i.,o 



NA TURE 



[December 7, 1905 



the civilised world which are being wrought by their prac- 

 tical applications to the cheapening of paper, and to 

 improvements of the automatic printing-press, which, com- 

 bined with tin- linking together of all parts of the earth by 

 a network of telegraphic communications, put it in the 

 power of even the poor of the realm to read daily the news 

 ..I the world, and for a few shillings to provide themselves 

 with a library of classical works. Of scarcely less 

 educational influence upon the public mind are the new 

 methods of photography and mechanical reproduction, by 

 which pictures of current events and the portrait'- of those 

 who are making contemporary history, and also copies of 

 the world's masterpieces of painting and of sculpture, are 

 widely disseminated with the cheap newspapers and 

 magazines among the mass of the people. 



Golden will be the days when, through a reform of our 

 higher education, every man going up to the universities 

 will have been from his earliest years under the stimulating 

 power of a personal training in practical elementary science; 

 all his natural powers being brought to a state of high 

 efficiency, and his mind actively proving all things under 

 the vivifying influence of freedom of opinion. Throughout 

 life he will be on the best terms with nature, living a 

 longer and a fuller life under her protecting care, and 

 through the further disclosures of herself, rising sue. essively 

 to higher levels of being and of knowledge. 



The importance to every man of a practical acquaintance 

 with elementary science is obvious. Would it be thought 

 possible that any nation could act so absurdly as to teach 

 its children other languages, and leave thorn in complete 

 ignorance of the tongue of the land in which they would 

 have to pass their lives? Would it not then be incredible, 

 if it had not become a too familiar fact, that the public 

 schools have, until recently, excluded all teaching of the 

 science of nature from their scheme of studies, though 

 man's relation to nature is more intimate than to his 

 Fellow countryman? We live, move, and have our being 

 in nature ; we cannot emigrate from it, for we are part 

 of it. Vet our higher education leaves men. who in other 

 directions are well informed, much as deaf-mutes in the 

 presence of nature. They do not hear her most imperative 

 warnings, and can only get on haltingly in their everyday 

 intercourse with the natural forces to which their lives are 

 subjected, by means ol the arbitrary signs of empirical 

 1 ustom. The recent introduction of some amount of 

 science-teaching in our higher schools is quite inadequate, 

 alike in kind and in degree. It can be only through a 

 reform of the scheme of their examinations by the uni- 

 versities that we can hope to see science take the equal 

 part with the humanities in general education to which 

 she is entitled. 



Two faculties of the mind which it is of the highest 

 importance, especially in early youth, to enlarge and 

 develop by exeri ise are wonder and imagination. Under 

 the ordinary premature language-teaching of the grammar 

 schools, even the wonder and imagination natural to young 

 minds become so stunted in their growth as to remain 

 more or less dormant throughout life. On the other hand, 

 natural science brings them into full activity and greatly 

 stimulates their development. Nature's fairy tales, as re. id 

 through the microscope, the telescope, and the spectro- 

 scope, or spelt out to us from the blue by wave-, of ether, 

 are among the most powerful of the exciting causes of 

 wonder in its noblest form ; when free from terror it 

 becomes the minister of delight and of mental stimulation. 



And surely the master-creations of poetry, music, sculp- 

 ture, and painting, alike in mystery and grandeur cannot 

 surpass the natural epics and scenes of the heavens above 

 and of the earth beneath, in their power of firing the 

 imagination, which, indeed, has taken its most daring and 

 enduring flights under the earlier and simpler conditions 

 of human life when men lived in closer contact with nature 

 and in greater quiet, free from the deadening rush of 

 modern society. Of supreme value is the exercise of the 

 imagination, that lofty faculty of creating and weaving 

 imagery in the mind, and of giving subjective reality to 

 iis own creations, which is the source of the initial impulses 

 to human progress and development, of all inspiration in 

 1 lie art-, and of discovery in science. 



Further, elementary science, taught practically with the 

 aid of experiment during a boy's earh years, cannot fail 



no. 1884, VOL. y$] 



to develop the faculty of observation. However keen in 

 vision, the eyes see little without training in observation 

 liv tlte subtle exercise of the mind behind them. From the 

 humblest weed to the stars in their courses, all nature is 

 a great object-lesson for the acquirement of the power of 

 rapid and accurate noting of minute and quickly-changing 

 aspects. Such an early training in the simpler methods of 

 scientific observation confers upon a man for life the 

 possession of an inexhaustible source of interest and delight, 

 and no mean advantage in the keen competitions of the 

 intellectual activities of the present day. 



Training in the use of the eves develops, at the same 

 time, alertness of the intelligence, and suppleness of the 

 mind in dealing with new problems, which, in after life, 

 will be of great value in facing unforeseen difficulties of 

 all kinds, which are constantly arising. 



Science, practically taught, does more, for, under the 

 constant control of his inferential conclusions by the un- 

 bending fads of direct experiment, the pupil gradually 

 acquires the habit of reasoning correctly from the observ- 

 ations ho makes. In particular, he learns the most precious 

 lesson of great caution in forming his opinions, for he finds 

 how often reasoning, which appeared to him to be flawless, 

 was not really so, for it led him to wrong conclusions. 

 Further, from the constant study of nature, the student 

 conies so to look at things as almost unconsciously to 

 discriminate between those which are essential and those 

 which are only accidental, and so, gradually, to acquire 

 the faculty of classing the facts of experience, and of 

 putting them in their proper places in a consistent system 

 or theory. Are there any other studies, it may be asked, 

 by which, in the same time, a young mind could develop 

 an equally enlarged capacity for correct reasoning and 

 acquire so wide an outlook? Yet, notwithstanding the 

 immense intrinsic value of its teaching, science is but one 

 of the studies which are necessary for a wide and liberal 

 education. Intellectual culture, or, in other words, the 

 whole mind working at its best, requires, besides the train- 

 ing of all its powers harmoniously by the study of nature, 

 an acquaintance with many other kinds of knowledge, 

 especially of human history and the development of human 

 thought, and of the human arts. Humanistic studies and 

 experimental science are equally essential, and, indeed, 

 complement each other. Either alone leaves the mind 

 unequally developed, and its whole attitude one-sided, and 

 so produces a narrow type of mind, which is incapable of 

 taking a wide view even of its own side of thought, and 

 has but little sympathy with any subject outside it. 



Improved methods of teaching the classical languages, 

 which would permit of the beginning of the study of them 

 at a later age, would leave ample time for an early training 

 in experimental science, which must soon come to be 

 recognised as an essential part of all education. 



In future, no grammar or higher school should be con- 

 sidered as properly provided for unless furnished with the 

 necessary apparatus for teaching experimentally the funda- 

 mental principles of mechanics, physics, and biologv. The 

 pupils should have the use of a small astronomical telescope, 

 and of microscopes for biological work. Such apparatus 

 and instruments can now be purchased at a very small cost. 



Clearly, it is only by such a widening of the general 

 education common to all who go up to the universities, 

 before specialisation is allowed, that the present " gap 

 between scientific students careless of literary form, and 

 i lassieal students ignorant of scientific method " can be 

 filled up, and the young men who will in the future take 

 an active part in public affairs, as statesmen and leaders of 

 thought, can be suitably prepared to introduce and 

 encourage in the country that fuller knowdedge and appreci- 

 ation of science which are needed for the complete change 

 of the national attitude on all science questions, which is 

 absolutely necessary if we are to maintain our high position 

 and fulfil our destiny as a great nation. 



This address was followed by the award of the 

 medals. 



Copley Medal. 



The Copley medal is awarded to Prof. Dmitri Ivanovitch 

 Mendel^eff, For.Mem.R.S., for his contributions to chemical 

 and physical science. 



Pn if. Mendel^eff, born at Tobolsk, in Siberia, in 1834, 



