394 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 613. 



than in the later college years. He finds 

 fewer points of connection. His sciences 

 remain for him located between impassable 

 barriers. The college, therefore, at least 

 until a reform can be wrought in the sec- 

 ondary school, is forced to face the problem 

 within its own walls. 



Its solution calls for introductory courses 

 which will lead the student into the field of 

 science, which will show the problems of his 

 own experience in terms of this new field, 

 and show them there capable of solution. 

 There are two points of view from which 

 such courses could be naturally presented; 

 that of history, and that of a survey of the 

 world analogous to what is given in intro- 

 ductory courses in sociology or social insti- 

 tutions. 



The peculiar appropriateness of a course 

 in the history of science for the junior col- 

 lege students, lies in the fact that the special 

 character of modern science would grow out 

 of the conditions that made it natural and 

 necessary. There would be in it the in- 

 spiration of the personalities of the great 

 scientific men, and the romance of their 

 struggle with difficulties which beset their 

 sciences from within and without. The 

 conceptions of to-day would be found 

 motived in the struggles of yesterday. But 

 still more important the relations which 

 have subsisted between scientific investiga- 

 tion and the whole field of human endeavor 

 would appear — its relation to commerce, 

 industry, the geographical distribution of 

 men, their interconnection with each other, 

 and the other sides of their intellectual life. 

 Science would be interwoven with the whole 

 human world of which it is actually a part. 

 It is true that something of this is found in 

 general history. It is there, however, pre- 

 sented not to lead up to further study of 

 science, but to merely fill out the entire 

 picture— a picture which is so crowded 

 that many features are bound to be slighted, 

 and among those which are slighted, sci- 



ence, just because it is a subject somewhat 

 apart, is sure to be found. 



We have of course the evidence of the 

 import which such a course would have in 

 the biographies of our scientific men — such 

 as Darwin, Huxley, Pasteur, von Helm- 

 holtz. But few of our students in that 

 period read them, and taken by themselves 

 they do not have the educative power which 

 the story of their efforts would have when 

 presented in a course on the history of sci- 

 ence. It is not, however, principally the 

 personal note, which comes from the ac- 

 count of the men who have been the heroes 

 of science, that would be found in such 

 study. It is rather the form in which the 

 scientific problem arose and the methods 

 used for its solution which will carry the 

 most valuable instruction. One scientific 

 theory swallows up into itself what has pre- 

 ceded it, and the traces of the situation out 

 of which the later doctrine arose are washed 

 away. While our historical atlases present 

 us in flaring colors the political situations 

 out of which sprang present political con- 

 formations, the young student of science 

 must pick up, as best he may, without as- 

 sistance or interpretation, the explanation 

 and historical interpretation of the concep- 

 tions he is forced to use. If an adequate 

 comprehension of the powers of the Ameri- 

 can executive can not be gained without 

 a knowledge of the situation which pre- 

 ceded the formation of the constitution, no 

 more can the uninstructed student compre- 

 hend the value of such terms as forces, 

 energies, variations, atoms or molecules 

 without understanding what the problems 

 v/ere which brought forth these hypotheses 

 and scientific conceptions. 



And there is no study like that of history 

 to bring out the solidarity of human 

 thought. The interdependence of scientific 

 effort and achievement, and the interrela- 

 tionship which exists between all science in 

 presenting its world as a whole, can be 



