282 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 295. 



The advent of science, as thus defined, 

 into schemes of college and university edu- 

 cation, was unpromising. It was like one 

 born out of due season, for whom there is 

 no place or preparation. The courses of 

 study were already filled with subjects, all 

 of which naturally seemed to be far more 

 important than the interloper, who had to 

 be content for a time with the crumbs which 

 fell from the already crowded table. Scraps 

 of time and information rather than train- 

 ing was not a happy combination to de- 

 velop an educational result from any sub- 

 ject, and least of all from science. The 

 general attitude at first towards the labor- 

 atory method is well illustrated by the ex- 

 perience of Eafinesque, the first teacher west 

 of the AUeghanies who attempted to intro- 

 duce it. From 1823 to 1826 he was profes- 

 sor of modern languages and the natural 

 sciences in Transylvania University, in Lex- 

 ington, Kentucky. In his botanical in- 

 struction he ventured to bring plants into 

 the recitation room, which was objected to 

 by the Faculty as ' tending to produce dis- 

 order among the students, and to convert a 

 serious recitation into the mere examination 

 of curiosities, thus wasting valuable time.' 



After science had secured a definite place 

 in the colleges and was making its first 

 feeble attempts at laboratory work, it was 

 confronted by an obstacle more serious than 

 scraps of time, an obstacle which still exists 

 in certain quarters, either in fact or in 

 spirit. Instead of being admitted to equal 

 rights in a republic of subjects, it was de- 

 graded by the organization of so-called scien- 

 tific courses, which were confessedly inferior 

 to the others ; and as if to insure a weak 

 result the scientific course was often made 

 shorter than the others. In my own col- 

 lege, but a type of the great majority of 

 colleges in those days, a student who was 

 not strong enough to graduate in four years 

 in the classical course could graduate in 

 three years in the scientific course. ]S"o 



self-respecting student could afford to be a 

 ' scientific ' under such conditions, so that 

 only the weaklings, with three- fourths of 

 the legitimate time at their command, be- 

 came the exponents of the advantages of 

 scientific training ! All those who are mid- 

 dle-aged can testify to a similar college ex- 

 perience, and the result was a deep-seated 

 distrust of the value of science in education, 

 an honest contempt for its results, which 

 distrust and contempt have been handed 

 down to the children now in college, so far 

 as they are being influenced by parental 

 advice. This result is natural, and I have 

 no word of blame for those who possess the 

 feeling, but the conditions which developed 

 it were simply inexcusable. 



In spite of the unfortunate conditions 

 which accompanied the advent and much 

 of the history of science in education, it 

 has now become firmly established, has a 

 reasonable rank and allotment of time, and 

 is in a position to show what it has done 

 and what it can do for education. Time 

 enough has not yet elapsed, and absolute 

 equality has not yet been sufiiciently at- 

 tained to permit the fullest expression of 

 legitimate results, but in some degree and 

 at some universities the results are begin- 

 ning to be apparent. It is hard for one to 

 appreciate ' the mighty power of what has 

 been over the frail form of what might be,' 

 so that sentiment as yet unconsciously in- 

 fluences the judgment even of the fair- 

 minded. But certain results of the presence 

 of science in education seem to be evident 

 enough, and a few of these I propose to 

 present in the form of definite propositions. 



1. Science has revolutionized educational 

 methods. — This proposition needs no special 

 defence, as it seems to be well nigh uni- 

 versally admitted. In fact, it is the pride 

 of almost every subject to-day that it is 

 taught by the laboratory method. This 

 simply means that the old recitation, which 

 was the retailing of second-hand informa- 



