March 31, 1893 J 



SCIENCE. 



171 



and in a great nipasure caused by a less obvious but no less mar- 

 vellous increase of natural knowledge, in consequence of the ap- 

 plication of the scientific method to the investigation of the ]he- 

 nomena of the material world." The three great achievements 

 which give our period its unique position in the annals of science 

 are, the doctrine of the molecular constitution of matter, the doc- 

 trine of the conservation of energy, and the doctrine of evolution. 

 They relate and unify an otherwise bewildering chaos of observa- 

 tion and experimentation. They have not, as Professor Huxley 

 has said, fulfilled Bacon's conception of the aim of science and 

 superinduced nevv forms upon matter, but they have in a sense 

 created nature anew. They have given it a new voice. They 

 have invested it with a new dignity and fascination. 



Now, the subjects of study, under the stimulating influence of 

 these great generalizations had, near the beginning of our period 

 of science education, multiplied with amazing rapidity. And 

 each new comer at once upon arrival challenged the pre-emptive 

 right of its predecessors to the whole territory of education. 

 Moreover, it was at once apparent that many of the new subjects 

 yielded themselves with great hopefulness to the function of 

 mental culture and had, besides, an important bearing on the 

 practical conduct of life. Should the uew knowledge, which in a 

 thousand quiet ways was spreading into the thought of the times 

 and recasting it, be kept dark to the minds of the younj? ? Should 

 they be left to the sudden and possibly disastrous shock of it 

 when they should emerge from their cloistered life in college and 

 find it all abroad and confronting them in every path 'i 



It was resisted at the threshold. Nor should we be surprised. 

 Conservatism is not passivity, mere resistance. It is rather an 

 active force. It is not rest, but momentum. Whatever inter- 

 poses itself to modify or deflect this current must he prepared for 

 a collision. Illustrations abound throughout the history of edu- 

 cation. Cato the Censor opposed strenuously the introduction of 

 Greek into the Roman education. '• Believe me," he wrote to his 

 son, "the Greeks are a good-for-nothing and unimprovable race. 

 If they disseminate their literatute among us it will destroy 

 everything." Again, we tind that in the sixteenth century Latm 

 and Greek, which in the nineteenth have held the ground against 

 science, had themselves to win their way into the schools against 

 " the ' Parva Logicalia' of Alexander-, antiquated exercises from 

 Aristotle, and the 'Questiones' of Scotus." Thomas More wrote 

 to the dean of a school in London in which the new learning was 

 recognized, " No wonder your school raises a storm, for it is like 

 the wooden horse in which armed Greeks were hidden for the 

 ruin of barbarous Troj." 



But there are two features of the resistance to science in the 

 curriculum, which, so far as I know, are peculiar to this last 

 growth-pain of the educational ideal. The first springs out of the 

 fear that what may be called the poetry of life will be rudely 

 dealt with by the scientist, who comes upon the stage with the 

 clatter of retorts and instruments, with a pigeon-hole for every 

 sentiment and a physical test for every phenomenon of the soul. 

 The inimitable Charles Limb, on the side of prose, supplies an 

 illustration of this feeling in the essay on "The Old and the New 

 Schoolmaster," wherein he confesses his sins against science, 

 saying, "I am a whole encyclopaedia behind the rest of the 

 world," while he but poorly conceals his disgust at the preten- 

 sions of the modern successors of •' those fine old pedagogues who 

 believed that all learning was contained in the languages which 

 they taught." Representing the poets, John Keats, in "Lamia," 

 exclaims sadly : — 



" Do not all charms fiy 

 At the mere touch of cold philosophy ? 

 There was an awful rainbow once in heaven : 

 We know her woof, her texture; she is given 

 In the dull catalogue of common things." 



In Foe's "Sonnet to Science" we meet the same regretful 

 aversion. A still more recent voice is raised in the prose and 

 poetry alike of the late Mr. Matthew Arnold. 



I own that I share in some measure this repugnance to bare, 

 unrelated facts and the spirit of irreverence. But it is coming 

 to be generally recognized that science does not rest in analysis. 



which is but its method to reach a higher synthesis. A catalogue 

 of isolated facts, accumulated it may be with the infinite pains 

 of an army of workers in field and laboratory, is of small value 

 or significance except as it may contribute to the establishment 

 of some great generalization or unifying conception. And, fur- 

 ther, I doubt that the wholesome sense of mystery is dissipated 

 by the progress of science. Her torch grows brighter with each 

 passing year and shoots its rays farther into the surrounding 

 darkness, but mystery walks ever at her side. She springs more 

 questions than she solves. And so an increasing reverence is 

 not only consistent with a widening intelligence, but in its higher 

 and richer phases is dependent upon it. I believe, with the 

 weighty testimonv of George Eliot and Herbert Spencer and the 

 practical illustration of the late Poet Laureate, that the knowl- 

 edge of processes and causes, so far from clipping the wings of 

 the imagination, in reality enlarges the sphere of its flight. 



The second peculiar feature of the opposition to science in the 

 curriculum alluded to above is the fear of its effect upon relig- 

 ious beliefs in the minds of the young. It would be easy to mul- 

 tiply illustrations of the supposed antagonism between religion 

 and science, for it has had an unbroken succession from the trial 

 of Socrates to the trial of Briggs; but I forbear. Here, again, the 

 opposition is melting away as the limitations and real bt aring of 

 scientific inquiry are perceived. 



So, then, we uiay repeat what was said in the beginning. The 

 battle of the natural sciences for recognition in the schools is 

 won. Universally won in theory, but the actual occupation of 

 all the conquered territory is yet to be effected. As a rule, the 

 entrance has been made in the higher institutions first. In Eng- 

 land, the study of the earth and its productions is still but scantily 

 represented in the instruction afforded by its great fitting schools. 

 The case is much the same in our own country. Even where the 

 sciences are taught in the primary and high schools it is too often 

 book science, which is usually better not taught at all. 



In North Carolina we may not say that so much as a beginning 

 has been made in science teaching in our public schools and 

 academies. I would respectfully submit it to the wisdom of this 

 Association whether it should not take it upon itself to promote 

 in some practical way the introduction of the natural sciences 

 into these schools. Might not the colleges and State University 

 help forward this reformation by publishing certain elementary 

 courses in science as required for entrance? So far as I have 

 been able to ascertain. Trinity, Wake Forest, and Guilford are 

 the only Institutions in the State that make such requirements. 



In order to learn the position of the natural sciences in the 

 higher education in North Carolina, I have made a canvass of 

 the leading colleges, with the following tabulated result, which 

 takes no note of elective classes, but only of prescribed : 



Prescribed Recitations per week for four years for Bachelor of 

 Arts : 



II. We may now consider specifically the effects which the 

 natural sciences have produced upon the college curriculum. 



1. The first which I shall mention recalls the physicist's doctrine 

 of impenetrability. When science entered, room had to be made 

 for it. That necessitated a movement of the constituent mole- 

 cules of the curriculum upon one another, with the result of re- 

 laxing its rigidity. From the solid it passed to the semi-fluid 

 state. 



