Marcu 17, 1923] 
During the middle two quarters of the nineteenth 
century, science went through what we might call 
its Renaissance period. In its philosophical aspects, 
it was a revolt in part against a widespread mis- 
interpretation of theology, and, in educational 
policy, it was a revolt against the dominance of what 
we regard as a perverted and senile form of the 
classical humanities. We do not object to the 
humanities, but to that devitalised residue of the 
humanities that is without humanism. 
I am not now going to discuss the relative merits of 
science and classics as educational media, but I 
want to bring home to you the danger of defeating 
the very end of science itself. Scientific men are 
also liable to succumb to that form of pedantry which 
in classics exchanged humanism for grammar and 
rhetoric, and that homologue of pedantry in most 
religions which tends to kill doctrine by ritual. Do 
not let us claim that science can give mental training 
as good, when really we mean as bad, as that afforded 
by classics. You may remember what Huxley said 
of Peter Bell, whose dead soul, according to Words- 
worth, saw nothing in Nature : 
“ & primrose by the river’s brim, 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more.” 
Huxley asked if Peter Bell’s apathy would have been 
roused one whit by the information that the primrose 
is a dicotyledonous exogen, with a monopetalous 
corolla and central placentation. This additional 
information would have added no more to the human- 
ising influence of the primrose on Peter Bell than 
any form of exegetical analysis of a Greek text in 
exchange for Greek philosophy and Greek art. 
Let us take an illustration from one of the depart- 
ments of this Institute—that of metallurgy. The 
syllabus of this subject refers to ‘‘ Bessemer and open- 
hearth plant and processes.’’ A fair summary of 
what I, as a junior student, had to learn under this 
head would be as follows: ‘‘ The original Bessemer 
‘process, as conducted in a ganister (silicious) lined 
converter, does not effect the elimination of phos- 
phorus from the pig-iron; but by using a basic 
(dolomitic) lined converter, Thomas and Gilchrist 
nd it possible to eliminate the deleterious element 
that affects the quality of the resultant steel, so 
it is now possible to use a phosphoric pig-iron for 
steel making.’’ Later, coming under the influence 
of a professor with a wider outlook of the world, I 
learnt that this so-called basic process changed the 
whole of our international relationships. It opened 
up the enormous phosphoric ores of Germany, 
Belgium, and America. It resulted, therefore, in a 
challenge to British supremacy in the steel business. 
Just think of what that meant to railway develop- 
ment, shipbuilding, machinery, and dozens of de- 
ndent industries! Obviously, realisation of this, 
me, quite unforeseen meaning in a purely technical 
fact opened up a new world of human interest. 
Who was Thomas and who was Gilchrist? Those 
were the first questions that occurred to one. 
Thomas, I found, was a magistrate’s clerk who 
attended evening science classes at the Birkbeck, a 
college having an object similar to that of the Sir 
John Cass Institute, and named for the same good 
reason after its founder. Gilchrist was his cousin, 
and he proved to be much more interesting to me, 
for he was an old School of Mines student and a 
Murchison medallist. 
Thomas and Gilchrist made, by their invention, 
a greater impression on the history of civilisation 
than any two Prime Ministers we have ever had, a 
greater influence than the sum-total of that exercised 
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by one devoted to optimistic militancy and his 
counter-irritant, the apostle of tranquillity. Thomas 
had what the great Mr. Gladstone described, in 
reviewing his memoirs, as “an enthusiasm of 
humanity.’’ I am ready to assert that a review on 
these lines of the way in which the basic process of 
steel-smelting has affected history, especially when 
so touched with the human relations of the two men 
to whom it is due, is all that is necessary for the 
student. He will soon satisfy his own curiosity 
about technical details; he will soon be studying 
the question himself in the library and the workshop. 
This stirring of that form of curiosity that Dr. 
Johnson called ‘‘ the thirst of the soul’ and “ the 
characteristics of a vigorous intellect’’ will give 
human, living interest to a student’s work. The 
teacher’s task is three parts done and faithfully 
fulfilled when he has inspired the student sufficiently 
to impel him to find out the rest for himself. Nothing 
appeals to a man like humanity. 
In a thoughtful paper read before the Congress of 
Empire Universities in 1921, Prof. Cecil Desch 
advocated the adoption of the historical method 
in science teaching. But history consists of innumer- 
able biographies. As Emerson said, “‘ There is pro- 
perly no history, only biography.”” History, divorced 
from biography, can be as dull and deadening as 
either Greek grammar or descriptive technology. 
The educational balance is not secured by requiring 
students to attend a formal course of classics or 
history as well as of science. That would be merely 
to double the offence. A physician does not apply 
a counter-irritant if he can get at the seat of the 
disease. It is not separate courses of history and 
science—a mechanical mixture—that are wanted, 
but the history of science itself, that is, a chemical 
compound. Giving two separate doses of two un- 
related subjects to act as mutual correctives is equiva- 
lent to giving a man a metallic sodium pill with a 
sniff of chlorine gas, when what he wants is merely 
a pinch of common salt. 
But for the power unwisely given to examiners 
to make or mar a student’s career, I would like to 
try the experiment of covering a syllabus of, say, 
metallurgy or chemistry by lectures on biography 
alone. I believe students could be trusted to fill 
in the historical frame-work on their own account, and 
to find out for themselves all that is required in the 
way of technical details. They shall succeed, of 
course, in varying degrees just as they do now; but 
whether they succeed partially or wholly, all shall be 
better men for having made an effort inspired by a 
natural and healthy curiosity; they shall have had 
the very training which lays a sure foundation for 
what the scientific man calls research; and what 
the scientific man calls a training for research is the 
very kind of training which qualifies a man to face 
the problems of after life, when every difficulty that 
the student has to face after he has left the institute 
shall have no apparent resemblance to any question 
previously treated, either in the lecture-room or the 
laboratory. Every problem that the student meets 
with afterwards shall be a piece of new research to 
him. 
Sir Richard Gregory, in his address to the British 
Association last year, defined education as the 
“deliberate adjustment of a growing human being 
to its environment; and the scope and character of 
the subjects of instruction should be determined by 
this biological principle.” I agree, and as the techni- 
cal student’s environment will be human beings, 
with little or no familiarity with his own pet technical 
terminology, he wants to go into the world with a 
full appreciation of the human aspects and importance 
of his special subject. 
