July 6, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



19 



cussing them properly or attempting to de- 

 rive the best results. For educational pur- 

 poses I think too great emphasis cannot be 

 given to the distinction between the two 

 kinds of work I have referred to. That 

 which is planned and carried out in a 

 scientific way alone has value. No matter 

 what skill one may have in observing or 

 making photographs, if he cannot discuss 

 his observations or photographs he stands 

 very much in the relation of a skillful stone- 

 cutter to the architect of a building. Very 

 many good photographers can be found in 

 the galleries of our cities, men of great ex- 

 perience and skill, but most of them have 

 no scientific standing and deserve none, 

 though with a little additional experience 

 they could make good astronomical photo- 

 graphs. It is true, also, that many theo- 

 retical problems can be solved without hav- 

 ing much idea of the theory involved. 

 Orbits are computed by men who do not 

 know very well the meaning of the formulas 

 which they are using. Questions in per- 

 turbations are worked out in the same way. 

 Often good and useful results are thus ob- 

 tained. But this technical skill in using 

 instruments or handling formulas, though 

 necessary, is not a faculty of the highest 

 order. At the same time, however, it ought 

 to be remembered that it is something very 

 useful, and cannot be obtained to a high 

 degree without years of experience. 



In practical astronomy I should say that 

 our model ought to be Bessel, that he com- 

 bined in just the right proportion theoret- 

 ical knowledge with skill in handling in- 

 struments and ability to obtain from an 

 instrument the best results. Especially in 

 relation to college instruction do I think it 

 worth while to call attention to Bessel's 

 papers. 



It is true that men of ability will get on 

 without teachers, and that teachers cannot 

 furnish brains. But it is also true that a 

 good teacher can be of very great help even 



to men of genius. We all have known 

 such, uneducated or self-educated, who 

 would have been helped very much, and 

 been kept from bad blunders if they could 

 have had some training. Encke, Argelander, 

 Gould, "Winnecke, Schonfeld, Briinnow, 

 Watson, all studied with experienced as- 

 tronomers, who are known by their students 

 as well as by their scientific labors. Most 

 of the men just mentioned were teachers, 

 also, and probably left their impress upon 

 the science to as great an extent through 

 their teaching as through their scientific in- 

 vestigations. 



It is worth while to take a book like Wat- 

 son's ' Theoretical Astronomy, 'j and look 

 over some of the articles, such as the theory 

 of the computation of an elliptic orbit, and 

 the theory of special perturbations, and then 

 examine the treatment given by the differ- 

 ent teachers, and see how these theories) 

 after leaving the hands of Gauss, the great 

 master, were modified somewhat by Encke, 

 who was a student with Gauss, and finally 

 by Briinnow and Watson, Brunnow having 

 studied with Encke, and Watson with 

 Briinnow. There is no doubt that Tisserand. 

 did a great service to Astronomy by pub- 

 lishing his 'jMecanique Celeste,' putting in 

 a clear and elegant form the principal facts 

 of Mathematical Astronomy, though it is 

 hardly to be ranked with the making of 

 important advances in the science itself. 



I think that the standard of scholarship 

 in this country is steadily becoming higher, 

 and that we are having better opportuni- 

 ties for instruction in Astronomy as well as 

 in the other sciences. For however much it 

 may hurt our national vanity, the criticisms 

 of such men as Henry James on our civili- 

 zation are sound. We are a new country. 

 Our first business has been to clear it up 

 and make roads. We are a nation of busi- 

 ness men, trades people. Commercial ideas 

 control, to some extent, our college educa- 

 tion, and we lack much that in older coun- 



