SCIENCE TEACHING. 309 



not whether he is a Mahommedan, Greek, Christian, Paulist, Deist, Eation- 

 alist or soft money man, but whether he knows of what he is si^eaking or 

 has simply read up on the subject. 



I wish to point out an intellectual result of science teaching, which, in 

 its general character is felt rather than professed. Under the attentive eye 

 of the student the electric current slowly decomposes the water, but, be the 

 quantity little or great, the volume of hydrogen obtained is always exactly 

 twice as great as the volume of oxygen. Eepeating the experiment, under 

 all possible conditions, the result does not varj^ He tries rain water, salt 

 water, the water from springs and rivers, but with the same unvarying pro- 

 portion of two to one. Eeversingthe process of anal3^sis, he takes two gills 

 of hydrogen and mixing it with one gill of oxygen, and applying the heat 

 they condense to form water again. Again he uses the same quantity of 

 hydrogen, but two gills of oxygen; heat is applied, the same quantity of 

 water is formed, but his extra gill of oygen remains. What can prevent 

 this student from the belief that the water is not only constant in its com- 

 position, but that the force which binds its elements together is constant 

 and invariable. He next takes common salt and has found by exhaustive 

 experiments that of every 58i pounds, 23 pounds are a peculiar metal, so 

 light that it not only floats upon water but vividly burns on it, and that the 

 remaining 35^- pounds are a stifling, green and poisonous gas. By various 

 decompositions and recomj)ositions he finds that the proportions are invari- 

 ably uniform. Thus he studies the various facts and phenomena of nature 

 — the fall of bodies, the resistance of fluids, the correlations of heat and mo- 

 tion, the interdependence of the two kingdoms of life, and stands convinced 

 — self convinced — of the principle of uniformity in the action of forces and 

 the universality of law. This idea has taken no slight hold of him. It is 

 not a hollow profession to be used when convenient, but it is a part of his 

 mental life, entering into every consciousness. In no case has an atom of 

 matter terminated its existence, and nowhere has nature appeared in- 

 consistent or capricious, Forces may, at times, have eluded his search, but 

 nature never impresses him as extravagant and monstrous. The conclu- 

 sions of uniformity in the processes of nature become knowledge in its true 

 and only sense, as it is founded in perceptions, generalized into conceptions, 

 wrought into reason and solidified into an indubitable conclusion. From 

 these studies, he consistently, necessarily infers the existence of uniformity 

 in other departments of human thought, no matter how great the authority 

 to the contrary. The scientific study of nature powerfully predisposes to 

 the idea that order reigns throughout creation, unmistakably effecting a 

 state of mind that sees in the unknown an exhibition of law instead of 

 chance, stability instead of vacillation, order instead of entanglement, and 

 sincerity instead of duplicity. Science teaching requires the student to 

 observe, analyze and compare ; to combine and separate experiences ; to 

 search for the source of feelings ; to question the views which he once held 

 or how holds ; to enlarge the requisites for proof ; to suspend judgment ; to 



