November 4, 1887.] 



SCIENCE 



219 



Jeft to itself, in danger of emphasizing material success at the ex- 

 pense of the disciplinary process? I take it we are all agreed that 

 how a pupil learns is of more importance than what he learns. His 

 faculties are developed and his character formed by the process of 

 learning, far more than they are by the thing learned. The ten- 

 dency of unrestricted competition is to alter this relation, to exalt 

 the result, and to depreciate the process. This is contrary to the 

 teaching of mental hygiene, and in consequence is. to be condemned 

 by sanitarians and educators alike. I say nothing of the pallid 

 faces, the disordered nerves, the sleepless nights, and the loss of 

 appetite, that result from competition for competition's sake. Were 

 those results not present, I should still oppose it as an unsound edu- 

 cational principle. Therefore I repeat, competition must be re- 

 stricted and kept within reasonable bounds. This topic gives rise to 

 many other fruitful suggestions, but I must pass them by. 



There remains the subject of industrial education. Let me, in as 

 few words as possible, place that properly before you, and then I 

 am confident that the attitude toward it of a science of sanitation 

 that is broad enough to demand a well-developed mind in a well- 

 developed body will not be for a moment doubtful. 



Industrial education is not technical education, the preparation 

 for trades. It is a term invented to signify an education in which 

 mental training through the hand and the eye occupies its proper 

 place beside mental training through the memory and the other 

 means of approach to the mind. Mental training through the 

 hand and the eye is generally known as 'manual training,' which 

 term is only satisfactory in case its proper signification is un- 

 derstood. This manual training is graded instruction, the object 

 of which is to develop the pupil's powers of expression. No piece 

 of knowledge is really our own until we can express or apply 

 it. Mere memorized knowledge is parrot knowledge. It is men- 

 tally indigestible and innutritions. It is the pastry of the intellect. 

 Well enough, perhaps, if taken in proper . quantities and at 

 proper times, but very unsatisfactory and unwholesome as a steady 

 diet. 



Reading and writing both appeal in a measure to the child's 

 powers of expression, but not sufficiently nor in the most natural 

 and simplest way. Expression by means of language is abstract 

 and comparatively difficult. When carried to any great degree of 

 fluency or accuracy, it is universally looked upon as an accomplish- 

 ment. The earlier and simpler methods of expression are by ges- 

 ture, by delineation, and by construction. Industrial education 

 takes these powers of expression, delineation, and construction, and 

 trains them together with the other faculties. Drawing and con- 

 structiop, the latter in material suited to the strength and capacity 

 of the pupil, are reduced to a system, and go hand in hand with in- 

 struction in the three R's. Thus the sense of form, of proportion, 

 of accuracy, and of truth is developed as is possible in no other 

 way. The judgment and the executive faculty, the most important 

 of all our powers in the practical work of life, are provided for and 

 trained in the scheme of industrial education, though accorded no 

 place in the old-fashioned curriculum. 



Now, sanitation has been called the ' science of preventive med- 

 icine,' and lectureships with that title have been founded in Great 

 Britain. In connection with this description of your science, let us 

 remember that we are told on high authority that the number and 

 variety of diseases and disorders that are traceable to the mind are 

 rapidly increasing. If this statement is true (and I know of no 

 reason to doubt it), in what direction can our sanitarians better ex- 

 pend their energies than in furthering the adoption and develop- 

 ment of an educational system that is complete, that is thorough, 

 and that is healthy ? This is certainly a proper field for the ac- 

 tivities of ' preventive medicine.' 



Time will not permit me to follow out this suggestive theme. I 

 will simply state, in conclusion, a few of the reasons why I con- 

 sider industrial education a matter of importance to sanitarians. 

 In industrial education, properly organized and administered, I 

 claim that w-e have for the first time a system that trains all the 

 mental faculties, and each at the proper time and in proper propor- 

 tion. It gives us no abnormal and mechanical memories without 

 judgment and executive ability, no hunched backs without arms and 

 legs. Every faculty is considered, every power is taken into ac- 

 count. The conditions of nineteenth-century life are kept in mind. 



and the ideally educated man is not held to be the mediseval recluse 

 or the eighteenth-century English gentleman. Incidentally, indus- 

 trial education affords a pleasant and healthful alternation of exer- 

 cise from faculty to faculty. No one is overstrained, no one is al- 

 lowed to become atrophied and die. Muscular exertion is called 

 in to supplement and relieve mental activity. 



My own belief is that the mere recital of these facts determines 

 the attitude of sanitarians toward the system which permits and 

 causes them. As friends of educational and scientific progress you 

 will approve industrial education, and then as sanitarians you will 

 indorse it as a long step toward the much-to-be-desired Menssana 

 in corpore sano. 



THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL ASSOCIATION. 



The fall meeting of the American Oriental Society was held on 

 Oct. 26 and 27, at the Johns Hopkins University. Since the 

 establishment of this university a little over ten years ago, Balti- 

 more has grown to be one of the great centres of education and 

 learning in this country. A ' university ' atmosphere pervades the 

 place, and the large audience that gathered in Hopkins Hall at 

 the opening session on Wednesday afternoon may be taken as an 

 indication that the interest felt there for higher studies and re- 

 searches extends to regions that seem (but only seem) to lie so far 

 off as those covered by the Oriental Society. 



In the absence of Professor Whitney, who, although considerably 

 improved in health, is still obliged to be sparing of his strength 

 Vice-President Dr. W. H. Ward of New York presided. 



The reading of papers was begun by Professor Haupt of the 

 Johns Hopkins, who presented the prolegomena to his forthcoming 

 Assyrian grammar, — a work on which he has been engaged for a 

 number of years. The extent of the Uterature in cuneiform charac- 

 ters is appreciated only by very few persons ; and even of those 

 present at the meeting, no doubt quite a number were surprised to 

 learn, that, as far as known to us, it covers a period of at least 

 forty centuries. There is a short inscription of King Sargon of 

 Agade, the date of which can be fixed with certainty at 3800 B.C., 

 and on the other side Antiochus Soter (280-261 B.C.) tells us in .a 

 cuneiform tablet of a temple he had erected in honor of a Babylo- 

 nian deity. Professor Haupt, after speaking of the various periods 

 to be distinguished in Babylonian-Assyrian literature, dwelt at 

 length on some of the features of the Assyrian language, showing, 

 more especially, the relationship that existed between it and the 

 cognate Semitic tongues. In a brief discussion of the paper, Pro- 

 fessor Jastrow, after alluding to the eagerness with which students 

 and scholars have been looking forward for some time to the gram- 

 mar of Professor Haupt, who stands to-day without a superior, and 

 with but few equals among Assyriologists, spoke of the ' Sumero- 

 Akkadian ' controversy, which is attracting considerable attention 

 just at present. He regretted the confusion which incautious writ- 

 ers are bringing about by unnecessarily complicating the points at 

 issue with questions and theories that have no bearing on the 

 subject. 



Professor Bloomfield followed with an exhaustive study of certain 

 magical rites in cases of disease, as laid down in the Athavar-Veda. 

 Professor Lyon of Cambridge announced the recent purchase by 

 the Harvard University of a collection of Babylonian so-called 

 ' contract tablets.' These tablets, of which the British Museum 

 possesses many thousand specimens, have afforded us a wonderful 

 insight into the daily life of the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians. 

 They show us that legal proceedings were quite as complicated in 

 days of antiquity as they are to-day ; they give evidence of extensive 

 commerical transactions in those days ; and, while the lengthy in- 

 scriptions of the kings give us valuable information of the wars and 

 campaigns, these little bricks tell us much of the ways and manners 

 of the people. 



"The most interesting feature of the convention was the gathering, 

 at the residence of President Oilman, of the university in the even- 

 ing, which partook partly of the nature of a reception, and in part 

 of an informal session of the association. Besides the members of 

 the Oriental Society, a number of prominent gentlemen, including 

 some of the trustees of the university, had been invited. President 

 Oilman welcomed his guests in a few well-chosen remarks, where- 



