762 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 385. 



who are confident that these laboratories 

 are invaluable instruments should seize 

 occasions like this to give the reasons for 

 the faith that is in us, to the end that, if 

 we are right, our allies, our sister schools 

 here and abroad, may arm themselves with 

 this potent weapon; and that, if we are 

 wrong, we may discover our error through 

 thus uncovering our reasons. 



I ask your attention, then, to the use of 

 these laboratories, not for purposes of in- 

 vestigation, for which their value is un- 

 questioned, but for undergraduate instrac- 

 tion. 



The objections urged against metallurg- 

 ical laboratory instruction, so far as I un- 

 derstand them, are two : 



First, metallurgy, like every other pro- 

 fession, has its art, and also its science, 

 that is to say the systematic arrangement 

 of the principles on which it is based. It is 

 objected that professional education should 

 be rather in the science than in the art, 

 rather in the underlying and unchanging 

 principles upon which the art reposes, than 

 in the teeluiique of the art itself. Prin- 

 ciples, it is urged, are to be explained in 

 words and thoughts, rather than in labo- 

 ratory manipulations; they are to be im- 

 parted, then, by thought, by reasoning, by 

 lectures and text-books, rather than by 

 doing things with the fingers. The labo- 

 ratory, it is urged, is no place to teach prin- 

 ciples. 



Second, the actual conditions of metal- 

 lurgical practice on a commercial scale, that 

 is to say the conditions of the art as it will 

 have to be practiced, cannot be reproduced 

 in any laboratory. 



Let us examine these two objections. 



The contention that education should be 

 in principles rather than in the technique 

 of practice, in the science rather than in 

 the art, no educator worthy of the name 

 can question. But this granted, the ques- 

 tion remains how best to teach principles. 



To teach them effectively seems almost 

 necessarily to require sonie conception of 

 the things to which they relate; certainly, 

 such conceptions must very greatly facili- 

 tate teaching. If the subject is of such a 

 nature that sufficient conceptions concern- 

 ing it have been formed during the stu- 

 dent's prior life, then laboratory practice 

 is less important or even superfluous; if 

 not, if such conceptions are lacking or de- 

 fective, then laboratory practice may be a 

 most ready way of supplying or strength- 

 ening them. 



Of the conditions attending metallurgy 

 the student certainlj^ has acquired no suffi- 

 cient conceptions during his prior experi- 

 ence : his want here is more serious than in 

 case of chemistry and physics ; and because 

 it is more serious, because these conceptions 

 while hard to supply verbally, are readily 

 supplied by laboratory practice, the metal- 

 lurgical laboratory seems to me of the 

 greatest value as a preparation to the study 

 of the principles of this art. 



Let us test this reasoning, this assertion 

 that conceptions, if not a prerequisite, are 

 at least an invaluable aid to the study of 

 principles, of general laws. Surely, to 

 grasp the principles of legislation there 

 should be a conception of human nature ; to 

 understand the laws of music and painting 

 there must be a conception of sound and 

 color. Is not the same true then of chem- 

 istry and metallurgy, that in order to un- 

 derstand their laws the student should 

 have a conception of the conditions and of 

 the kinds of phenomena with which those 

 laAvs deal? 



The objection which at once arises is 

 that, in ease of mathematics no laboratory 

 work is needed; that in case even of music 

 and painting exercise in the art itself is 

 certainly not necessary to enjoyment of 

 its products, and probably not necessary to 

 a clear comprehension of its principles. 

 Why then in chemistry and metallurgy? 



