SCIENCE AND LITEKATUEE 47 



ties or general literature in this respect is one of 

 those mistaken notions which seem to he gaining 

 ground so fast in our time. 



Can there be any doubt that contact with a great 

 character, a great soul, through literature, immensely 

 surpasses in educational value, in moral and spirit- 

 ual stimulus, contact with any of the forms or laws 

 of physical nature through science? Is there not 

 something in the study of the great literatures of 

 the world that opens the mind, inspires it with 

 noble sentiments and ideals, cultivates and develops 

 the intuitions, and reaches and stamps the character, 

 to an extent that is hopelessly beyond the reach of 

 science? They add something to the mind that is 

 like leaf-mould to the soil, like the contribution 

 from animal and vegetable life and from the rains 

 and the dews. Until science is mixed with emo- 

 tion, and appeals to the heart and imagination, it 

 is like dead inorganic matter; and when it becomes 

 so mixed and so transformed it is literature. 



The college of the future will doubtless lay much 

 less stress upon the study of the ancient languages; 

 but the time thus gained will not be devoted to the 

 study of the minutiae of physical science, as contem- 

 plated by Mr. Herbert Spencer, but to the study of 

 man himself, his deeds and his thoughts, as illus- 

 trated in history and embodied in the great litera- 

 tures. 



"Microscopes and telescopes, properly consid- 

 ered," says Goethe, "put our human eyes out of 

 their natural, healthy, and profitable point of view. " 



