64 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 12a 



HUMANISM IN THE STUDY OF 

 NATURE. 



In a liberal education we must hereafter rec- 

 ognize a twofold division of our labor. On 

 the one hand will be placed those studies which 

 serve the purpose of humanizing the youth, 

 i.e., of bringing him into a state of sympathy 

 with his fellow-mortals ; and, on the other, the 

 studies which will serve to give the required 

 measure of knowledge concerning the unhu- 

 man world, — the realm of physical and organic 

 nature. The great profit of the present dis- 

 cussions concerning education has been found 

 in the fact that it has brought this dual char- 

 acter of the work of education clearly into 

 view. 



What, however, has this lower world of 

 facts to give, that can be of such value that the 

 student is told to turn from the field of man 

 for its study ? 



We will pass quickly by the commonest ar- 

 gument, tjnhuman nature, say many, con- 

 cerns us because we have to live in it : it is a 

 great engine, whose power may grind our grists, 

 or whose merciless wheels may crush out our 

 lives. Master its movements, that you may 

 have power at your command ; keep your frail 

 self from its dangers, that you may live long. 

 This is the way that some look upon the outer 

 world. It is a sensible view, but in itself it 

 little concerns the problem of education. From 

 this point of view, nature is for the economist, 

 for the practical man. 



But for the purposes of a general education, 

 the realm of nature beyond human interests 

 should be approached with the view, first, to 

 get some sound general idea of the construc- 

 tion of this realm, and its relations to the life 

 of man in the largest sense of that life ; next, 

 to secure some clear sense of the nature of 

 scientific evidence ; and, lastl}^, to gain an idea 

 of the order and control which exists in the 

 extra-human world. 



Purely human education is deficient in per- 

 spectives : it finds man as man ; it considers 

 his relations to his fellows, and leaves him sep- 

 arated from the universe, alone amid a world 

 of physical and organic life. But to secure a 

 sound understanding of man's place in nature, 

 we must give the student some general ideas 

 as to the ways of that nature. 



This end should be secured by studies which 

 begin with the human body and its functions, 

 and afterwards extend progressively farther 

 and farther away. We have thus the help of the 

 human interest which surrounds our own per- 

 sonal afiTairs, and extends, through immediate 



sympathy, to the lower world of living things ► 

 The elements of human anatomy and physiol- 

 ogy should be the first thread to guide the stu- 

 dent to the world beyond man. This may 

 profitably lead to the study, in outline, of or- 

 ganic life below man, — a study which should 

 aim at a cleat understanding of a few lower 

 animals and a limited number of plants. Af- 

 ter the student has some accurate knowledge of 

 the bodily parts and functions of a cat, a bird, 

 a frog, and a fish, his mind is prepared to re- 

 ceive a little general truth given in words con- 

 cerning the vertebrated animals. In the same 

 way, an insect, a lobster, and a worm will give 

 the basis for understanding the articulate ani- 

 mals ; a snail, a clam, and a squid will show 

 him his wa}^ to an understanding of the mol- 

 luscan affinities ; and so on. In the plants, a 

 seaweed, a fungus, a fern, and an ordinary 

 flowering plant, will, if well known, serve tO' 

 make real a great many important general facts 

 which have to be presented in a didactic fash- 

 ion. In this teaching, constant effort should 

 be made to give the matter a human interest 

 by referring to man's body and habits, or his 

 physical relation to the lower world, for com- 

 parison or illustration. 



The next step will necessarily take the stu- 

 dent into the realm of geolog}^, or earth-history. 

 Here the world of our day should be shown 

 with especial reference to its relations to hu- 

 man life and its development. It is easy so to 

 knit the considerations of the existing condi- 

 tions of the earth with the interests of man. 

 Over the bridge of human sympathies we may 

 easily find a way for the student into the wider 

 realm of the world-life. Climate may be stud- 

 ied with reference to human history, or the 

 geographical distribution of organic beings, 

 including man ; volcanoes and earthquakes, 

 with reference to their effects on the life of our 

 species : so nearly every department of the 

 earth's history may be made to have a relation 

 to the natural human interests which the child 

 brings with it to the study of the outer world. 

 I know that there are those who will object to 

 the anthropocentric, the over-humanized view 

 of nature which this form of teaching tends ta 

 inculcate ; but to the mass of men this is a 

 necessary way of looking at* the world. The 

 worst failures in teaching science have come 

 from a neglect of the all-important fact that 

 nature is to most minds only interesting be- 

 cause of its relations to man. It may be — 

 but may a merciful Providence defend us from 

 the evil — that in time many children will be 

 born to whom crj^stals are as interesting as 

 human lives, and a geological period as full of 



