HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 
the character of the training, often, to his 
mind, in the department to which he has 
given his life, fatally deficient, tending toward 
artificiality and veneer, as well as toward a 
certain specialized one-sidedness. He has 
taken his place in the world on this point 
alongside many other men of prominence 
who are now secretly or openly opposed to 
certain superficial tendencies in modern edu- 
cational life, and stands for such a revision 
of curricula as shall leave the average college 
and university graduate master of certain 
essential fundamentals of which too often 
he is lamentably ignorant. In discussing the 
moral and religious influence of science, 
Herbert Spencer takes occasion to quote 
Tyndall on inductive inquiry, and the latter’s 
words are so illustrative of the life of Mr. 
Burbank that they are here quoted: 
“Inductive inquiry requires patient in- 
dustry and an humble and conscientious 
acceptance of what Nature reveals. The 
first condition of success is an honest recep- 
tivity and a willingness to abandon all 
preconceived notions, however cherished, if 
they be found to contradict the truth. Believe 
359 
