906 Science-Teaching in the Schools. 
ject and the time and means at the disposal of the teacher may 
allow, mental discipline must be secured by having the student 
tread for himself the path of observation and experiment, compar- 
ison and inference. 
This difficulty in science-teaching is somewhat relieved by the 
consideration that a single fact learned by actual observation or 
experiment, serves to render real the knowledge of allied facts made 
known by the second-hand process of description, which would 
otherwise be shadowy and unsubstantial. The student who has 
made a few quantitative determinations in chemical analysis, under- 
stands the meaning of the analyses which he finds in books. The 
student who has handled the bones of one animal, can read intelli- 
gently the description of other skeletons. 
In conclusion, I would most emphatically repeat that a plea for 
the study of natural science is not a plea against other studies, All 
the studies which have a place in the educational course, have their 
place by reason of their capacity to afford sound mental discipline 
and useful knowledge. All true education is broadening and liber- 
alizing in its tendency. Whatever the special studies which natural 
tastes or professional plans may lead the student to pursue in 
the later years of his educational course, or whatever the pursuits 
in which he may engage after leaving school, he will have learned, - 
if rightly taught, an appreciative respect for all the great branches 
of study in which the human intellect has engaged. He will not 
despise the study of languages, bringing him into communion with 
the great minds of other ages and other nations; nor the study of 
language, interpreting the structure and development of earth’s 
myriad tongues. He will feel the dignity of that pure truth which 
is embodied in mathematics, and will appreciate the immense utility 
of the applications of mathematics in the arts of a material civili- 
zation. He will have learned in due time that he has a soul as well 
as a body; and will appreciate the study of the human mind, er 
revealed to the direct gaze of consciousness, or as expressing 1 
in literature and history. And the double world of sensation and 
consciousness will disclose to him its highest meaning, in the reve- 
lation of Him : 
“ Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.” 
