288 SCIENCE IN EDUCATION 



full force in the present stage of your career. One 

 result of the comparative neglect of the literary side 

 of education by many men of science is conspicuously 

 seen in their literary style. It is true that in our 

 time we have had some eminent scientific workers, 

 who have also been masters of nervous and eloquent 

 English. But it is not less true that the literature of 

 science is burdened with a vast mass of slipshod, 

 ungrammatical and clumsy writing, wherein sometimes 

 even the meaning of the authors is left in doubt. Let 

 me press upon you the obvious duty of not increasing 

 this unwieldy burden. Study the best masters of 

 style, and when once you have made up your minds 

 what you want to say, try to express it in the simplest, 

 clearest, and most graceful language you can find. 



Remember that, while education is the drawing out 

 and cultivation of all the powers of the mind, no system 

 has yet been devised that will by itself develop with 

 equal success every one of these powers. The system 

 under which we have been trained may have done 

 as much for us as it can do. Each of us is there- 

 after left to supplement its deficiencies by self-culture. 

 And in the ordinary science-instruction of the time 

 one of the most obvious of these inevitable deficiencies 

 is the undue limitation or neglect of the literary side 

 of education. 



But in the science-instruction itself there are dangers 

 regarding which we cannot be too watchful. In this 

 College and in all the other well-organised scientific 

 institutions of the country, the principles of science are 

 taught orally and experimentally. Every branch of 

 knowledge is expounded in its bearings on other 



