696 



SCIENCE 



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



I have emphasized the fact that effort is neces- 

 sary in order to open pathways to the cerebral 

 cortex and that educatio strenua is the only 

 genuine article. 



While I have made an earnest plea for a 

 broad, liberal, fundamental education in 

 order that we may be in intelligent touch 

 with the basic conditions that control and 

 modify human behavior, there is like physio- 

 logical reason for advising every student to 

 build on this broad foundation his specialty. 

 When you have reared your house with heavy 

 rocks for the foundation, massive walls, 

 bound together with steel beams, on this you 

 can carry up as high as you please the tower 

 which will afEord you an outlook. Take one 

 subject and know everything that is known 

 about it and if possible know more than any 

 one else. In other words, in addition to your 

 general knowledge be a specialist. To your 

 general knowledge add the skill of the expert. 

 The physiological reasons for this advice must 

 be evident to all who have followed my line 

 of argument. Neural pathways become 

 smoother the more frequent the travel over 

 them. I recommend expert development for 

 the following reasons: (1) Extension of the 

 domain of knowledge is secured. (2) The 

 pleasure known only to the discoverer comes 

 to him who does work of this kind. (3) It is 

 a rest and recreation to turn into the well- 

 worn paths along which thought moves auto- 

 matically. 



It is not essential that the special study, 

 which I recommend, should be in the line of 

 one's vocation. It may lie quite apart from 

 business or professional duties. 



The history of intellectual progress is quite 

 in accord with the teaching that a broad edu- 

 cational foundation with the addition of ex- 

 pert learning gives the best results. I will 

 mention a few illustrations of the educational 

 training of men who have advanced human 

 knowledge. William Herschell was a music 

 teacher and never saw a telescope until he was 

 thirty-five. His hobby was to grind lenses 

 and make perfect mirrors. With these he dis- 

 covered worlds, systems and universes. His 

 great reflectors caught up light which left its 



source two million years ago. Our solar sys- 

 tem became a mere speck in the range of his 

 vision. Burnham became an enthusiast in 

 the study of double stars, of which he discov- 

 ered a thousand while he was still a stenog- 

 rapher in a Chicago court. Hutton, physi- 

 cian, chemist and farmer, showed that the 

 earth's crust is a stone book, made up of pages, 

 chapters and volumes. William Smith, the 

 English surveyor, without college training, 

 demonstrated that the characters used in this 

 great stone book are the fossils. Cuvier, an 

 anatomist, was the first to read some of the 

 chapters in the history of the building of the 

 earth. Buckland, doctor of divinity, extended 

 the reading. Perraudin, the chamois hunter, 

 suggested glacial action in shaping the 

 earth's crust. The fox-hunter, Murchison, 

 with Sedgwick, named the volumes of the 

 stone book in order of their issue. Priestley, 

 the dissenting clergyman, discovered oxygen. 

 The Quaker physician, Thomas Young, the 

 real discoverer of the undulatory theory of 

 light, published many of his papers anony- 

 mously for fear that the rumor that he was a 

 scientific investigator would injure his prac- 

 tise. Furthermore, he devoted some of his 

 spare time to deciphering Egyptian hiero- 

 glyphics. Lavoiser, the father of chemistry, 

 went to the guillotine. The official while 

 signing his death warrant said : " The Repub- 

 lic has no need of savants." The honor of 

 discovering the mechanical equivalent of heat 

 and laying the foundation of the law of the 

 conservation of energy is divided between the 

 Manchester manufacturer. Joule, and the 

 German village doctor, Mayer. The self- 

 trained Quaker boy, John Dalton, became the 

 founder of the atomic theory. Jefferson was 

 the framer of the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence, president of the United States, founder 

 of the University of Virginia and student of 

 natural history. Franklin was printer, au- 

 thor, envoy from the young republic to 

 France, postmaster general and scientist. The 

 autocrat of the breakfast table was professor 

 of anatomy in Harvard Medical School and 

 his greatest contribution will not be found in 

 his novels or poems, but in his article on the 



