126 SCIENCE AND CULTURE 



'criticism of life unless we understand the extent to which 

 that criticism was affected by scientific conceptions. We 

 falsely pretend to be the inheritors of their culture, un- 

 less we are penetrated, as the best minds among them 

 were, with an unhesitating faith that the free employ- 

 ment of reason, in accordance with scientific method, is 

 the sole method of reaching truth. 



Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our 

 modern Humanists to the possession of the monopoly of 

 culture and to the exclusive inheritance of the spirit of 

 antiquity must be abated, if not abandoned. But I 

 should be very sorry that anything I have said should 

 be taken to imply a desire on my part to depreciate the 

 /value of classical education, as it might be and as it 

 sometimes is. The native capacities of mankind vary 

 no less than their opportunities; and while culture is] 

 one, the road by which one man may best reach it is| 

 widely different from that which is most advantageous to 

 another. Again, while scientific education is yet in- 

 choate and tentative, classical education is thoroughly 

 well organised upon the practical experience of genera- 

 tions of teachers. So that, given ample time for learn- j 

 ing and estimation for ordinary life, or for a literary! 

 career, I do not think that a young Englishman in) 

 search of culture can do better than follow the course! 

 usually marked out for him, supplementing its deficiencies 

 by his own efforts. 



But for those who mean to make science their serious 

 occupation; or who intend to follow the profession of 

 medicine; or who have to enter early upon the business 

 of life; for all these, in my opinion, classical education 

 is a mistake; and it is for this reason that I am glad 

 to see "mere literary education and instruction" shut out 

 from the curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason's College, 

 seeing that its inclusion would probably lead to the 



