364 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 793 



But is he right in his action? Is the 

 ideal for which he is giving up money and 

 possible fame one which is worthy of the 

 sacrifice 1 Is there anything in science be- 

 yond its more obvious utilities? To put 

 the question in another way, has this new 

 laboratory and others like it throughout 

 the world any other legitimate function 

 than the training of technical experts and 

 the making of discoveries which may be 

 useful in a direct material way? I hope 

 you mil agree with me that it does have 

 other functions to perform and that they 

 are higher and more important than those 

 we have been discussing. 



As before, these activities are manifested 

 chiefly in two directions — ill the education 

 of youth and in the discovery of new 

 truth; in teaching and in research. Only 

 in this case, we mean by teaching not 

 simply the training of an expert for a par- 

 ticular task, the fashioning of a cog to be 

 slipped into its proper place in the indus- 

 trial machine, but the fostering and bring- 

 ing a little nearer to perfection of a human 

 mind and of all its powers, intellectual, 

 esthetic, moral. 



Can the study of the sciences do these 

 things for us or any of them, and can we 

 perhaps conclude that they are especially 

 well adapted to perform certain parts of 

 this task of general development of mind 

 and character? 



I must admit at once that, to the great 

 majority of students, the esthetic aspect of 

 science makes a very small appeal. In 

 fact it is supposed by many people to be 

 entirely lacking. Every one who has seri- 

 ously studied one of the physical or natu- 

 ral sciences, however, knows that it is 

 there, and that it is indeed one of the 

 greatest incentives and rewards for such 

 study. A great scientific theory with its 

 component parts accurately adjusted to 

 each other in due proportion and subordi- 



nation, with great complexity of detail 

 blended into the grandeur of perfect sim- 

 plicity; such a structure makes upon the 

 mind which is fitted to enjoy it an impres- 

 sion of beauty which is quite comparable 

 with that which is produced by a French 

 cathedral, a play of Shakespeare or a 

 symphony of Beethoven. But it must be 

 admitted that the ability to enjoy this 

 kind of art is rarer and perhaps requires a 

 longer apprenticeship than the apprecia- 

 tion of literature or music or painting. 

 We must, of course, take into account that 

 it is the fashion to pretend to like music 

 and pictures even if one does not really en- 

 joy them, while, on the other hand, there is, 

 fortunately, no temptation to feign a liking 

 for scientific pursuits. But when all such 

 allowances are made, I think there can be 

 little doubt that the number of people who 

 find esthetic stimulus in music, for ex- 

 ample, is much greater, and that the num- 

 ber who find it in literature is enormously 

 greater, than the number who can see the 

 beauty of science. 



When we turn to the consideration of 

 the more purely intellectual faculties we 

 shall not, I believe, find the sciences at a 

 disadvantage in comparison with other 

 subjecte used for the disciplinary training 

 of young men and women. In the opinion 

 of many people they possess indeed a cer- 

 tain superiority which especially fits them 

 to serve some of the most important ends 

 of education. Is there any justification 

 for such an opinion? I think we must 

 recognize, in the first place, that the ex- 

 perimental sciences possess a certain ad- 

 vantage in the relatively great simplicity 

 of their subject matter. They are compli- 

 cated enough— even physics, the simplest 

 of all is quite sufficiently intricate— to give 

 one all the work he wants in disentangling 

 their puzzles. But the puzzles are disen- 

 tangled and one definite and certain result 



