no 



NATURE 



[Decemkek 1, il 



science. We are entering more and more upon the age of 

 specialists. It grows increasingly difficult for the specialists, 

 even in kindred sciences, to remain in touch with each other. 

 When you find yourselves fairly launched into the vortex of 

 life you will look back with infinite satisfaction to the time 

 when you were enabled to lay a broad and solid platform of 

 general acquirement within the walls of this College. 



Perhaps the most remarkable defect in the older or literary 

 methods of education was the neglect of the faculty of observ- 

 ation. For the training of the other mental faculties ample 

 provision was made, but for this, one of the most important of 

 the whole, no care was taken. If a boy was naturally ob- 

 servant, he was left to cultivate the use of his eyes as he best 

 might ; if he was not observant, nothing was done to improve 

 him in this respect, unless it were, here and there, by the in- 

 fluence of such an intelligent teacher as is described in Mrs. 

 Barbauld's famous story of " Eyes and No Eyes." Even when 

 science began to be introduced into our schools, it was still 

 taught in the old or literary fashion. Lectures and lessons were 

 given by masters who got up their information from books, but 

 had no practical knowledge of the subjects they taught. Class- 

 books were written by men equally destitute of a personal ac- 

 quaintance wiih any department of science. The lessons were 

 learnt by rote, and not infrequently afforded opportunities rather 

 for frolic than for instruction. Happily this state of things, 

 though not quite extinct, is rapidly passing away. Practical 

 instruction is everywhere coming into use, while the old-fashioned 

 cut-and-dry lesson-book is giving way to the laboratory, the 

 field-excursion, and the school-museum. 



It is mainly through the eyes that we gain our knowledge and 

 appreciation of the world in which we live. But we are not all 

 equally endowed with the gift of intelligent vision. On the con- 

 trary, in no respect, perhaps, do we differ more from each other 

 than in our powers of observation. Obviously, a man who has 

 a quick eye to note what passes around him must, in the ordinary 

 affairs of life, stand at a considerable advantage over another 

 man who moves unobservantly on his course. We cannot 

 create an observing faculty any more than we can create a 

 memory, but we may do much to develop both. This is a 

 feature in education of much more practical and national im- 

 portance than might be supposed. I suspect that it lies closer 

 than might be imagined to the success of our commercial 

 relations abroad. Our prevalent system of instruction has for 

 generations past done nothing to culti-.-ate the habit of observ- 

 ation, and has thus undoubtedly left us at a disadvantage in com- 

 parison with nations that have adopted methods of tuition 

 wherein the observing faculty is regularly trained. With our 

 world-wide commerce we have gone on supplying to foreign 

 countries the same inanufactured goods for which our fathers 

 found markets in all quarters of the globe. Our traders, how- 

 ever, now find themselves in competition with traders from other 

 nations who have been trained to better use of their powers of ob- 

 servation, and who, taking careful note of the gradually changing 

 tastes and requirements of the races which they visit, have been 

 quick to report these changes and to take means for meeting 

 them. Thus, in our own centres of trade, we find ourselves in 

 danger of being displaced by rivals with sharper eyes and greater 

 powers of adaptation. 



It is the special function of science to cultivate this faculty of 

 observation. Here in Mason College, from the very beginning 

 of your scientific studies you have been taught to use your eyes, 

 to watch the phenomena that appear and disappear around you, 

 to note the sequence and relation of these phenomena, and thus, 

 as it were, to enter beneath the surface into the very soul of 

 things. Vou cannot, however, have failed to remark among 

 your fellow-students great inequalities in their powers of ob- 

 servation, and great differences in the development of these 

 powers under the very same system of instruction. And you 

 may have noticed that, speaking generally, those class-mates 

 who have shown the best observing faculty have taken fore- 

 most places among their fellows. It is not a question of mere 

 brain power. A inan may possess a colossal intellect, while his 

 faculty of observation may be of the feeblest kind. One of the 

 greatest mathematicians of this century who, full of honours, 

 recently passed away from us, had so little cognisance of his sur- 

 roundings, that many ludicrous stories are told of his child-like 

 mistakes as to place and time. 



The continued development of the faculty of prompt and 

 accurate observation is a task on which you cannot bestow loo 

 much attention. Your education here must already have taught 



NO. 1 518, VOL. 59] 



you its value. In your future career the use you make of this 

 faculty may determine your success or your failure. Bmt not 

 only have your studies in this College trained your observing , 

 powers, they have at the same time greatly widened the ranga- J 

 of your mental vision by the variety of objects which you have I 

 been compelled to look ait and examine. The same methods ' 

 which have been so full of benefit to you here can be continued 

 by you in after life. And be assured that in maintaining them 

 in active use you will take effective means for securing success in 

 the careers you may choose to follow. 



But above and beyond the prospect of any material success 

 there is a higher motive which will doubtless impel you. Th^ 

 education of your observing faculty has been carried on durind 

 your introduction to new realms of knowledge. The whole 

 domain of nature has been spread out before you. You haye 

 been taught to observe thousands of objects and processes M 

 which, common though they may be, you had previously take^ 

 no note. Henceforth, wherever you may go, you cannot 

 wander with ignorant or uuiobservant eyes. Land and 

 and sky, bird and beast and flower now awaken in you a new 

 interest, for you have learned lessons from them that hav§ 

 profoundly impressed you, and you have discovered meanings 

 in them of which you had never dreamed. You have beea 

 permitted to pass within the veil of nature, and to perceive 

 some of the inner mechanism of this world. 



Thus, your training in science has not only taugkt you to use 

 your eyes, but to use them intelligently, and in such a way as to 

 see much more in the world around you than is visible to the 

 uninstructed man. This widened perception might be illus- 

 trated from any department of natural science. Let me take, 

 by way of example, the relation of the student of science 

 towards the features and charms of landscape. It may be said 

 that no training is needed to comprehend these beauties ; that 

 the man in the street, the holiday maker from town, is just as 

 competent as the man of science to appreciate them, and may 

 get quite as much pleasure out of them. We need not stop to 

 discuss the relative amounts of enjoyment which difi'erent orders 

 of spectators may derive from scenery ; but obviously the 

 student of science has one great advantage in this matter. Not 

 only can he enjoy to the full all the outward charms which 

 appeal to the ordinary eye, but he sees in the features of the 

 landscape new charms and interests which the ordinary un- 

 trained eye cannot see. Your accomplished Professor o) 

 Geology has taught you the sigriificance of the outer lineaments 

 of the land. While under his guidance- you have traced with 

 delight the varied features of the lovely landscapes of the 

 Midlands, your eyes have been trained to mark their con- 

 nection with each other, and their respective places in the 

 ordered symmetry of the whole scene. You perceive why there 

 is here a height and there a hollow ; you note what has given 

 the ridges and vales their dominant forms and directions ; 5'ou 

 detect the causes that have spread out a meadow in one place 

 and raised up a hill in another. 



Above and beyond all questions as to the connection and 

 origin of its several parts, the landscape appeals vividly to your 

 imagination. You know that it has not always worn the aspect 

 which it presents to-day. You have observed in these ridge> 

 proofs that the sea once covered their site. You have seen thi 

 remains of long extinct shells, fishes, and reptiles that have 

 been disinterred from the mud and silt left behind by thi 

 vanished waters. You have found evidence that not onct 

 only, but again and again, after vast lapses of time and many 

 successive revolutions, the land has sunk beneath the ocean and 

 has once more emerged. You have been shown traces of 

 underground commotion, and you can point to places where, 

 over central England, volcanoes were once active. You have 

 learnt that the various elements of the landscape have thus 

 been gradually put together during successive ages, and that the 

 slow processes, whereby the characteristic forms of the groum' 

 have been carved out, are still in progress under your eye. 



While, therefore, you are keenly alive to the present beauty 

 of the scene, it speaks to you, at every turn, of the past. Each 

 feature recalls some incident in the strange primeval history 

 that has been transacted here. The succession of contrast- 

 between what is now and what has been fills you with wonder 

 and delight. You feel as if a new sense had been given to you, 

 and that with its aid your appreciation of scenery has been 

 enlarged and deepened to a marvelloiis degree. 



And so too is it with your relation to all the other depart- 

 ments of nature. The movements of the clouds, the fall of 



