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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 4G5. 



involves; it can only do so at the expense 

 of those who come to learn, and that is to 

 put its teaching be.youd the reach of all 

 but the wealthier few. And the instruction 

 is costly, for it has to be practical. And 

 another source of expense is that the lab- 

 oratory has not only to distribute know- 

 ledge, but to mamifacture it. The duties of 

 a university do not begin and end with the 

 disciplinary and didactic. Besides schools 

 of instruction, they must be schools of 

 thought. To be this latter, the laboratory 

 must pursue research. Even for the wel- 

 fare of the class-teaching this is essential. 

 Instructive lectures may be given by men 

 of ability, the whole of whose knowledge 

 is second-hand, but it is doubtful whether 

 the real life of science can be fully felt 

 and communicated by one who has not him- 

 self learnt by direct inquiry from nature. 

 Nothing more augments the teacher's power 

 of impressive and incisive teaching than 

 to have faced problems of his subject 

 himself as an original enquirer. And, 

 after rudiments have been once fairly ac- 

 quired, there is for good students no train- 

 ing equal to that given by following even 

 a small research under an experienced 

 leader. 



So truly does the laboratory become a 

 school of thought. The student should en- 

 ter on his study of a natural science through 

 the portal of its fundamental experiments. 

 The attitude his mind thus takes is the true 

 one— the only true one— for further insight 

 into the subject. Too often humanistic 

 studies at school have tended to kill the 

 natural philosopher within the child— 

 to destroy that innate curiosity for facts, 

 the healthy heritage of childhood. He 

 leaves school a little book-man. Even as 

 to the phenomena of nature, he has been 

 , insensibly led to ask for statements upon 

 authority, rather than to turn his own 

 senses and observation to the phenomena 

 themselves. To learn a science or acquire 



an art resting upon sciences, the first thing 

 to do is to look at the fundamental facts 

 for oneself. Our great teachers of medi- 

 cine teach upon this plan. They teach 

 where they learned, not in the library, but 

 from the bedside of the sick. In labora- 

 tories such as those raised here for pathol- 

 ogy and physiology and hygiene students 

 can learn these sciences as medicine is 

 learned in the hospital ward by di- 

 rect inquiry into nature. The teachers 

 you give them are men who have won 

 widely recognized distinction as themselves 

 direct enquirers into nature. Worthy stu- 

 dents will appreciate the double boon their 

 alma mater gives them — the means of learn- 

 ing at first hand those secrets of nature 

 which lie at the root of their craft's skill 

 —and to learn them under guidance by 

 men who excel in unraveling such secrets. 

 Only by enabling men to continue their 

 learning after their teaching is over can 

 we secure the greatest advantage any edu- 

 cational system can afford. Your labora- 

 toi'ies here will encourage post-graduate 

 work. We look with keen interest to the 

 researches that will flow from them. No 

 subjects offer finer fields for research than 

 do the progressive studies, physiology, 

 and pathology, to which your new uni- 

 versity buildings are consecrated. And 

 of the functions of a laboratory, research 

 is not the least costly. We in the old 

 country find that. Our central government 

 has done little to support research. Our 

 nation, proud of its success in things prac- 

 tical, has been prone to despise the abstract 

 and the theoretical. We do so foolishly; 

 we do so at our peril. Behind all practical 

 application there is a region of intellectual 

 action to which, though our practical men 

 have contributed little, they owe the whole 

 of their supplies. Theory, if a goose, is 

 the goose of the fairy tale that lays the 

 golden eggs. No more such eggs if once 

 you let her die. To speak of theoretic 



