Apkil 3, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



523 



question with which we are not now con- 

 cerned. The connection of our science with 

 our education goes deeper ; for he who con- 

 tributes to our science contributes, ipso 

 facto, to our education. In this larger 

 sense the Carnegie Institution and all other 

 agencies of scientific research are educa- 

 tional institutions, and could not, if they 

 would, abstain from educational service. 

 In such an educational system as ours, no 

 spring of new knowledge can be opened of 

 which the streams wiU not find their way 

 down through the different grades of edu- 

 cation, as far as they may have proper use 

 and application. The great significance of 

 a fully coherent system of schools lies in 

 this fact, that it not only enables individual 

 pupils to rise according to their several 

 capacities, but that it also gives to every 

 scientific discovery free course among our 

 people, according to the degree of its use- 

 fulness and of its human interest. 



But in this free circulation of knowl- 

 edge we are not yet perfect. If the con- 

 nection were already free and open in 

 every direction, a large part of the work 

 of this section would be already done. We 

 have, in fact, only as yet brought part and 

 part of our educational system together, 

 established the first of their more intimate 

 connections, given first assurance that our 

 democratic dream is passing over into 

 reality. The task yet before us is greater 

 than that which has been finished, and to 

 those who plan most largely for the future, 

 that which we now see is only a faint prom- 

 ise of that which may be foreseen. 



It goes without sajdng that the mere 

 spread of scientific information, the popu- 

 lar science of a generation ago, is but the 

 smallest part of what the scientific alliance 

 will mean to education. Scientific method, 

 the scientific spirit, appreciation of scien- 

 tific achievement, the abiding expectation 

 that the processes of life and labor will be 



brought more and more under the guidance 

 of positive knowledge; these are some of 

 the things that education has gained and 

 is to gain in larger measure from this rela- 

 tionship. In every walk in life men are to 

 learn to observe more accurately, to pay 

 more respect to objective evidence, to care 

 more and more for truth, until they wel- 

 come it even against their dearest preju- 

 dice. The moral gain is greatest of all. 

 And that is reinforced by the closely knit 

 successive stages of developing thought and 

 method which science has to offer, luring 

 the learner on and on to larger reaches of 

 organized knowledge and up into full- 

 rounded and majestic sciences. 



I do not forget that education has other 

 alliances. Its relations with art in all its 

 forms of beauty and use, its relations with 

 philosophy, its relations with religion and 

 with democracy, are not to be ignored. But 

 all of these relations are to be tempered 

 and steadied by scientific knowledge; and 

 for this age, beyond any preceding age, the 

 union with science is of commanding and 

 immeasurable significance. 



There are three ways in which this sec- 

 tion, reinforced by the great organization 

 of which it forms a part, can render the 

 scientific alliance of increasing value to our 

 education. 



In the first place, it can provide for the 

 discussion and investigation of questions 

 relative to the teaching of the sciences. 

 The internal method of any science de- 

 pends upon the materials with which it 

 deals. That method is in most instances 

 well established before the use of the sci- 

 ence in instruction comes under serious 

 consideration. The method of instruction, 

 with which the educator is concerned, is 

 conditioned, on the one hand, by the method 

 of the finished science, and, on the other 

 hand, by the relative ignorance and imma^ 

 turity of the learner. To strike the right 



