SCIENTIFIC ED UCA TION. 419 



take. In the first place it is to be remarked, that educational systems are 

 not determined by purely human inspiration, but rather the result of certain 

 social conditions, forming the soil, as it were, out of which grows that sys. 

 tern which it is best capable of nourishing. The ^'JVovum Organuiii" could 

 no more have been a product of a barbarous society, than the rose a product 

 of the desert. In all social movements it is impossible to determine the exact 

 line of demarcation between two radically different systems, so imperceptibly 

 does one merge into the other. We know when a change is complete, and 

 we are struck by the contrastwith that which it has displaced, but the ending 

 of one, and the beginning of the other, cannot be defined, xis in, all thino-s 

 the new never displaces the old without a struggle, so the ideas of the new 

 education have not won their well nigh universal acceptance without vigor- 

 ous opposition from the old regime of school men. It is the story over ao-ain 

 in a different shape of the "Revival of the Arts and Sciences" in the fif- 

 teenth century, when the supporters of the scholastic wisdom of the middle 

 ages had to yield to the progressive culture of a newer school. That conten- 

 tion history has handed down to us as the struggle between the obscurantists 

 and the humanists, apt terms, tersely embodying the distinct qualities of each. 

 The obscurantists of our day, what few of them are left, are represented by 

 'those who would base educational systems upon transmitted opinions, on 

 metaphysics and the literature of bygone ages. With such nature is held 

 up to the test of authority, and in case of disagreement, so much the worse 

 for nature. On the other hand our modern humanists repudiate authority 

 as such, regard society and civilization as a development, and test all ideas 

 and asserted truths, in the crucible of natural law and order. While the 

 germs of the new system can be traced back through centuries, in a fitful 

 sort of a way, it was not until the close of the sixteenth century, when 

 Francis Bacon, whom Pope pronounces the ''wisest" and "best" of mankind, 

 despite his moral infirmities, gave to the world a system of logic, at once so 

 profound, complete and penetrating that it marks an intellectual epoch, and 

 formed the solid foundation of modern processes of reasonicg. He expressed 

 his disgust at the school methods then in vogue in these words : " They learn 

 nothing at the universities but to believe. They are like a becalmed ship, 

 they never move but by the Avind of other men's breath, and have no oars 

 of their own to steer withal." They whole key of Bacon's teachings is embod- 

 ied in the idea that all learning, all knowledge should have but one object 

 —"the good of humanity." He held that study instead of employing itself 

 on wearisome and sterile speculations, should be engaged in mastering the 

 secrets of nature and life, and applying them to human use. Instead of 

 hypotheses, he called for facts, and he showed that the only road to truth 

 was by proceeding from effect to cause, thus utterly reversing the customary 

 methods of mental training and culture. It so happened that the intellec- 

 tual soil succeeding Bacon's time was ripe for just such seed, which has 

 grown and expanded into a tree bearing fruit of abundant promise. The 

 growth was slow at first, but the dropping of its blossoms from time to time 



