Science-Teaching in the Schools. 769 
connection. The student is continually taught to distinguish not 
only degrees but kinds of resemblance and difference,—to distinguish 
those features of structure which are adaptive and superficial from 
those which are typical and fundamental,—to distinguish analogies 
from homologies. No one can learn to recognize the mammalian 
character of a whale under the disguise of its fish-like form, or to 
recognize the crustacean character of a barnacle under the disguise 
of its oyster-like shell, without becoming in general a sounder 
thinker, 
The sciences of nature afford a valuable discipline to the reason- 
ing faculties. Educators have always endeavored to afford a two- 
fold training in reasoning—a passive discipline, by requiring the 
student to familiarize himself with examples of reasoning recorded 
in the works of great thinkers ; and an active discipline, by submit- 
ting to the student problems for solution, which, if not new to the 
human intellect in general, are at least new to the intellect of the 
particular student. The study of mathematics has always, and 
deservedly, been highly esteemed for the facilities which it offers 
for both these kinds of training. But the sciences of nature also 
have their splendid examples of reasoning. An intelligent study 
of Darwin’s “ Origin of Species” is perhaps not inferior as a logical 
praxis to the study of elementary geometry. Indeed, in one respect 
the former is superior, for the reasoning of natural sciences is more 
nearly akin than that of mathematics to the reasoning of practical 
life. And the sciences of nature have their problems in which the 
reasoning faculties of the student may find an active discipline. 
Every laboratory experiment should be an exercise in reasoning as 
well as in observation. A logical interpretation should be required 
as much as an accurate description of the phenomena. Moreover, 
the continual inculcation of the doctrine which is the very key- 
note of science—the doctrine that there is no such thing as chance 
—that all events are linked together in chains of cause and effect— 
1s itself an education in philosophical thinking and in rational 
acting, 
Not to be ignored is the influence of the natural sciences on the 
esthetic nature. There are indeed some scientific men—animated 
cases of dissecting tools and locomotive microseopes—who can con- 
template nature without admiring her. But, for most of those 
