478 
a great thing to make two blades of grass 
grow where before one alone grew ; but itis 
no less great a thing to help a man to come 
to a just conclusion on the questions with 
which he has to deal. We may claim for 
science that while she is doing the one she 
may be so used as to do the other also. 
The dictum just quoted, that science is 
organized common sense, may be read as 
meaning that the common problems of life 
which common people have to solve are to 
be solved by the same methods by which 
the man of science solves his special prob- 
lems. It follows that the training which 
does so much for him may be looked to as 
promising to do much for them. Such aid 
can come from science on two conditions 
only. In the first place, this her influence 
must be acknowledged; she must be duly 
recognized as a teacher no less than as a 
hewer of wood and a drawer of water. 
And the pursuit of science must be followed 
not by the professional few only, but, at 
least in such measure as will ensure the in- 
fluence of example, by the many. But this 
latter point I need not urge before this 
great Association, whose chief object during 
more than half a century has been to bring 
within the fold of science all who would 
answer to the call. In the second place, it 
must be understood that the training to be 
looked for from science is the outcome not 
of the accumulation of scientific knowledge, 
but of the practice of scientific inquiry. 
Man may have at his fingers’ ends all the 
accomplished results and all the current 
opinions of any one or of all the branches 
of science, and yet remain wholly unscien- 
tific in mind; but no one can have carried 
out even the humblest research without the 
spirit of science in some measure resting 
upon him. And that spirit may in part be 
caught even without entering upon an 
actual investigation in search of a new 
truth. The learner may be led to old 
truths, even the oldest, in more ways than 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8. Von. X. No. 249. 
one. He may be brought abruptly to a 
truth in its finished form, coming straight 
to it like a thief climbing over the wall ; 
and the hurry and press of modern life 
tempt many to adopt this quicker way. 
Or he may be more slowly guided along the 
path by which the truth was reached by 
him who first laid hold of it. It is by this 
latter way of learning the truth, and by 
this alone, that the learner may hope to 
catch something at least of the spirit of the 
scientific inquirer. 
This is not the place, nor have I the wish, 
to plunge into. the turmoil of controversy ; 
but, if there be any truth in what I have 
been urging, then they are wrong who think 
that in the schooling of the young, science 
can be used with profit only to train those 
for whom science will be the means of 
earning their bread. It may be that from 
the point of view of pedagogic art the ex- 
perience of generations has fashioned out 
of the older studies of literature an in- 
strument of discipline of unusual power, 
and that the teaching of science is as yet 
but a rough tool in unpracticed hands. 
That, however, is not an adequate reason 
why scope should not be given for science 
to show the value which we claim for 
it as an intellectual training fitted for all 
sorts and conditions of men. Nor need the 
studies of humanity and literature fear her 
presence in the schools, for if her friends 
maintain that the teaching is one-sided, and 
therefore misleading, which deals with the 
doings of man only, and is silent about the 
works of Nature, in the sight of which he 
and his doings shrink almost to nothing, 
she herself would be the first to admit that 
that teaching is equally wrong which deals 
only with the works of Nature and says 
nothing about the doings of man, who is, 
to us at least, Nature’s center. 
There is yet another general aspect of 
science on which I would crave leave to say 
