962 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 442. 



ways to achievement. Those methods are 

 simple and even axiomatic in principle. 



Science, scientia, is knovrledge, and its 

 significance became evident immediately it 

 was seen that such an idea is the opposite 

 of speculation, that the determination of a 

 fact and its exact identification by suitable 

 methods was the first step to further and 

 exact knowledge of phenomena, and that 

 this process and its result, the discovery 

 of the laws governing facts in sequence, 

 are the antipodes of the ancient method of 

 primary appeal to the imagination, with 

 later endeavor to find evidence sustaining 

 the fairy tale thus evoked from the inner 

 consciousness. 



Wherever work is to be accomplished, 

 the fact is the first requirement preliminary 

 to action, and the controlling law is next 

 to be discovered, in order that it, and every 

 other agency of nature as well as of art, 

 may be directed to the furtherance of the 

 purpose held in view. The scientific 

 method is as fundamental in education as 

 in any other system of application of 

 energy to useful result. A scientific train- 

 ing is an essential, a fundamental, element 

 of all professional education, and sys- 

 tematic training, scientific training, is the 

 direct way toward profitable acquisition 

 and most prompt and complete success. 



The scientific method is not restricted to 

 the work of the distinctively so-called man 

 of science. There is a scientific method in 

 history, in the teaching of languages, in 

 theology or in philosophy, quite as definite 

 as in mathematics, chemistry or physics. 

 There is a scientific method of education 

 and of pedagogy. In all cases it simply 

 means the coordination of the two essen- 

 tials, knowledge, exact and definite, and 

 sound reasoning, the exact acquaintance of 

 the teacher with the fact to be taught, a dis- 

 tinct recognition and formulation of the 

 principles and laws behind the system of 



facts and phenomena, and systematization 

 of all contemporary knowledge of the sub- 

 ject in such manner as to permit the pre- 

 sentation of all in concise form, in logical 

 order and in perfect symmetry. There is 

 even a 'scientific method of advancement 

 of science';* as of every other department 

 of human knowledge, even of the spiritual 

 in humanity itself. 



The mission of science, therefore, in the 

 broadest sense, is the promotion of all 

 human knowledge and, through the exten- 

 sion of learning and of culture, to give 

 wisdom and to offer opportunity for its 

 exercise, t Its direct product is material 

 advance in the industrial system, providing 

 increasing comfort and leisure for the 

 people and, through this improvement in 

 the lives of men, giving opportunity for 

 the development of the intellect, the af- 

 fections and the soul. But its highest task, 

 though not a more essential element of 

 progress, is the promotion of the efficiency 

 of all our methods of preparing our youth 

 for the 'future of their lives,' as Paley 

 says, 'to perform justly, skilfully and mag- 

 nanimously, all the offices, both private and 

 public, of peace and war,' as Milton puts 

 it in his specifications for a 'complete and 

 generous education.' In every department 

 such an education teaches first the facts, 

 then the principles and formulated law, 

 and next the system, and finally all prac- 

 ticable applications and illustrations and, 

 where physical manipulations are involved, 

 as in the laboratories, in the gymnasium, 

 in the military academy or in the applica- 

 tions of science in the industrial arts, the 

 utilization by the practitioner of the sys- 



* ' The Seientifio Method of Science Advanoe- 

 ineiit,' vice-president's address, American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, St. Louis 

 meeting, 1878, R. H. Thurston. 



t ' The Mission of Science,' vice-president's ad- 

 dress, American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, Philadelphia meeting, 1884, R. H. 

 Thurston. 



