February 22, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



203 



mutual relations, to luunher, name, describe, 

 and so on, in accordance with what he has 

 been taught. I have myself a way of slip- 

 ping into this set one object that the pupils 

 have never seen, so far as I know their 

 studies. The replies to this silent ques- 

 tioner fi-equently enable me to determine 

 who are the best oliservers and most origi- 

 nal thinkers, and very often point out clearly 

 the difference between them and those who 

 are merelj- the best students. 



Whether this system is the best that can 

 be devised or has only some praiseworthj' 

 feature, or is in reality but a poor substi- 

 tute for a good one, I shall not pretend to 

 decide. There are numbers of scientiiic 

 teachers of great experience and learning- 

 present who have heard my ai'guments and 

 must be our judges, but I think they will all 

 indulgently agree that the teachers who liave 

 adopted and elaborated this method have 

 tried to come as near to the ideals of objec- 

 tive work as the adverse circumstances of 

 large classes and limited time would per- 

 mit. Alpheus Hyatt. 



Boston. 



ORKilXAL RESEARCH AND CREATIVE AU- 

 THORSHIP THE ESSENCE OF UNIVERSITY 

 TEACHING* 



That which is most characteristic of the 

 present epoch in the history of man is un- 

 doubtedlj^ the vast and beneficent growth 

 of science. In things apart from science, 

 other races at times long past may be 

 compared to the most civilized people of 

 to-day. 



The lyric poetry of Sappho has never 

 been equalled! The epic flavor of Homer, 

 even after translation, comes down to us 

 unsurpassed tln-ough the ages. Dante, the 

 voice of six silent centuries, may wait six 

 centuries more before his mediteval miracle 

 of song finds its peer. 



* Inaugural Address l)_v the President of the Texas 

 Aaideniy of Science, Dr. George Bruce Halsted, Octo- 

 ber 12, 1894. 



The Apollo Belvidere, the Venus of Milo, 

 the Laocoon are the glory of antique, the 

 despair of modern sculpture. To mention 

 oratory to a schoolboy is to recall Demos- 

 thenes and Cicero, even if he has never 

 pictured Ca'sar, that gi-eatest of the sons of 

 men, quelling the mutinous soldiery by his 

 first word, or with outstretched arm, in 

 Egj-pt's palace window, holding enthralled 

 his raging enemies, gaining precious mo- 

 ments, time, the only thing he needed to 

 enable him to crusli them under his domi- 

 nant intellect. 



There is no need for multiplj'ing exam- 

 ples. The one thing that gives the pres- 

 ent generation its predominance is science. 

 The foremost factor in modern life is science. 

 All criticisms of the scope of life, of the es- 

 sence of education, made before science had 

 taken its present place, or attempting to 

 ignore its prominence, are obsolete, as are 

 of necessity any systems of education 

 founded on pre-scientific or anti-scientific 

 conceptions. 



Unfortunately there are still some people 

 so dull, so envious, so unscientifiic, so stu- 

 pid as to maintain that the highest aim of 

 a university should be the training of young 

 men and young women, where they use the 

 word ' training ' in its repressive, inhibi- 

 tive sense. The most profound discoveries 

 of modern science unite in replacing this 

 old ' training ' idea of education by one 

 immeasurably higher, finer, nobler. We 

 now know that the paramount aim of 

 teaching at every stage, and preeminentlj- 

 of the final stage, at the university, should 

 be to lidp the developing mind, the develop- 

 ing character, the developing personality. 

 Judicious, delicate, symj)athetic help is now 

 the watchword. Even horses and dogs 

 worth owning are no longer ' broken;' they 

 are 'gentled.' 



What has brought about this glorious 

 change ? Science, the greatest achievement 

 of human life, the one thing that puts to- 



