-NOVEMBEE 20, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



743 



synthesis, which gives significance to an- 

 alysis, certainly does not find any place in 

 the practice of many teachers, but without 

 it the real purpose is missed. It may be 

 'Claimed justly that the reaching of synthesis 

 through analysis is no more peculiar to na- 

 ture study than are observation, deduction 

 and analysis ; but the mental attitude in- 

 volved in reaching this synthesis is peculiar. 

 This peculiar mental attitude may be most 

 clearly stated, perhaps, in the form of a 

 -comparison. A very commonly used classi- 

 fication of studies in general is that which 

 divides them into the ' humanities ' and 

 the ' sciences.' It lies outside of my pres- 

 ent purpose to take exception to this ex- 

 ceedingly crude and misleading classifica- 

 tion, but for the sake of comparison it will 

 serve as well as any other. The ' human- 

 ities ' are dominated by literature in the 

 broadest sense, and are claimed to develop 

 in the student a kind of culture especially 

 desirable, a flavor especially characteristic 

 of the educated man. To this claim I 

 would not offer the slightest objection, for 

 the ' humanities ' have been and must con- 

 tinue to be a noble course of intellectual 

 development, without which an education 

 is certainly incomplete. I realize the difl&- 

 <;ulty to-day in sharply defining those 

 studies which should be included under the 

 'humanities,' and a difficulty equally 

 .great in defining those to be included under 

 -' sciences,' for it is often a thing of method 

 rather than of subject-matter which deter- 

 mines the position of a study. However, 

 there is no misunderstanding as to the gen- 

 eral significance and effect of the group of 

 studies known as the ' humanities.' It is 

 the most ancient and best known form of 

 culture, and being ancient and bound up 

 with the development of mankind it must 

 •continue necessarily to hold high rank. 



The general effect of the humanities in a 

 .scheme of education may be summed up in 

 the single word appreciation. They seek so 



to relate the student to what has been said 

 or done by mankind that his critical sense 

 may be developed, and that he may recog- 

 nize what is best in human thought and 

 action. To recognize what is best involves 

 a standard of comparison. In most cases 

 this standard is derived and conventional ; 

 in the rare cases it is original and individ- 

 ual. In any case, the student injects him- 

 self into the subject; and the amount he 

 gets out of it is measured by the amount of 

 himself he puts into it. It is the artistic, 

 the aesthetic, which predominates, not the 

 absolute. It is all comparative rather than 

 actual. The ability to 'read between the 

 lines ' is certainly the injection of self into 

 subject-matter. It would seem fair, there- 

 fore to state the peculiar effect of the ' hu- 

 manities ' as being the power of apprecia- 

 tion or self-injection. 



My claim is that any education which 

 stops with this result is an incomplete one, 

 and that there is another mental attitude 

 which is a necessary complement before a 

 full-rounded education can be claimed, and 

 this complementary mental attitude is de- 

 veloped by a proper study of the so-called 

 ' sciences.' It has been a matter of wonder 

 to me that the student who confines him- 

 self to * humanities ' is so often spoken of as 

 the ' all-round ' student ; while the one who 

 studies the ' sciences,' and from whom the 

 ' humanities ' are as a matter of course de- 

 manded, is spoken of as the narrow student. 

 In the very nature of things, in the very 

 structure of our educational schemes, the stu- 

 dent of science is compelled to be the broad- 

 est, most 'all-round' student we have. If the 

 study of nature is conducted so as to cultivate 

 merely a sentimental appreciation of natural 

 objects, it does not fall within the category 

 I am considering, and can in no way be 

 considered a study which acts as a comple- 

 ment to the humanities. It is merely more 

 of the same thing. Teachers of science are 

 too apt to cultivate a factitious interest in 



