486 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 796 



conception is the universal power of which nature, 

 and life and thought are manifestations. For 

 discipline as well as for guidance, science is of 

 chiefest value. In all its eflfects, learning the 

 meaning of things is better than learning the 

 meanings of words. Whether for intellectual, 

 moral, or religious training, the study of sur- 

 rounding phenomena is immensely superior to the 

 study of grammars and lexicons. 



In the passages which I have just 

 quoted it seems to me we may find the 

 vitalizing thought which honestly and in- 

 telligently applied to our educational work 

 should ultimately lift it out of the slough 

 of unrelieved materialism in which it is 

 at present struggling, and help us to re- 

 form it upon lines which shall restore to 

 all education the power to direct the mind 

 toward the contemplation of higher things 

 and thus to elevate the standards of reason- 

 able human living and of human happi- 

 ness. 



Herbert Spencer, an accepted exponent 

 of scientific thought, tells us that we must 

 seek the higher truths through the lower 

 orders of phenomena, which is simply the 

 unadorned statement of an evolutional law, 

 but a law which is the basis of all develop- 

 ment of the mind, of all intellectual prog- 

 ress. Ages before anything worthy the 

 name of science was conceived of, the mind 

 of man in its earliest gropings took its first 

 wavering steps toward the infinite through 

 the labyrinth of common things about him, 

 and out of his material experiences he be- 

 gan to weave the fabric of an intellectual 

 vestment which was later destined to 

 clothe his conception of his gods and his 

 holy ones, and thus make it possible for 

 him to worship the infinitely good, the true 

 and the beautiful. And so it has been in 

 all ages, for while we recognize the fact 

 that each age refines and improves upon 

 the experiences of its predeces.sors, yet the 

 individual in his mental and cultural 

 growth repeats the old journey, more easily 



perhaps, but nevertheless he must gain 

 his goal by experiences concerned with the 

 lower orders of truth before he can reach 

 the higher. The poets, philosophers and 

 artists of all times have reflected the same 

 thought. If I catch his meaning aright it 

 is a portrayal of this fundamental prin- 

 ciple which we find set forth by Robert 

 Browning, in that confession of his faith 

 entitled "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," 

 where he breaks forth in that magnificent 

 declaration of the apotheosis of the love 

 element in life— 



Love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it, 

 Has ever been the sole good of life in it, 

 The love ever growing there spite of the strife in it. 

 Shall arise, made perfect, from Death's repose of it; 



And I shall behold thee face to face, 



O God, and in thy light retrace 

 How in all I loved there, still wast Thou. 



It was the reaching out for these higher 

 conceptions that characterized the best cul- 

 ture of the ancient Greeks, and conversely 

 it is our tendency to subordinate these 

 higher attributes of the mind in relative 

 importance as compared with materialism 

 and utilitarianism that is the defective fea- 

 ture of our modem systems of education. 

 In our eiiforts to adapt education to the ends 

 of material progress we have lost sight of 

 the possibility, nay more, we have neglected 

 the duty, of seeking for the higher orders 

 of truth through the lower orders of 

 phenomena with which we deal in our edu- 

 cational work. We have concentrated our 

 attention too much upon the media of edu- 

 cation and have in so doing neglected the 

 most important ends of education, the cul- 

 tivation of those higher attributes of char- 

 acter that satisfy the demand for happi- 

 ness, that make life a joy well worth the 

 living. 



If such character development as pro- 

 duced the best culture of the Greeks were 

 possible under the conditions of human 

 knoAvledge and material development then 



