October 8, 1908] 



NA TURE 



585 



want. If it were not that Nature has endowed school- 

 boys with a healthy power of resistance, their memories 

 might have come to resemble the houses of those who 

 believe that whenever they throw a thing away they are 

 sure to want it again — houses in which room after room 

 is so packed with antiquated lumber as to be uninhabit- 

 able. 



The Renaissance called up men who made a vigorous 

 protest against unused learning. Rabelais put into 

 grotesque Latin his opinion that the most learned scholars 

 may be far from the wisest of men.' Montaigne said over 

 again in pointed phrases what common-sense people had 

 been saying for ages, that he who knows most is not 

 always he who knows best ; that undigested food does not 

 nourish ; that memory-knowledge is not properly know- 

 ledge at all.- Erasmus wondered at the practical ignor- 

 ance of the scholars of his own days — " Incredibile quam 

 nihil intelligat litteratorum vulgus." Locke refused the 

 naiiie of knowledge to book-learning ; real knowledge, 

 he held, was mental vision. In the educated man he 

 valued virtue, wisdom, and breeding (manners), ranking 

 the.n in this order ; learning came last of all.^ 



Happily for us, a great deal that we once knew and 

 might foolishlv wish to keep quickly fades from the 

 memory. I picture to myself a stream gliding past, and 

 bearing along a miscellany of facts any of which may 

 possibly be useful at some future time. Now and then we 

 stretch out a hand and grasp something which takes our 

 fancy. In nine cases out of ten we drop it immediately. 

 Only a small fraction of the knowledge which enters the 

 mind of an inquisitive person is kept for so long as a 

 month. 



What we remember so greatly exceeds what we can 

 use that we need not deeply regret the loss that is always 

 going on. When people explain to us how much valuable 

 substance is wasted by want of care in selecting and pre- 

 paring our food, I reflect that all of us consume twice or 

 thrice as much food as we can do any good with, and 

 then I am consoled. It is not nearlv so necessary to know 

 more things as to know them better, to know what to do 

 with them. 



No doubt we often find it necessary to_ recall a multi- 

 tude of small facts, in order, it may be, to elicit a general 

 conclusion or to produce a telling argument. But is it 

 wise to prepare years in advance by storing all the facts 

 in the memory? I cannot think so. The studv of the 

 bodies of animals teaches us that muscle and nerve, w-hich 

 are easily fatigued and require an abundant blood-supply, 

 are never employed in Nature where bone or tendon will 

 serve. E.xercise of the memory involves nervous strain, 

 and after an early age a considerable nervous strain. It 

 is more economical and more business-like to emplov 

 mechanical contrivances rather than brain-tissue for such 

 purposes, to leave the vast mass of useful facts in 

 grammars, dictionaries, and text-books, and to collect those 

 for which we have a present use in the notebook or the 

 card-index. There is another appliance which the serious 

 student finds almost as useful as the notebook or the card- 

 index — I mean the waste-paper basket. 



The history of learning warns us that it is not good to 

 lay up in our memories a great store of knowledge the 

 use of which lies far in the future. Apply to knowledge 

 what moralists tell us about money. It is only the money 

 that you may expect to put to use within a reasonable 

 time that does you any good, and the same holds true of 

 knowledge. Unused knowledge, like unused money, be- 

 comes corrupt. Uncritical, ill-mastered knowledge is at 

 its^ best a knowledge of useful things, which, as Hazlitt 

 points out,* is not to be confounded with useful know- 

 ledge. 



If I felt it necessary to show that all book-learning is 

 not futile, I might "dwell upon the great subjects of 

 languages and history. But you will gladlv allow me to 

 pass or^ to branches of useful knowledge with which I 

 ■Am more familiar. 



* ' Maeis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes " C' Frcre 

 Jean des Entommeures in Gargantua," i. 39). 



2 " Essais," i. xxv. 



■' Knbelais, Montaigne, and Locke have been collated by Quick in his 

 fdi ion of the " Thoughts concerning Education." 



■* " Round Table," Classical Education. 



Science. 



It is the function of science to produce verifiable know- 

 ledge. Science achieved her earliest successes by investi- 

 gating the simplest properties of tangible things — number, 

 form, uniform motion. Here she learned how to combine 

 the knowledge of many concrete facts into general state, 

 ments, which (to the confusion of thought) we call scientific 

 laws. Science applies her general statements to new cases, 

 using facts to make general statements, and general state- 

 ments to discover or verify facts, so that a considerable 

 part of scientific knowledge is in perpetual use. Science 

 is no longer content witli the study of simple properties 

 and tangible things. She will consider facts of every kind 

 as soon as she can find the time. There is no hope of 

 withdrawing from scientific treatment any kind of experi- 

 ence which the human senses or the operations of the 

 human mind furnish; to be safe from the inroads of science 

 you must betake yourself to some study which does not 

 meddle with facts. 



Generalisation involves incessant reference of effects to 

 their causes. Facts can only be ill-classified and super- 

 ficially generalised so long as the causes of the facts 

 remain uninvestigated. Science of any good kind sets up, 

 therefore, the habit of methodical inquiry and the habit 

 of reasoning — productive reasoning, wo might call it, to 

 distinguish it from the reasoning of the schools. The 

 best examples of productive reasoning are to be found in 

 the investigations of science, and especially of those experi- 

 mental sciences which deal with simple tangible objects 

 the properties of which can be studied one at a time. 



The virtues of science are exactness, impartiality, 

 candour. Scientific impartiality means the determination 

 to accept no authority as binding except the assent of all 

 competent persons. Scientific candour means perpetual 

 readiness to revise opinions which are held in respect. 

 Loyalty, except of one kind, loyalty to herself, science has 

 no use for and does not cultivate. 



I think it is true, but you can judge as well as I, that 

 during the last four centuries there has been no generator 

 of useful knowledge at all comparable with science. 



Spencer's Estimate of the Place of Science in Education. 

 Herbert Spencer has raised the question : What know- 

 ledge is of most worth? He considers knowledge in its 

 bearing on life and health, on the gaining of a livelihood, 

 on citizenship, on artistic production and enjoyment ; lastly, 

 as a means of discipline. The answer which he gives 

 under each head is " Science"; that is his verdict on all 

 the counts. A decision so clear, which is, moreover, 

 powerfully and even eloquently supported, cannot fail to 

 be impressive. It is naturally welcome to those who are 

 devoted to the cause of science, and we can all see that, 

 if accepted, it will simplify many troublesome questions. 

 Will it not guide us in choosing a school staff, in draw- 

 ing up a curriculum, in fixing the future occupations of 

 our children? 



But we must first scrutinise the verdict itself. Let us 

 begin by putting a preliminary question so as to remove 

 all risk of ambiguity. Who or what is to possess the 

 knowledge the worth of which is to be estimated? Spencer 

 seems to contend that for everybody and in all possible 

 circumstances science is that knowledge which is most 

 valuable, but this is a conclusion hard to receive. There 

 are persons who are intellectually unfit to acquire the 

 scientific habit of mind, or who follow an occupation in- 

 compatible with any but a light and recreative study of 

 science. Suppose that a youth is wholly uninterested in 

 science ; or that after fair trial he shows no capacity for 

 it; or that he is eager to become a poet; or that he will 

 inherit a lucrative business in which science plays no part ; 

 would not these propensities and circumstances modify our 

 choice? I cannot believe that Spencer was so unpractical 

 as to deny them any w^eight at all. Is it possible that he 

 was thinking of mankind, of the British nation, or of 

 some other large collection of men ; that it is to the nation 

 or the race that science will prove itself of most worth? 

 If this is the right interpretation, we have some ground 

 for blaming Spencer's neglect to mention so important a 

 qualification. Those who admit that the nation requires 

 scientific knowledge beyond Ivnowlcdgo of any other kind 



NO. 2032, VOL. 78] 



