SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XX. No. 491- 



very much longer periods. The business of the high school 

 is to train, to develop, to direct, not to give encyclopaedic 

 information nor to render the student an intellectual automa- 

 ton. Its great aim is to awaken thought, not as an end but 

 as a means. Divorce such awakening from the rhetoric of 

 pure philosophy, from the generalities of literature, from 

 the dicta of questionable schemes. Join it to the exact 

 methods involved in scientific research — whether original 

 or in the lines laid down by another matters little; wed it to 

 demonstration of natural law — whether before known is 

 unimportant; weld it iudissolubly to those mental processes 

 which involve the most intelligent ratiocination, and the 

 high school curriculum has attained its maximum educa- 

 tional value. But this assumes increased attention to and 

 prosecution of pure science, and in this, we believe, lies the 

 best and greatest educational power. 



Practical Character of the Information Gained. 



Ten years ago, the English physicist. Professor Sylvanus P. 

 Thompson, wrote the following: " And ought we, then, to be 

 surprised if, in pursuance of the system we have deliberately 

 marked out for the rising generation, we keep our future 

 artisans, till they are fifteen or sixteen, employed at no other 

 work than sitting at a desk to follow, pen in hand, the liter- 

 ary course of studies of our educational code, we discover 

 that, on arriving at that age, they have lost the taste for 

 manual work, and prefer to starve on a threadbare'pittance 

 as clerks or bookkeepers rather than gain a livelihood bj"^ the 

 less exacting and more remunerative labor of their hands ?" 

 True it is that this remark was volunteered in defense of a 

 proposed scheme for technical training — a scheme, the ne- 

 cessity of which is self-evident even in this country, as is 

 witnessed by the establishment of numerous manual training 

 schools. But this does not dull its edge nor blunt its point. 

 Toe ordinary training in the high school is not suited to the 

 demands of practical living. 



It is idle, perhaps, to volunteer the renTark that this is a 

 wonderfully practical age and this great West a model of 

 practical life. The conditions that make the environment 

 here are not met by the ordinary scholasticism of the mother 

 East. We can scarce do less, then, than recognize that the 

 high school stands as the expression of the educational needs 

 of a community. Those needs are limited or determined by 

 the multitudinous business interests involved, and, though 

 these be legion, sound economic theory and sound educational 

 science alike demand their recognition in the various schemes 

 of study. Such recognition has not always been accorded, 

 and the small percentage of high school graduates stands 

 somewhat in the attitude of menace to their perpetuity. 



The boy or girl who is skilled in the necessary technic of 

 the physical or chemical laboratory has become a most use- 

 ful member of the community. There are no secrets tliat 

 are unsearchable, no mysteries intangible, no hopeless intel- 

 lectual dabbling possible in the laboratory. Principles, sys- 

 tem, painstaking manipulation rule therein, and they are 

 necessary. To tiie one versed only iu the arts of literature, 

 ihe relations and significance of coulombs and atomic weights, 

 of farads and valence, of amperes and reagents, are neither 

 attractive nor necessary. But, if disciplinary value alone 

 be sought, who shall say that intellectual training may not 

 come as truly to him who intelligently uses a galvanometer 

 or a burette as to him who traces bis mother-tongue to its 

 ancient stock ? And if both are to be measured by manual 

 skill, by ability to devise and to execute, to drauglit and to 

 realize, who shall say that the student inducted into that 

 truer 6 eld of investigation and deduction, implied in the proper 



pursuit of physical science, has not an immeasurable advan- 

 tage ? He has, at command, a literature limited only by the 

 bounds imposed upon physical research, methods as variant 

 as the students who have trod the paths before him are differ- 

 ent, opportunities for usefulness co-extensive with the physi- 

 cal needs or comforts of the highest civilization. 



It seems to us that the time given to physical science in 

 the ordinary high school curriculum is far too short to reach 

 the highest practical advantages Usually such curricula 

 encompass the whole round of scientific endeavor. A few 

 weeks to this, somebody's "fourteen weeks" to that, and a 

 term to a third subject — these often without logical sequence 

 — and the boy or girl goes forth trained in science. Did I 

 say trained ? Forsooth, the first principles have not been 

 mastei'ed, the technic is entirely unknown. Add to this the 

 positive, and, it will be granted, unfortunate fact that science 

 subjects are taught by persons themselves untaught in 

 either the matter or spirit of science, still less the method, 

 and the cause of comparative failure is at hand. We say 

 comparative failure, and use the term advisedly. We use it, 

 because never less than a year is devoted to algebra, often 

 more, usually an equal period to geometry, and the lion's 

 share of the time is given to language work. All the disci- 

 plinary power possible is thus given to these subjects, and 

 those who teach them recognize that time, and time alone, 

 is productive of fruitful results. One, who in the face of 

 such educational fadism, would dare suggest two years of 

 botany or of zoology, three or four years of chemistryor 

 of physics, would surely, like Paul, be thought "beside him- 

 self." And yet this is exactly the position we seek to de- 

 fend. It will be conceded, we imagine, that science has 

 disciplinary value, that its prosecution develops a most de- 

 sirable phase of mental life, that in its exacting and pains- 

 taking methods it stands without a peer; it will also be granted 

 that among tliose who have traversed its inviting fields, 

 thought and written on what they have seen and felt, there 

 are very many who have enriched, immeasurably, the litera- 

 ture of their several lands; in short, it must be granted, it 

 seems to us, that no phase of human thought exists which 

 can be valuable for training in the high school that does not 

 And an equally valuable counterpart in the sphere of science. 

 The multitude of ways in which such knowledge and train- 

 ing may enter into every-day life, in every social condi- 

 tion, renders the argument of practical utility unanswera- 

 ble. 



The I'adical feature in science training lies in the assump- 

 tion that even elementary education should " supply that 

 exact and solid study of some portion of inductive knowl- 

 edge," which Dr. Whewell long ago pointed out as a want 

 in educational method. Through it education "escapes 

 from the thralldom and illusion which reign in the world of 

 mere words." The student's own examination and investi- 

 gation of phenomena, his own conception of their relations 

 and values, his own inferences concerning the laws he sup- 

 poses to underlie the surface of things, these all constitute 

 the practical side of his education. In tliis sense, it seems 

 to us, physical science possesses a paramount value, and 

 should be placed accordingly in a wisely adjusted scheme 

 for study. 



The Tendencies of the Culture of the Day. 



Educational systems and schemes reflect, it will be con- 

 ceded, the culture tendencies prevalent during their inaugu- 

 ral. It cannot, however, be assumed that their arrange- 

 ment has always been best, or that it has always 

 fallen into the wisest and safest bauds. The fault 



