Maech 4, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



325 



sometliing which is justifiable only when 

 no better can possibly be had. Such slip- 

 shod and inaccurate ways are not only 

 wasteful of time and effort, but are actually 

 pernicious because they inculcate a wrong 

 habit and ideal of scientific work. I do 

 not mean at all, here or anywhere, that 

 young pupils should be made to study ad- 

 vanced scientific matters or to use teclmical 

 methods, but simply that the treatment of 

 their subjects according to their grades 

 should be strictly scientific in spirit as far 

 as it goes. Moreover, any attempt to avoid 

 this spirit is the more unfortunate because 

 needless, for as a matter of fact the great 

 majority of young people respect exactness, 

 and really like to be made to do things well. 

 They do not like the process at first, and 

 will avoid it if they can, but they like the 

 result, and if the process be persisted in 

 they come in time also to like that. 



In a word the first great need of our 

 science teaching is to make it scientific. 



The second of the four principal causes 

 of our inferior teaching is this, we take 

 more thought for our subject than ive do 

 of our students. In the graduate teaching 

 of a university this attitude is logical, but 

 in college and school it is wholly wrong. 

 I think we may express the matter thus, 

 that any teacher who is more interested in 

 his subject than in his students is fit only 

 for a university. It is, I am sure, some- 

 what more characteristic of scientific than 

 of other teachers that they tend to shut 

 themselves up in their subjects, and to 

 withdraw more than they ought from the 

 common interests, duties and even ameni- 

 ties of the communities in which they live. 

 For this, of course, the very attractiveness 

 of science is largely responsible, because to 

 those who have once passed the portals, 

 science offers an interest so vastly and pro- 

 foundly absorbing that all other matters 

 appear small by comparison; and we are 



apt to conclude that the nobility and benefi- 

 cence of such a mistress are sufficient justi- 

 fication for a complete immersion in her 

 service. We forget that science has no 

 existence apart from hiunanity, and no 

 meaning unless contributory, however indi- 

 rectly, to human welfare and happiness. 

 And it should be emphasized to every 

 young teacher that success in science teach- 

 ing, as in so many other occupations, is 

 well-nigh in direct propoi-tion to one's 

 ability to infiuence people. Our science 

 teaching would be better if our teachers 

 trusted less to the abounding merits of 

 their subjects, and more to the qualities 

 which personally influence young people — 

 the sympathetic qualities involving interest 

 in their pursuits, the diplomatic qualities 

 involving the utilization for good purposes 

 of the peculiarities of human nature, the 

 perfecting qualities involving the amenities 

 and even the graces of life. There is no 

 inconsistency between these things and the 

 preservation of the scientific quality of the 

 teaching. It is simply a question of the 

 presentation of science in a manner which 

 is humanistic. It is the gloving of the iron 

 hand of the scientific method by the soft 

 velvet of gentle human intercourse. Sci- 

 ence is the skeleton of knowledge, but it 

 need lose nothing of its strength and flexi- 

 bility if clothed by a living mantle of the 

 human graces. It is idealism with realism 

 which is demanded of the science teacher, 

 and if some one would rise to say that this 

 union is logically impossible I would an- 

 swer, that many a problem of this life 

 unsolvable by the subtleties of logic can be 

 settled by robust common sense. 



Of our over-neglect of the personal pe- 

 culiarities of our students I know several 

 illustrations, but have space only for one. 

 Young people appear to have in them 

 some measure of Nageli's innate perfecting 

 principle, which leads them upon the 



