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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 247 



ing walk, he is led to observe the course of the sun, how it rises 

 and sets in different places according to the time of the year. In 

 this manner he is led to ask questions about the course of the 

 heavenly bodies, the form of the earth, and the calculation of 

 eclipses. For the study of geography, no maps are placed before 

 him. Starting from his home, he is led to make maps for himself. 

 In this manner the natural desire of the child for knowledge is 

 taken as the starting-place for learning, which in itself is never al- 

 lowed to be a burden or trouble. Just as growing plants require 

 not only light, but heat, so the growing man needs not only in- 

 struction, but amusement. Emile finds out by himself the existence 

 of the meridian line and the peculiarity of the magnetic needle. He 

 observes that by rubbing amber, glass, or sealing-wax, he is able to 

 attract pieces of straw. In this way he learns the properties of 

 positive and negative electricity, and connects them with the mag- 

 net. Going to the fair, he finds a conjurer who draws a waxen 

 duck in different directions over a basin of water by presenting to 

 it a piece of bread : he soon guesses that the bread contains a mag- 

 net, and is able to imitate the trick to the astonishment of the 

 conjurer. The conjurer takes his revenge by placing a stronger 

 magnet under the table, so that the duck resists all Emile's efforts. 

 The revelation of this trick is an avenue to still further knowledge. 

 We see here that education is made not to depend on words, but 

 on things. No formal instruction is given. Certain things are ob- 

 served to take place, and the instruction lies in the conclusions 

 which are to be drawn from them. In a similar way great impor- 

 tance is attached to what would now be called technical education. 

 Emile is to have no books except ' Robinson Crusoe,' from whose 

 example he is to learn how to supply all his needs. Instead of 

 reading, he is to visit workshops and practise handicrafts: he will 

 learn more in an hour's work than he would in a whole day's ex- 

 planation. Even trades are to be estimated by their usefulness. 

 The blacksmith is placed higher than the goldsmith : the baker is 

 worth the whole academy of sciences. Emile must learn a trade. 

 What trade is best for him ? Agriculture is exposed to too many 

 casual losses. Many trades are merely the handmaids of luxury, 

 and produce nothing worth having : others are unwholesome either 

 from confinement or from the attitude in which they are practised. 

 There are objections to the more violent trades, such as masons 

 and smiths. The best of all is to be a cabinet-maker, which is use- 

 ful, cleanly, and instructive. The modern development of technical 

 education seems to have followed on Rousseau's lines, and to have 

 placed working in wood in the first rank. 



Thus, when his boy's years come to an end, he possesses, not a 

 great number of opinions and accomplishments, but the capacity 

 for acquiring them. Such learning as he has, is thoroughly natural. 

 He does not know even the names of history, metaphysics, morals, 

 but he is accustomed unconsciously to reason about all of them. 

 He is industrious, moderate, patient, and courageous. He does 

 not know what death is, but, if necessary, he would die without a 

 sigh. He demands nothing from others, and is under no obligation 

 to them, but stands alone and independent in human society. He 

 has no errors but those which are avoidable, and no faults except 

 those from which no man is free. He has a healthy body, active 

 limbs, a mind free from prejudices, a heart without passion. 

 He has been scarcely affected by self-love, the first and the most 

 natural passion: he has lived contented and happy, and free, so 

 far as his nature allows. Do you think, asks Rousseau, that a 

 child who has thus reached his fifteen years can have lost the 

 years which have preceded ? 



Rousseau's book produced a great effect throughout Europe. It 

 is said that Kant, the philosopher of Konigsberg, whose habits 

 were more regular than the town-clock, suspended even his daily 

 walk in order to read him, yet the practical teacher will learn but 

 little from him. His principal effect lay in the strength by which 

 he combated existing prejudices. When Rousseau wrote, educa- 

 tion had become not only formal and artificial, but hollow and 

 frivolous. The French revolution might have altered this by its 

 unaided force, but ' Emile ' still remains the book in which the 

 ideas of the revolution about education were expressed with the 

 greatest eloquence and vigor. 



What shall we say about naturalism in the present day? It is 

 largely practised unintentionally. While different studies are 



struggling for the mastery, the natural desire for games and open- 

 air activity occupies the field, and claims more and more of the 

 pupil's life. In the vast development of modern industries requir- 

 ing capacities of all kinds, some educationalists have seen an indi- 

 cation that special courses of teaching are unnecessary or useless. 

 Nature, they say, and the pressure of the world's business, are the 

 best teachers. How much skilled labor is demanded by a railway ? 

 Who trained the pointsman, the engine-driver? Who directed the 

 complicated lines of trains, following and meeting each other with 

 lightning rapidity, yet never colliding except by a terrible catastro- 

 phe ? The teacher who follows the methods, either of humanism 

 or realism, strives to make the best of the human mind intrusted to 

 him. He wishes to develop its faculties to their highest point, to 

 stimulate its natural capacity to its furthest limit. But when this 

 is done, what guaranty have we that nature has any place for the 

 instrument we have so carefully finished ? If every mind were 

 developed to the fullest extent which its powers admit of, yet a 

 large proportion of such minds might remain useless and barren, 

 because they fitted into no place which human society supplies. 

 Leave every thing to Nature, she will fashion the material better 

 than you can, into the form in which she most requires it. This 

 statement is a paradox ; and, indeed, natural education is in its 

 essence paradoxical. It will always have advocates and apostles, 

 especially in times when there appears to be a danger of over-re- 

 finement or over-pressure ; but the wise educationalist will turn to 

 it as a repository of cautions and warnings rather than as an 

 armory of weapons fit for fighting against the ever-present enemies 

 of ignorance and sloth. Oscar Browning. 



THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT 

 OF CORNELL. 



The equipment at Cornell in the Hne of electrical engineering 

 bids fair to become, if it is not already, the most complete in the 

 country, and probably in the world. It has been almost wholly 

 contributed by friends of the university, at the suggestion of the 

 director of Sibley College and others interested in its progress. The 

 last and most important addition to the collection is that of the West- 

 inghouse 650-light alternating current dynamo, exciter, lamps, and 

 other material required in establishing the plant. The list of dyna- 

 mos now includes the Edison, the Gramme, the Mather, the West- 

 inghouse alternating current, the Westinghouse continuous, a num- 

 ber of Weston and minor makes, and all sizes, from a httle toy 

 machine made in the university shops, to the 50 or 60 horse-power 

 machines just added to the list. 



There comes with this liberality on the part of friends of the 

 university an embarrassment of real importance : there is no im- 

 mediately available room for the installation of these machines. 

 The dynamo-room now appropriated to the purpose is hardly large 

 enough for the ' cradle ' used in conducting experiments on a single 

 machine. The Weston machine is tucked in one corner, and the 

 Edison and Mather machines are temporarily placed in the middle 

 of the floor, and driven as best can be done from there. There is 

 actually no room even to lay down the new machines now en route 

 from Pittsburgh, still less to place them for use. In this emergency, 

 the director has obtained permission from the trustees to make 

 temporary provision for them by throwing the existing toilet-rooms 

 into the machine-shop, thus securing a space of some fifteen or 

 eighteen feet by nearly forty, in which to place all these machines. 

 It has long been considered advisable, on the score of safety and 

 convenience, to remove all heavy machinery from the main building, 

 and this transfer of the dynamo-room will give opportunity to effect 

 other improvements there in time. Professor Morris is already 

 arranging new toilet-rooms, and getting ready to tear down the 

 brick partitions which have been found to be in the way of the new 

 arrangement. Professors Van Vleck and Smith are preparing 

 plans for the belting and countershafting, in consultation with Pro- 

 fessor Nichols, and the work is to be proceeded with at once. The 

 space now given up to this machinery must, however, in time be 

 required for the extension of the machine-shop, and it is only a 

 question of time when a building must be constructed for this course 

 and its collections. Nearly forty students now enter the course 

 annually, and it is only second to the regular course in mechanical 



