16 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 288. 



ought to be elective with the"exception of 

 a moderate requirement in English, and 

 that as regards mental discipline and cul- 

 ture one thing is about as good as another, 

 if it is properly taught. 



To begin with the elementary Astronomy, 

 it seems to me that it should be taught in 

 the high schools and preparatory schools 

 as well as in the colleges. Preparatory work 

 in it ought to be accepted for admission to 

 college. By elementary Astronomy I mean 

 those common, every-day facts of the sci- 

 ence which can be learned by any intelli- 

 gent student without mathematical train- 

 ing ; for example, why the stars rise and 

 set, the motions of the planets and the moon 

 among the stars, the reason for the seasons, 

 the names of the principal constellations 

 and why they seem to change with the 

 seasons. These are things that are before 

 our eyes all the time, and every one who is 

 fairly well educated ought to know some- 

 thing about them. I would not say that 

 this Astronomy ought to be required for 

 entrance to college, or required in college, 

 but it certainly ought to stand on the same 

 plane with Botany, for instance, and Zool- 

 ogy- 



As a culture study in college I would 

 bring to your notice also the history of As- 

 tronomy. The study of this science no 

 doubt goes back to a time before we have 

 any historical records, and probably was 

 connected with religious worship and festi- 

 vals. The motions of the sun, moon and 

 planets were watched and studied. It was 

 seen very soon that the seasons and crops 

 and life on the earth depended on the sun's 

 position in the sky. Thus the sun was 

 worshipped as a god, giver of life and har- 

 vests. It may be that our Christmas is 

 the remnant of an old pagan festival when 

 rejoicing was had because now the sun 

 would turn and go north and winter would 

 leave the northern hemisphere, and vegeta- 

 tion and life would come back. 



Therefore, in the earliest times Astronomy 

 was studied a good deal by the priests. 

 They kept the calendar and the dates of 

 the religious festivals. They followed the 

 motions of the sun, moon and planets, and 

 knew that the planets sometimes advanced 

 and sometimes retrograded in the sky. 

 They had a considerable observational 

 knowledge of the heavens. It is said the 

 Chaldeans had a very exact calendar, better 

 than ours, and giving only an error of one 

 day in ten thousand years. They must 

 therefore have known the length of the 

 tropical year with great exactness. 



It would be natural, too, for the sailors 

 of the Mediterranean sea to have consider- 

 able practical knowledge of Astronomy. 

 Much commerce was carried on this sea. 

 The Phoenicians voyaged to Britain and 

 Spain and Carthage. The Greeks had 

 many distant settlements. The Romans 

 had large navies, and sailed over all the 

 Mediterranean and to Britain. 



But I think one of the most interesting 

 portions of the history of Astronomy would 

 be the philosopMcal study of the difffer- 

 ent theories of the universe. Pythago- 

 i-as is said to have taught the true sys- 

 tem of the world, that the earth moves 

 around the sun and at the same time turns 

 on its own axis. But probably this was 

 only one of the doctrines of the specula- 

 tive Greek philosophers and it was soon 

 abandoned. 



It is a curious fact that the system of 

 Ptolemy prevailed for fourteen centuries, 

 and that the new ideas of Copernicus, 

 Galileo and Kepler were so long in being 

 adopted. This may have been because the 

 natural vanity of the human race was ap- 

 pealed to by making the earth the center 

 of the universe. The Ptolemaic theory had 

 come to be supported also by the church, 

 by the old Greek philosophy, and by all the 

 weight of authority. The new theories of 

 Galileo were opposed, no doubt, to the 



