August 28, 1885.] 



SCIENCE 



175 



tory stage of theorizing. And, moreover, not theories 

 only, but simple statements of fact believed and dis 

 believed, that is, finally accepted or finally rejected, 

 exhibit the like numerical disproportion, and betray 

 a general carelessness or laziness of observers ; at all 

 events, their manifest lack of appreciation of the 

 value and necessity of the dead-work part of obser- 

 vation, which imperatively must precede any clear 

 mental perception of the simplest phenomenon, be- 

 fore the attempt is made to establish its natural rela- 

 tionships, and present it for acceptance as a part of 

 science. 



A geologist travels far to collect fossils at a particu- 

 larly good locality, stops there a day or two, fills his 

 valise, and returns to publish a paper on it. What 

 is his paper worth? Were he first to spend a week in 

 making himself acquainted with the whole vicinity, 

 a second week in making measured sections of all the 

 cognate outcrops in the neighborhood, a third week 

 in carefully differentiating tbe specific horizons, and 

 a fourth week in verifying their reliability, and in 

 correcting his first mistakes, then, surely, whatever 

 labor he should afterwards expend upon his collection 

 of life-forms would Lave its full value; and any paper 

 he might write would be an important contribution 

 to his branch of science. 



I have known men settle to their own satisfaction 

 some of the greatest problems in geology by a flying 

 reconnoissance; triumphantly overturning a mass of 

 accumulated science slowly brought to demonstra- 

 tion by many years of conscientious dead-work, 

 which they did not seem to think it worth Iheir 

 while to verify. I have known men reclassify the 

 elements of a geological system by a few sections, not 

 a single one of which was properly measured by 

 them, or could be properly put on paper in a graphic 

 form for precise comparison. I have known men 

 make what they called a geological map, without 

 having run a single instrumental line themselves; 

 with every outcrop inaccurately placed; with only 

 here and there an accidental note of strike and dip, 

 and even this not oriented with a close approxima- 

 tion to precision; covering a region requiring the 

 study of many months, with a few weeks of what 

 they fondly called field-work; and basing on such a 

 map generalizations of the fir^t rank, for which they 

 expected the world of science to give them credit; 

 which in the long run it certainly will, but not the 

 kind of credit they anticipate. 



Now, the experience of a long and active life of 

 science has trained me to regard all such work as 

 careless work, lazy work. Not that such workers 

 are lazy men in the common meaning of the word ; 

 on the contrary, they are busy, bustling, active, ener- 

 getic, indefatigable men; in fact, too much so. In 

 science, there is a laziness of quite another definition; 

 namely, a chronic dislike, a deep-seated disability, 

 for the dead-work which first disciplines to accuracy, 

 then makes patient and cautious, and finally be- 

 stows the clearest intelligence and largest compre- 

 hension of phenomena. And this fatal laziness is 

 fostered by a strange misunderstanding, a fancy. 



work of science can be done for us by some one else, 

 so as to save our time and strength for speculation, 

 for thought, for fine writing; can be done by menials, 

 employees, assistants, colleagues, special experts, — 

 by any one rather than by ourselves. Can we not 

 in fact often find it already done for us, and even 

 better done than we could do it? Then, why not let 

 inferior minds occupy themselves with this laborious 

 and time-consuming address of special skill ? Can 

 we not, for instance, hire transit-men to lay out and 

 measure our sections, and artists to draw them? 

 Why should a paleontologist take the pencil between 

 his own fingers in studying species, when he has trained 

 photographers and lithographers at his command? 

 Why waste precious weeks and months in tramping 

 and climbing, in measuring and plotting, while glory 

 calls us, and the scientific world is impatiently wait- 

 ing for our conclusions ? Thus possessed by the de- 

 mon of scientific haste, we continually spoil our own 

 performances, and disappoint the expectant, but not 

 at all impatient world. Could our vanity permit us to 

 know the fact, the impatience is entirely our own, 

 and, if indulged, is sure to be roundly punished. 



No; dead-work cannot be delegated. The man 

 who cannot himself survey and map his field, meas- 

 uie and draw his sections properly, and perfectly 

 represent with his own pencil the characteristic vari- 

 ations of his fossil forms, has no just right to call 

 himself an expert geologist. These are the badges 

 of initiation; and the only guaranties which one can 

 offer to the world of science that one is a competent 

 observer, and a trustworthy generalizer. Nor has 

 one become a true man of science until he has 

 already done a vast amount of this dead-work; nor 

 does one continue in his prime, as a man of science, 

 after he has ceased to bring to this test of his own 

 ability to see, to judge, and to theorize, the working 

 and thinking of other men. But enough of this. 



My second proposition was, that no teacher of sci- 

 ence can be successful who does not himself encoun- 

 ter some of the dead-work of the explorer and dis- 

 coverer; who does not discipline his own faculties of 

 perception, reflection, and generalization, by field- 

 work and office-work, independently of all text-book 

 assistance; who does not himself make at least some 

 of the diagrams, tables, and pictures for his class- 

 room, in as original a spirit, and with as much pre- 

 cision of detail, as if none such had ever been made 

 before, and these were to remain sole monuments of 

 the genius of investigation. What the true teacher 

 has to do first and foremost, is to wake up in youthful 

 minds this spirit of investigation ah hriiio. The cru- 

 sade against scholastic cramming promises to be suc- 

 cessful; but the crusade against pedagogic cramming 

 has hardly yet been organized. How is the scholar 

 to be made an artist if the teacher cannot draw? 

 The instinct of imitation in man is iiresi.^tible. 

 Slovenly drawing on the blackboard — sutficient evi- 

 dence of the teacher's imperfect information and 

 inaccurate conception of facts, the nature of which 

 he only thinks he understands — can do little more 

 than raise a cold fog of suspicion in the class-room, 

 by which the tender sprouts of leaining must be 



