaos of uncontrolled action. 

 It is true that the best teachings of Christianity 

 were to the effect that the Divine pervaded nature, 

 but this view was little recognized in the religious 

 faith of men. To most, the universe as a whole 

 remained as the abiding place of evil. Science has 

 gradually destroyed this primitive notion of nature, 

 and is bringing men to perceive that all things 

 work together, and work together for good; that 

 the whole is in one hand, and not the battle-field 

 of discordant powers. 



So far, only those who deal much with science, 

 and not even all those followers of natural law, have 

 perceived the beauty of this accord in the world about 

 them. It has, however, come to all devoted students 

 of nature — to all, at least, save the few who enter 

 on their work with overmastering prejudices — to 

 conceive this world as a place where exquisitely or- 

 dered forces control the march of events. Every 

 true naturalist finds this conviction to enter into his 

 soul, and the fulness of his faith is the reward he 

 receives for his labor. It is easy to bring to men 

 the immediate, tangible profits of a wonderful 

 discovery. It is hard, indeed, to find the way in 

 which this enlargement of the understanding as to 

 the ways of the world can be brought into their 

 minds. The dominant spirit of utilitarianism 

 causes men to grasp at once upon the advantages 

 of a tangible sort afforded them by scientific work. 

 The shadowy profits which the naturalist wins, 

 though the best which comes to him from his endeav- 

 ors, escape them. It is of the utmost importance 

 that this peculiar confidence in nature which the 

 naturalist obtains should become the property of 

 aU men, and not remain, as at present, the peculiar 

 blessing of a few. 



At first sight, it seems difficult to provide 

 the general public with any such insight into the 

 depths of the world's affairs as is required for the 

 communication of this peculiar spirit, lint few 

 can be naturalists in the larger sense of the word. 

 Not more than one in a thousand at most of the 

 people in our busy societies can spare the time 

 from the ordinary occupations of life to attain to 

 this peculiar training. The question arises, whether 

 the sense of nature can be given without the elabo- 

 rate education of the professional student of nat- 



ural science. It appears to me that it can be 

 afforded to all those who care to seek in any way 

 for the higher gifts of culture, even if in their seek- 

 ing they are hampered with the ordinary burdens 

 of a busy life. So far, our effort to develop by 

 teaching the sense of relations in nature, has, it 

 seems to me, been greatly misdirected. In our 

 schools we endeavor to inform the student as to 

 the facts of the different sciences. In this way we 

 perhaps instruct him concerning a wide range of 

 phenomena, teach him to classify animals, to name 

 the heavenly bodies, or to tell something of the 

 succession of events noted by the geologist. From 

 all this, he generally gets about as much of a 

 knowledge of nature as one does of European his- 

 tory by committing to memory the names of sover- 

 eigns, or the successive battles which have taken 

 place on that continent. If, in such a system of 

 training, the student should compass in his memory 

 all that has been written concerning natural phenom- 

 ena, he would not thereby become in the true sense 

 a naturalist. He would gain no insight of an 

 available sort into the world about him, and would 

 certainly fail to acquire that peculiar confidence in 

 the world which it should be the first aim of his 

 work to afford him. Let us suppose that we take 

 a child from its mother's arms in early infancy, 

 place him in some unloving care, taking pains at 

 the same time during the process of his growth to 

 lecture him ceaselessly on the nature of maternal 

 love. Could we expect the youth to have any such 

 sense of affection for his unseen mother as he 

 would have attained to if he had been brought up 

 in immediate relations with her? Yet something 

 lilie this we do, when, without any close personal 

 contact with nature, we endeavor to instruct a 

 youth as to the qualities of his great mother, the 

 world from which he has come. 



If a sense of nature depended on a very wide 

 range of knowledge, manifestly it would be impos- 

 sible for the most of men to attain to it. We 

 should have to look forward to the institution of a 

 race of prophets or scientific men who were privi- 

 leged to journey into the remote land, and now and 

 then bring back some preservable fruits as sad 

 tokens of how good that realm is, and yet how 

 unattainable to their fellows. Fortunately, how- 

 ever, we are sure to find out, after more or less 

 abortive trials of our present system of education, 

 that the sense of nature does not demand a wide 

 training, though it does call for one very different 

 from that we now seek to give. A true sense of 

 the natural world can be obtained with compara- 

 tively little actual knowledge, provided that knowl- 

 edge be gained by deliberate, thoughtful, personal 

 experience. It hardly matters how limited is the 

 field of learning, provided it be won with the moral 

 intensity of purpose and an affectionate sacrifice, 

 which all true naturalists give to their work. The 

 field of science, in other words, is not a great farm 

 on whose broad acres the tiller rears a great store 

 of grain : it is a garden where loving care may give 

 the richest possible return of beauty and delight. 



It is important to those who would undertake 

 the unprofessional study of nature that they should 

 disabuse their minds of the notion that science can 

 only grow where there are great laboratories and 

 teachers of much repute, and that the study of it 

 must begin far away from the familiar things of 

 life. As long as this notion prevails, it will be 

 impossible to bring the scientific motive into the 

 possession of most men. The truest fact of science 

 is, that it does not depend upon its store of knowl- 

 edge, but does depend on the way in which men 

 seek for that knowledge. If every man could be 

 brought into the habit of approaching his daily 

 tasks, be they of the humblest trade, with a desire 

 to see why the conditions about him were what 



they are, all men would have the scientific spirit 

 instilled into them; and in their ordinary lives, with 

 thought which was merely the most wholesome ac- 

 companiment of action, they would win their way 

 to all that which is most precious in a life of pure 

 research. If a boy, when setting about a trade, 

 could be taught to go backward from the simple ex- 

 periences of eye and hand until he saw some long 

 perspectives in the nature with which he dealt, if 

 he could be trained to watch for every indication of 

 the unknown, and diligently seek the explanation 

 of it, the end would be won, and all men would be 

 students of nature; for as soon as the mind begins 

 to ask why these things are so, and as soon as it 

 learns by observations where experiment can be 

 applied to go beyond the bounds of knowledge, a 

 kindly, sympathetic relation with the world is 

 established. 



It seems that, if science is to be made the 

 common property of men, we must accomplish the 

 result by creating a spirit of inquiry, and applying 

 it to the work which men have to do in their daily 

 routine. The way to accomplish this task is 

 doubtless the most important question which the 

 world now has to face, for on the reconciliation of 

 man with nature clearly depends the largest ad- 

 vance which is now possible to our kind. The 

 only way to bring this result about is by giving 

 men a great part of their education in connection 

 with the work 'which they have to do in life. Our 

 present theory is, to take youths, boys or girls, 

 teach them first the rudiments of speech, literature, 

 and mathematics, or, in other words, the common 

 foundation of our education, and then give them 

 a few years devoted to the acquisition of extremely 

 miscellaneous information, which serves in a meas- 

 ure for instruction and in some small share for 

 enlargement of the understanding. There is no 

 question that this second stage of the education, 

 that of miscellaneous instruction, is better than 

 no training at all; but the result is, that in most 

 cases the youths come to their occupations in life 

 quite unprepared to take up their labor with the 

 spirit of inquiry. At the most, they will go to 

 books for knowledge ; they will never awake to 

 the sense that each man should be an inquirer, 

 incessantly devoted to the task of understanding 

 the world with which he comes in contact. 



An education designed to bring men into closer 

 relations with nature must be so contrived that the 

 body of their training comes into close connection 

 with the occupation which they are to follow. Let 

 us suppose that, at fifteen years of age, it could be 

 determined that the boy is to be a farmer, is to 

 pursue any manufacturer's calling, or engage in any 

 specified work in life. It seems to me that as soon 

 as the youth has compassed the necessary rudi- 

 ments of an education, has been informed concern- 

 ing the mere outlines of history, and given some 

 sense of the greater works in his own literature, he 

 should enter upon a training for his vocation. In 

 that work, his education should, as far as possible, 

 proceed in an experimental manner. Beginning 

 with the gross fact which comes to his attention in 

 the actual pursuit of his occupation, he should be 

 taught as far as possible to work backward towards 

 the history and theory of his art. It will, of course, 

 be necessary to teach him the general outlines of 

 chemistry before he begins the study, for instance, 

 of the chemistry of agriculture, and the general 

 principles of physics and dynamics must precede the 

 special problems in any branch of engineering; but 

 the instruction, however wide-ranging, and it will 

 be necessary to range over a very wide field, should 

 always be directed as far as may be to the ends of 

 teaching him how to think and inquire in the pro- 

 cess of his daily labor. 



(Concluded next mtmher.) 



