THE PLACE OP RESEARCH IN EDUCATION. 745 



If public appreciation of scientific procedure can be secured to even 

 a moderate extent, a complete popular victory for those who press for 

 its introduction must soon follow. The advantages to be derived from 

 the general application of scientific method to the affairs of life are 

 demonstrably so great that when once they are made known at all 

 commonly its adoption will be insisted on. 



Science is but exact knowledge, and there are as many branches of 

 science as there are of exact knowledge. Eemember, however, a loose 

 incoherent body of facts does not constitute a science — a man who is 

 merely possessed of such facts is not scientifically trained. A scientific 

 man is a "knowing man" — not merely a man who knows, but one who 

 is properly described in the terms of the popular expression — he's a 

 knowing fellow — which implies something more than the mere posses- 

 sion of knowledge, namely, the power to use it properly and with effect. 

 There is every difference, in fact, between the scientific and the merely 

 learned man . To be scientific is to be as far as possible exact in thought, 

 deed, and word; to act with a purpose and after due and careful con- 

 sideration; to be observant and thoughtful; to be logical and method- 

 ical; to be guarded but fearless in opinions and judgment; and it is 

 because we are so rarely all these that we are so rarely truly scientific. 



Unfortunately, the word "science" is now associated in the popular 

 mind with certain branches of natural knowledge, and it is because 

 these are generally regarded as of importance only to those whose 

 special business it is to attend to them that the proper application of 

 the term is lost sight of. 



I am not here to speak of science teaching — I do not know what that 

 is — but of scientific teaching; of the method of teaching scientifically — 

 that is to say, exactly and properly. I am really speaking on the very 

 subject on which Professor Herkomer dilated; we are both pleading- 

 one cause although on behalf of somewhat different interests, and mine 

 is the wider plea and will, in fact, include his. He was the advocate 

 of a practical workshop method of art tuition, under a teacher free as 

 well as competent to consider the peculiar qualities and requirements 

 of his pupils; of a method of so training students as to develop to the 

 utmost their individual innate talents, instead of turning out a set of 

 mechanical automata, blind followers of fashion. I desire to urge that 

 whatever we teach, our method shall be scientific, so that students, in 

 proportion to their abilities, may learn to honestly and usefully apply 

 whatever knowledge they may become possessed of. 



Institutions such as this have a great field of usefulness before them 

 if all their work be done from such a standpoint; if it be not they will 

 be absolute and costly failures. I much fear that unless a change in 

 policy, almost amounting to a revolution, take place in many of the 

 schools throughout the country devoted to what we are now pleased to 

 call technical education, the results will be disastrous. 



Let us consider what has been and is being done. Until about 



