68 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 498. 



nature. Now comes the danger. It being 

 much easier to think than to work, the 

 chances are that in trying to find the ex- 

 planation of things, he will give up the 

 natural method and be satisfied with the 

 products of his imagination. He will grad- 

 ually give up dealing directly with things, 

 and take to thinking alone. When this 

 stage is reached his knowledge will increase 

 very slowly, if at all. 



Whether this picture of the development 

 of a child is in accordance with the facts 

 of life or not, it gives an idea of the mental 

 development of mankind. First came the 

 period of infancy, during which observa- 

 tions were made and much learned. Ef- 

 forts were early made to explain the facts 

 of nature. We have remnants of these 

 explanations in old theories that have long 

 ceased to be useful. They no doubt served 

 a useful purpose in their day, but gradually 

 one of the most pernicious ideas ever held 

 by man took shape, and I am willing to 

 characterize it as one of the most serious 

 obstacles to the advance of knowledge. I 

 refer to the idea that it is a sign of in- 

 feriority to work with the hands. This 

 idea came early and stayed late. In fact, 

 there are still on the earth a few who hold 

 it. How did this prove an obstacle to the 

 advance of knowledge? By preventing 

 those who were best equipped from advanc- 

 ing knowledge. The learned men of the 

 earth for a long period were thinkers, phi- 

 losophers. They were not workers in na- 

 ture's workshop. They tried to solve the 

 great problems of nature by thinking about 

 them. They did not experiment. That is 

 to say, they did not go directly to nature 

 and put questions to her. They speculated. 

 They elaborated theories. During this 

 period knowledge was not advanced 

 rapidly. It could not be. For the only 

 way along which advances could be made 

 was closed. 



Slowly the lesson was learned that the 



/only way by which we can gain knowledge 

 of nature's secrets is by taking her into 

 our confidence. Instead of contempla- 

 tion in a study, we must have contact 

 with the things of nature either out-of- 

 doors or in the laboratory. Manual labor 

 is necessary. Without it we may as well 

 give up hope of acquiring knowledge of 

 the truth. When this important fact was 

 forced upon the attention of men, scien- 

 tific progress began and continued with in- 

 creasing rapidity. • At present the old 

 pernicious idea that a man who does any 

 kind of work with his hands is by virtue of 

 that fact an inferior being — that idea is 

 no longer generally held. But we have not 

 got entirely rid of it. In a recent address 

 I find this reference to the subject: "How- 

 ever the case may have been with what 

 forty years ago was called the education of 

 a gentleman, it seems to me to be one of the 

 services of the scientific laboratory that it 

 has taught to that part of mankind which 

 has leisure and opportunities that manual 

 skill is a thing to be held in honor both as a 

 means for reaching mechanical results, and 

 still more, as a way to train the mind. * * * 

 Fifty years ago many men who called them- 

 selves educated were mere untrained, un- 

 developed children in manual skill, and 

 some of them were proud of their incom- 

 petency, for nothing would have more sur- 

 prised them than an assertion that their 

 inability to help themselves with their 

 hands was a badge of ignorance. * * * 

 While the high character and sterling 

 worth of the medical man has always won 

 respect, their skill in the use of their hands 

 was long held by those who were superior 

 to such weakness to place them beneath the 

 lawyers and the clergymen in the social 

 scale. ' ' Recently I came upon this old ' 

 idea within college walls. In the college 

 connected with the Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity there are several groups of studies 

 which lead to the degree of bachelor of arts. 



