748 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1091 



history of science — ^namely the development of 

 the scientific concepts or ideas (see Ostwald's 

 " Ifaturphilosophie ") and the methods evolv- 

 ing such. 



Up to the present time the range and domain 

 of science includes aU that is of nature, and 

 from her the four great interrelating prin- 

 ciples have been evolved. Manifestly, they are 

 well known, but for contemporary testimony 

 they will be restated. Dr. W J McGee^ has 

 termed them " the four cardinal principles of 

 science — namely, the indestructibility of mat- 

 ter, the persistence of motion, the development 

 of species, and the uniformity of nature." 

 The philosophy of each of these accepted doc- 

 trines is the history of science. 



It is interesting at this point to note the 

 following ideas from a powerful article by 

 Dr. J. F. Woodhull:^ 



Culture courses, or information courses, are 

 often spoken of scornfully as a smattering of all 

 the 'ologies. 



Science culture differs in its methods from the 

 old classical culture, but it has the same spirit and 

 same object. 



The weakest thing about our research to-day is 

 that our men are not widely informed. 



Davy, Faraday, Tyndall, Pasteur, Humboldt, 

 Huxley, Maxwell, Agassiz, Cooke, Shaler, New- 

 comb, all preached the doctrine that science is 

 good for culture and should be given to aU. 



Value scientific courses — not simply because 

 they cultivate the perception and reasoning facul- 

 ties, but because they fill the mind with lofty 

 ideals, elevated conceptions and noble thoughts; 

 indeed there is no better school in which to train 

 the esthetic faculties of the mind — taste and imagi- 

 nation — than the study of natural science. 



The history of science tells of a multitude who 

 have worked in faith for the love of knowledge, 

 and made themselves and their fellows more noble 

 men. 



The history of science is referred to here as 

 including all the divisions of pure science, not 

 emphasizing one over another, nor one apart 

 from another (as, for instance, physical and 

 biological). ITo matter what particular spe- 



6 Washington Academy of Science Froceedings, 

 Vol. XL, pp. 1-12, 1900. 



' ' ' Science for Culture, ' ' School Review, Vol. 

 15, p. 123, February, 1907. 



cialty he chooses, the whole field of science is 

 to the student of science vital and important. 

 In this manner its history wiU comprehend 

 what relations exist between the development 

 of the various subjects in various periods, the 

 correlation of these divisions and their ad- 

 vances, the problems of science, and lastly, the 

 evolution of the sciences, all will be to him an 

 intellectual pleasure and a noteworthy part of 

 his training and education. 



The problem this paper is attempting to con- 

 sider is twofold: First, to show somewhat the 

 historical development of these courses in the 

 history of science; second, to argue that al- 

 though a course in the history of a specific 

 subject may be desirable, it does not possess 

 the value and merit in education that a strong 

 and well-developed general history of science 

 has. It will be also shown that such a course 

 is the most economical in regard to time, serv- 

 ice to the university authorities, and service to 

 the student. Various single courses can be 

 combined and correlated, to make one course 

 (general) for 3 or 4 hours throughout the year. 



In America the early history of the develop- 

 ment of the science instruction in our higher 

 schools is one certainly important, and pos- 

 sessing interesting characteristics; and the 

 history of the couj^ses upon the history of sci- 

 ence — general and specific — has had almost a 

 parallel treatment. 



The early development of this movement can 

 be traced from the crude materialism of the 

 older physicists in Em-ope, to about 1880. In 

 the following few years the period of over- 

 specialization was coming to a climax, and 

 with this, an tmdercurrent of idealistic and 

 critical tendencies in scientific thoughts was 

 being manifested. Probably the first conscious 

 indication of interest in the history of science 

 dates back to 1883, when " Die Mechanik in 

 ihrer Entwiekelung, historisch-kritisch dar- 

 gestellt," by Dr. Ernst Mach, first made its 

 appearance, followed by Karl Pearson's " The 

 Grammar of Science " (1892) and in Germany 

 by Dr. Wilhelm Ostwald's " ISTaturphilo- 

 sophie." In France Henri Poincare's work 



