692 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1037 



never dug Greek roots nor pruned Latin 

 stems has missed much in both pleasure and 

 discipline. If a bit of personal experience be 

 permitted, the speaker testifies that the first 

 author to quicken the pyramidal cells of his 

 cortex was Virgil, and to-day when recreation 

 is sought the only book preferred to Virgil is 

 Dryden's translation of the same. 



While an educated man's linguistic ability 

 may be limited to English, inability to read 

 French and German handicaps him, delays ac- 

 quaintance with important discoveries in 

 various realms of knowledge, and limits his 

 mental vision. To scientific workers a read- 

 ing knowledge of French and German is quite 

 essential. There are splendid nuggets of sci- 

 ence and glittering gems of imagination en- 

 Cased in Italian, and sparkling jewels of 

 humor encrusted in Spanish, but these, with 

 many other languages, both ancient and mod- 

 erUj can hardly be placed in the list of edu- 

 cational essentials, however important they 

 may be to the special student or for direct 

 vocal intercourse. When philologists grow 

 away from the false idea that centuries are 

 necessary for the development of effective 

 language and when nations recognize that 

 there is no need of limiting verbal and written 

 intercourse by political boundaries, man will 

 use a world language, more perfect in struc- 

 ture, more forceful in expression and elegant 

 in diction, than any now used. This time, like 

 that of universal peace and good will, now 

 seems a long way in the future. 



Man needs figures as well as words. His 

 sense perceptions are registered in numbers. 

 They take various shapes. He perceives not 

 only plain surfaces, but extension in geo- 

 metrical forms. He needs figures in all his 

 mental concepts. Some of the lower animals 

 can count in small figures, while those of man 

 are unlimited. He must establish units of 

 measurement, linear, square and cubical. The 

 external objects which stimulate his sense or- 

 gans and photograph themselves on the sensi- 

 tive plates of his brain vary in number, shape 

 and size. Every educated man should know 

 mathematics through plane trigonometry. 



History is a record of the experiences of 



past generations and of these no man can af- 

 ford to be ignorant. The child comes into the 

 world without inherited knowledge and the 

 individual can not depend upon his own nar- 

 row and limited experiences. The brute has 

 this to direct and modify its behavior, and we 

 have enough of the brute disposition left in us 

 to make us slow to profit by the experiences 

 of others. This is a marked defect in youth. 

 The young man believes that he can take per- 

 sonal, economic and social risks in which 

 thousands of others have fallen, without in- 

 jury. He believes that he was born under a 

 propitious star, trusts his luck and goes to 

 ruin by the same path that others have trav- 

 eled and that more wUl continue to travel. If 

 this were true only of individuals, it would 

 not be so bad, but it is equally true of nations 

 or rather of those who control nations. Some 

 man, laboring under the delusion that he is a 

 chosen son of destiny, brings about some hor- 

 rible catastrophe which results in death, sor- 

 row and suffering to the present generation 

 and places chains of bondage on the unborn. 



I have defined education as the modifica- 

 tion of behavior by experience, and a large 

 part of this experience which is to determine 

 our behavior should be learned from history. 

 History in the wide sense in which I am now 

 using the word includes the record of all hu- 

 man experience. It is national, communal 

 and individual. 



Fuller says : 



History maketh a young man to be old without 

 either wrinkles or gray hair; privileging him with 

 the erperienee of age, without either the inflrmi- 

 ties or inconveniences thereof. Tea, it not only 

 maketh things past present, but enableth one to 

 maie a rational conjecture of things to come. 

 Tor this world affordeth no new accidents, but in. 

 the same sense when we call it a new moon, which 

 is the old one in another shape j and yet no other 

 than it hath been formerly. Old actions return 

 again furbished over with some new and different 

 circumstances. 



Failure to profit by the experiences of the 

 past leads to the most serious disasters that 

 befall our race. Study history. Study it in 

 college and out of college. Devote much of 

 your energy to it in youth, find time for it in 



