July 28, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



99 



proclaim an essential need and suggest at least 

 one way of meeting it. 



At present there is no proper interplay be- 

 tween the so-called natural and social sciences; 

 and each of these gi-and divisions of human 

 knowledge, which belong so intimately together, 

 dealing as they do with man and his world, are 

 artificially separated by old boundary lines, 

 defended against invaders and smugglers by 

 jealous vested interests. This is an inevitable 

 outcome of transplanting into our educational 

 system the technical divisions of scientific re- 

 search. It seems to me that our various scien- 

 tific courses rarely produce either of the main 

 results to be expected from them. They 

 neither engender in the student a discriminating 

 and exacting tendency of mind — that combina- 

 tion of open-mindedness and caution which 

 should be the finest fruit of successful scien- 

 tific training; nor do they foster such a lively 

 understanding of the workings of nature that 

 the fascination of ever discovering new won- 

 ders will endure through life and mitigate sor- 

 row, boredom and disappointment. Of course, 

 judged by this standard, the failm-e of educa- 

 tion is no less conspicuous in the fields of 

 literature, history, language and philosophy. 



We need some new organized effort to bring 

 together in an imaginative and novel manner 

 the prevailing and sometimes conflicting knowl- 

 edge of the material world, its fundamental 

 nature as it is coming to be understood in the 

 light of the astonishing new theories of matter 

 itself; the general story of life, with some 

 attention to the great classes of living crea- 

 tures; the discoveries in regard to man's nature 

 and functioning and the history of his achieve- 

 ments and perplexities. 



To give a single instance of the way in which 

 this might be done I will explain that a good 

 many years ago I became bored with what 

 passes for history and began to consider those 

 things in the past that interested me. These 

 proved to be such evidences as we have of how 

 the beliefs we now accept about man and his 

 world grew up and developed. I found my- 

 self a trespasser roaming about in the pre- 

 serves of the philosopher, theologian, anthro- 

 pologist, comparative psychologist, prehistoric 

 archeologist and of the historians both of liter- 



ature and science — to mention only a few of 

 my divagations. Now this has proved very 

 amusing and instructive to me, and I have 

 found many hundreds of young men and 

 women to follow me in my wanderings. When 

 we got through we had discovered a new world, 

 and man's past and the possibilities of his 

 future were no longer what we had taken them 

 to be. What I have done others can do in 

 better and more ingenious ways; and the his- 

 tory of man's achievements and growing under- 

 standing of himself and his world could be 

 made a branch of study beginning early and 

 running through all the years of school and 

 college. For, as Francis Bacon said, the his- 

 tory of the world without the story of man's 

 education is like a figure of the mighty giant 

 Polyphemus with his single great eye left out. 



An Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence representing theoretical knowledge and 

 some of its multiform practical applications, 

 should not confine itself merely to forwarding 

 the progress of research ; coordinating, system- 

 atizing and applying the discoveries made. It 

 must assume the further responsibility, in the 

 juncture in which mankind now finds itself, of 

 cultivating and spreading an appreciation of 

 our best knowledge of man and his world 

 among those now indifferent or actively hostile 

 to it. We have every reason to dread unin- 

 telligence, but are as yet altogether too con- 

 siderate of the unintelligent; for we know that 

 they usually have the whip hand. How shall 

 we escape from this unworthy bondage? 



I am awai-e that the new organization at 

 Washington under the auspices of this asso- 

 ciation, Science Service, is already doing what 

 it can to spread the knowledge of new dis- 

 coveries and keep the public au courant of 

 scientific advance. I know that the admirably 

 edited periodicals, Science and The Scientific 

 Monthly, are performing the same service for 

 those sufficiently prepared to read them with 

 interest and understanding. But excellent as 

 is this beginning we must prepare to go much 

 farther by making scientific knowledge in the 

 broadest sense an integral part of education 

 from beginning to end. We must so identify 

 it with the experience of the child and the youth 

 that no longer will a deeper import lurk in 



