SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 The annual eeports of President Eliot of 

 Harvard always contain suggestive reading for 

 those who are interested in the advance and im- 

 provement of teaching, as well as in teaching 

 itself. The constant effort to seek out and put 

 into practice better methods of instruction, or 

 methods more in keeping with the needs of the 

 time, has been pre-eminently a characteristic of 

 the present administration at Harvard. This was 

 yveM pointed out by President Angell of Michigan 

 in his after-dinner speech at the Harvard celebra- 

 tion last November. He alluded to the debt that 

 all American colleges owe to the old university 

 for the bold spirit of experiment that has led to 

 the recognition of the difference in value between 

 the traditional, customary, and conventional meth- 

 ods, inherited from previous generations, and the 

 new, fresh, original methods, that contribute 

 their share to the advance of the age. Any thing, 

 he said, rather than stagnation in educational 

 matters. Certainly there is no stagnation at 

 Harvard, and the many changes of the last fifteen 

 years seem only to prepare the way for more. 



One of the present concerns of the college is 

 naturally to secure good teaching for those who 

 may desire to take entrance examinations in sci- 

 ence instead of in one of the classics. It is well, 

 therefore, to note President Eliot's attitude on 

 this question. He says, "A serious difficulty in 

 the way of getting science well taught in second- 

 ary schools has been the lack of teachers who 

 knevr any thing of inductive reasoning and ex- 

 perimental methods." One reason of this is that 

 -'good school methods of teaching the sciences 

 have not yet been elaborated and demonstrated, 

 and it is the first duty of university departments of 

 science to remove at least this obstacle to the intro- 

 duction of science into schools. , , . Science can 

 never be put on the right footing at the university, 

 so long as it is practically excluded from secondary 

 schools, or is admitted only to be taught in a 

 positively harmful way." This brings to the 

 front as important a matter as has lately been 



No, S09 — 1887, 



considered in the development of collegiate study, 

 and young men may well consider the opportunity 

 that it will open for them. For the next twenty 

 years, the preparatory schools will show a growth 

 on the side of science-teaching, the like of which 

 has not been seen in this country, and really good 

 teachers of chemistry and physics will be in in- 

 creasing demand. It will be a fortunate university 

 that shall supply the most of these teachers. 



An interesting paragraph of the report relates 

 to the " list of publications of Harvard university 

 and its officers, 1880-1885." "In this list, about 

 three-quarters of the 1,813 entries relate to science, 

 including in that term medicine. Very inaccu- 

 rate estimates of the relative activity in literary and 

 scientific publications of some leading American 

 universities having of late years obtained cur- 

 rency, and perhaps credit, through the public 

 press, it is permissible to remark in the interests 

 of truth, that it would be discreditable indeed to 

 Harvard university — old and well-equipped as it 

 is — if any other American institution could ap- 

 proach it in the range and volume of its annual 

 literary and scientific publications." The excess 

 of scientific publications over literary would be 

 much reduced if pages instead of titles were 

 counted ; for in science a larger number of brief 

 monographs on limited topics can be found than 

 there is any equivalent for in literature. 



During the last twenty years, while scientific 

 studies were finding their place in the college 

 elective lists, the Lawrence scientific school, once 

 a leader among its fellow^s, has been steadily losing 

 in number of scholars, and hence in influence. 

 For some years past it has suffered seriously, 

 simply from being overshadowed by the, growing 

 college across the street. Some have thought that 

 this meant a discouragement to science-teaching 

 at Cambridge, but the very reverse is the case. 

 When the school was founded, the college was 

 narrow, and saw no propriety in allowing a wide 

 variety of study to its undergraduates. There 

 was no advanced teaching in physical or natural 

 science in the college till 1871, and ambitious 

 students of these subjects in the earlier years had 



