October 23, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



577 



men will be carried away to any extent 

 by a higher sense of duty toward remote 

 posterity. The ideal will be realized rather 

 through the due appreciation of a frag- 

 ment of ancient wisdom: "The father of 

 the righteous shall greatly rejoice; and he 

 that begetteth a wise child shall have joy 

 of him" — Hellenic sense from a Hebraic 

 source. 



Holding the view that many of the tend- 

 encies of the time may best be combated 

 by more general use of the methods of sci- 

 ence, and by less worship of material re- 

 sults, it is pertinent to inquire how to make 

 the scientific attitude of mind more prev- 

 alent. Here the immediate problem is not 

 one of eugenics. Even for the present gen- 

 eration and the one following it we hope 

 to do something through individual train- 

 ing. 



Our own time has witnessed the exten- 

 sive introduction of science teaching into 

 the schools and there are now no important 

 institutions of collegiate rank in this coun- 

 try where science is not at least on an 

 equality with the humanities. As a conse- 

 quence of this we should expect more satis- 

 factory results than have been obtained. 

 The fault is that in our science teaching 

 too much stress is laid upon the mere im- 

 parting of information, in response to the 

 demand that subjects must be presented 

 in an attractive and entertaining way, and 

 in disregard of the fact that the chief 

 value of science lies in its methods and 

 its spirit. "We do not make enough of 

 methods and thoroughness. School and 

 college science is much too desultory; there 

 is no practise in that power of sustained 

 thought that is so necessary to the draw- 

 ing of right conclusions. In the schools 

 there are possibly difficulties in the way 

 of concentration of studies, but it is by no 

 means so in the colleges, and such concen- 

 tration is at present hindered only by the 



time-worn notion that culture consists in 

 knowing a little about everything. Spe- 

 cialization has been forced upon us by an 

 unprecedented activity in all branches of 

 learning. Not to plan our curriculum in 

 accordance with this condition is futile. 

 If we want men who can direct their at- 

 tention to the solution of the large prob- 

 lems of life we must give our youths prac- 

 tise in concentration of thought — some 

 rigorous schooling in the methods of rea- 

 soning by which problems are solved. One 

 who has had such training, no matter in 

 what subject, will have no difficulty in 

 picking up any information he may need, 

 but the man who has scattered his efforts 

 will ever flounder hopelessly and will find 

 his appetite for sound learning dulled by 

 his persistent nibbling. 



This leads to the general question of the 

 value of discipline, a feature of training 

 sadly lacking in our American life. "We 

 indulge our children at home, we demand 

 no mark of respect from them, we give way 

 in deference to all their whims, and we are 

 pleased to see them entertained rather 

 than instructed and trained in our schools ; 

 and on top of all of this unwise and un- 

 fitting early training it is sought to re- 

 form the world by laws that require the 

 most self-denying conduct. Are we not 

 trying to "teach the old dogs new tricks" 

 — an impossibility known to the world 

 long before the study of animal behavior 

 became a science? Could not infinitely 

 more be accomplished by a rigorous early 

 training? Good habits acquired in early 

 life would surely obviate the ground for 

 much of that clamor for compulsion at a 

 period of life when compulsion comes hard. 



If our educational system and our fam- 

 ily training do not altogether measure up 

 to their opportunities in bringing more 

 of the scientific spirit into life, what shall 

 we say of the relations of our agents of 



