July 22, 1898.] 



/SCIENCE. 



95 



at its source. He is fed on formulas and 

 rules ; he has no outlet for invention or dis- 

 covery ; lists of exceptions to the rules de- 

 stroy the remnant of his curiosity and 

 incentive ; even reasoning from analogy is 

 strictly forbidden him ; he is shut up from 

 nature as in a room with no windows ; the 

 dictionary is his authority as absolute and 

 final as it is flat and sterile. His very in- 

 dustry, being forced rather than sponta- 

 neous, makes him mentally, no less than 

 physically, stoop-shouldered and near- 

 sighted. It seems to be one of those mistakes 

 of the past still so well lodged in tradition 

 and class rivalry that soundness of culture 

 is artificially identified with its mainte- 

 nance. Yet there is no reason that the 

 spirit of classical culture and the durable 

 elements of Greek and Roman life should 

 not be as well acquired — nay, better— from 

 the study of history, archaeology and litera- 

 ture. For this language work is not study 

 of literature. Not one in one hundred of 

 the students who are forced through the 

 periodical examinations in these languages 

 ever gets any insight into their aesthetic 

 quality or any inspiration from their form. 

 But more than this. At least one posi- 

 tively vicious effect follows from language 

 study with grammar and lexicon, no matter 

 what the language be. TJie habit of intel- 

 lectual guessing grows with the need of con- 

 tinuous effort in putting together elements 

 which go together for no particular reason. 

 When a thing can not be reasoned out, it 

 may just as well be guessed out. The guess 

 is always easier than the dictionary, and, if 

 successful, it answers just as well. More- 

 over, the teacher has no way of distinguish- 

 ing the pupil's replies which are due to the 

 guess from those due to honest work. I 

 venture to say, from personal experience, 

 that no one who has been through the usual 

 classical course in college and before it has 

 not more than once staked his all upon the 

 happy guess at the stubborn author's mean- 



ing. This shallow device becomes a substi- 

 tute for honest struggle. And it is more 

 than shallow ; to guess is dishonest. It is a 

 servant to unworthy inertia ; and worse, it 

 is a cloak to mental unreadinesss and to 

 conscious moral cowardice. The guess is a 

 bluflf to fortune when the honest gauntlet of 

 ignorance should be thrown down to the 

 issue. 



The effects of this show themselves in a 

 habit of mind tolerated in persons of a lit- 

 erary bent, which is in marked contrast to 

 that demanded and exemplified by science. 

 I think that much of our literary impres- 

 sionism and sentimentalism reveal the 

 guessing habit. 



Yet why guess ? Why be content with 

 an impression ? Why hint of a ' certain 

 this and a certain that ' when the ' cer- 

 tain,' if it means anything, commonly 

 means the uncertain ? Things worth writ- 

 ing about should be formulated clearly 

 enough to be understood. Why let the 

 personal reaction of the individual's feeling 

 sufiSce ? Our youth need to be told that 

 the guess is immoral, that hypothesis is the 

 servant of research, that the private im- 

 pression instructs nobody, that presentiment 

 is usually wrong, that science is the best 

 antidote to the fear of ghosts, and that the 

 reply ' I guess so ' betrays itself, whether 

 it arise from bravado, from cowardice, or 

 from literary finesse ! I think that the 

 great need of our life is honesty, that 

 the bulwark of honesty in education is ex- 

 act knowledge with the scientific habit of 

 mind, and, furthermore, that the greatest 

 hindrance to these things is the training 

 which does not, with all the sanctions at its 

 command, distinguish the real, with its in- 

 fallible tests, from the shadowy and vague, 

 but which contents itself with the throw of 

 the intellectual dice box. Any study which 

 tends to make the difference between truth 

 and error pass with the throwing of a die, 

 and which leads the student to be content 



