768 Seience-Teaching in the Schools. 
It would be obviously a waste of time to discuss the practical 
utility of the sciences of nature. In this age of steam and elec- 
tricity—this age of aniline dyes and anesthetics and antiseptics— 
this age when science is multiplying comforts and conveniences 
and amenities, stamping out zymotic diseases, and largely increas- 
ing the duration of the life which it beatifies and ennobles—no one 
is so stupid as to deny the utility of scientific knowledge. 
A few words may with propriety be said in regard to the disci- 
plinary value of the study of the natural sciences, for in some 
minds still lingers the superstition that no studies are disciplinary 
except languages and mathematics. 
The natural sciences are unique in their power of training the 
perceptive faculties. When these sciences are rightly taught, the 
student is brought face to face with natural phenomenon, which he 
is required to observe and describe. The perceptive faculties are 
not, indeed, the highest of human faculties, but they are by no 
means to be despised. A student who has learned to observe and 
describe correctly so simple a matter as the form of a leaf, has 
gained a power which will be of lifelong value, whatever may be 
his sphere of professional employment. If the student is required 
to write descriptions of observed phenomena, there may be gained 
incidentally a discipline in perspicuity and precision of expression, 
which will be of no trifling value. 
The natural history sciences afford an unrivaled training to the 
powers of comparison and classification. Sometimes, indeed, these 
sciences have been called distinctively the classificatory sciences: 
They have been (at least since the publication of Darwin’s epoch- 
making work) vastly more than mere classifications. They are 
truly dynamical sciences, revealing the processes whereby organie 
nature has attained its present state. But they are nevertheless 
a very important sense classificatory sciences. In no other class 5 
subjects has classification been so minutely elaborated. No studen 
can learn to marshal the array of species into genera, families, 
orders, classes, and sub-kingdoms, as men are marshaled ps d 
companies, regiments, brigades, and divisions of a well-disciplin 
army, without acquiring a more systematic habit of thought on ze 
subject which may engage his attention. But the cavont a 
natural history classification is not the only feature of value m 
