SCIENCE, INDUSTRY, AND EDUCATION 



ative attitude of our public men, and of the influential 

 classes of society generally, towards scientific knowledge 

 and methods of thought, must be attributed to the too 

 close adherence of our older Universities, and through 

 them of our public schools, and all other schools in the 

 country downwards, to the traditional methods of teaching 

 of mediaeval times. The incubus of the past makes itself 

 felt, especially in the too strict retention of educational 

 methods in which the first importance is given to the re- 

 production of knowledge from memory, to the acquiring 

 and applying of what is already known ; with little, if any, 

 guidance and encouragement to the undergraduate student 

 in the direction of research and of independent reasoning. 



With the experience of Germany and the United States 

 before us, the direction in which we should look for $ a 

 remedy for this state of things would seem to be for both 

 the teacher and the student to be less shackled by the 

 hampering fetters of examinational restrictions, and so 

 for the professor to have greater freedom as to what he 

 shall teach, and the student greater freedom as to what 

 line of study and research he may select as being best 

 suited to his tastes and powers. 



We have before us in the United States an example 

 which is worthy of our consideration. With the opening 

 of the Johns Hopkins University in 1876, there began 

 in the States a movement to organise advanced study, 

 and especially research, for those who had already passed 



through a college course of study. In the words of Pro- 



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