Apeil 1, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



487 



existing, how much simpler and more 

 direct should be the access to a similar cul- 

 tural development under the conditions of 

 our modem civilization. 



Our failure to discover the cultural value 

 of the educational material with which we 

 are now dealing has resulted from our in- 

 tense preoccupation with the lower orders 

 of phenomena and our consuming desire 

 to utilize them for the ends of material 

 prosperity. 



We must reestablish the ancient ideal, 

 which the best culture of all peoples has 

 shown to be the development of an appre- 

 ciation for the higher orders of triith, a 

 love for the study of causes behind phe- 

 nomena, and an abiding faith in the fact 

 that the larger happiness of life is to be 

 found in the things of the mind rather than 

 in material acquisitions. 



It is this ideal which must govern us as 

 teachers if we are to hope to in any degree 

 stem the tide of materialism and commer- 

 cialism with which our work is at present 

 dominated. We must realize that the work 

 of the classroom and the laboratory is sus- 

 ceptible to the vitalizing influence of the 

 cultural principle. To bring out from the 

 study of the lower orders of phenomena 

 with which he deals, an appreciation of 

 the underlying forces, the Weltgeist of 

 which the material things of life are but 

 the outer cloak, is the mark of the true 

 teacher as distinguished from the novice, 

 just as it is the same order of intellectual 

 development in the laboratory, the studio 

 or the shop that marks the difference be- 

 tween the master and the apprentice, the 

 artist and the artisan respectively. 



I believe that the principle which I have 

 thus attempted to portray is directly appli- 

 cable to the work of the dental curriculum, 

 as it is to all education. Dentistry in its 

 scientific aspect may be regarded as a 



special department of the great science of 

 biology combined with certain phases of 

 chemistry and physics. Its art is merely 

 the application of these sciences to the ends 

 of practise, but in their practical applica- 

 tion the cultural elements of honesty of 

 purpose, faithfulness to artistic ideals, a 

 love of the intrinsic beauty of nature's de- 

 signs and a veneration for nature's laws 

 are essentials for success. These higher cul- 

 tural attributes it should be the part of the 

 teacher to develop from the study of the 

 data which comprise the lower order of 

 phenomena of the dental curriculum. 



To all who sjonpathetically and intelli- 

 gently give ear to the voice of nature the- 

 pathway is clear, for, as Eobert Louis Ste- 

 venson has beautifully expressed it : 



The Greeks figured Pan, the god of nature, now 

 terribly stamping his foot, so that armies were- 

 dispersed; now by the woodside on a summer noon 

 trolling on his pipe until he charmed the hearts 

 of upland ploughmen. And the Greeks in so fig- 

 uring uttered the last word of human experience.. 

 To certain smoke-dried spirits, matter and motion 

 and elastic ethers and the hypothesis of this or 

 that spectacled professor tell a speaking story; 

 but for youth, and all ductile and congenial minds, 

 Pan is not dead, but of all the classic hierarchy 

 alone survives in triumph; goat-footed, with a 

 gleeful and an angry look, the type of this shaggy 

 world; and in every wood, if you go with a spirit 

 properly prepared, you will hear the note of his 

 pipe. 



Our mission then as teachers of a hu- 

 mane and useful profession is to penetrate 

 this "shaggy coat" of materialism, this 

 commonplace and unattractive covering of 

 the divine spirit behind it all, and to so edu- 

 cate those committed to our charge that 

 they shall, in God's providence, be able to 

 see something more than "the seamy side 

 of the divine vestment which the earth- 

 spirit is forever weaving on the whirling 

 loom of time. ' ' 



Edwaed C. Kjrk 



