302 SCIENCE IN EDUCATION 



knowledge. When you entered upon the study of 

 one of these departments, you felt, perhaps, almost 

 overpowered and bewildered by the vast mass of facts 

 with which you had to make acquaintance. And yet 

 as your training advanced, you gradually came to see 

 that the infinite variety of phenomena could all be 

 marshalled, according to definite laws, into groups and 

 series. You were led to look beyond the details to the 

 great principles that underlie them and bind them into 

 a harmonious and organic whole. With the help of a 

 guiding system of classification, you were able to see 

 the connection between the separate facts, to arrange 

 them according to their mutual relations, and thus to 

 ascend to the great general laws under which the 

 material world has been constructed. With all attain- 

 able thoroughness in the mastery of detail, you have 

 been taught to combine a breadth of treatment which 

 enables you to find and keep a leading clue even 

 through the midst of what might seem a tangled web 

 of confusion. There are some men who cannot see 

 the wood for the trees, and who consequently can 

 never attain great success in scientific investigation. 

 Let it be your aim to master fully the details of the 

 tree, and yet to maintain such a breadth of vision as 

 will enable you to embrace the whole forest within 

 your ken. I need not enlarge on the practical value 

 of this mental habit in every-day life, nor point out 

 the excellent manner in which a scientific education 

 tends to develop it. 



In the fourth place, I would inculcate the habit of 

 wide Reading in scientific literature. Although the 

 progress of science is now too rapid for any man to 



