44 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 524. 



doubt aud prophets of evil are slowly dis- 

 appeariug. They are more numerous out- 

 side thau inside academic walls, they are 

 less strenuous in large than in small col- 

 leges, and they are no longer dominant in 

 the best universities. From a philosophic 

 point of view they illustrate the action of 

 a most interestnig and usually beneficial 

 sociological principle. When consciously 

 applied tliis principle may be called the law 

 of rational conservatism. When uncon- 

 sciously applied it may be called, in anal- 

 ogy with a great physical principle, the 

 law of conservation of ignorance. It is so 

 much more important for society to protect 

 itself against the follies of the unwise than 

 it is to profit by the improvements of the 

 wise, that progress comes, generally, only 

 painfully slowly. May we not entertain 

 the hypothesis that the contemporary op- 

 ponents of educational reforms have been 

 animated towards them rather uncon- 

 sciously than consciously? Having drunk 

 deeply at certain fountains of learning, 

 they appear to be sure that there are no 

 others. They seem to Jiave been, and to 

 be, always receding. For more than a 

 thousand years, in fact, the gaze of most 

 scholars has been fixed so steadfastly on 

 the glories of the past that it has been pos- 

 sible to advance only by marching back- 

 wards. 



Through the unconscious action of the 

 law of the conservation of ignorance we 

 are always in danger of disproportionate 

 estimates of educational values and of er- 

 roneous judgments in the larger affairs of 

 life. We involuntarily revert to precedent, 

 commending what is old, condemning what 

 is new. Thus, to give a concrete illustra- 

 tion, fear and panic would be visible in our 

 faces if we did not understand the mythical 

 significance of the names Phobos and Dei- 

 mos lately applied to the moons of the 

 planet Mars ; but very few of us would be- 

 tray the slightest mental disquietude at our 



profound lack of knowledge of the prop- 

 erties of the atmosphere which is the me- 

 dium of communication between you and 

 me in this room. Thus, also, in spite of 

 the obvious aphorism that all men are hu- 

 man, they have been divided into human- 

 ists and non-humanists, jMatthew Arnold, 

 for example, being one of the former, and 

 the founder of our John Tyndall Fellow- 

 ship being one of the latter. And stranger 

 still, one might infer from the slowness of 

 legal and constitutional reforms, and from 

 many current arguments opposed thereto, 

 that laws and constitutions are not made 

 by men for men, but that, in some mys- 

 terioi;s way, men are merely experimental 

 material for the training of crafty lawyers 

 and sagacious politicians. 



But we have broken irrevocably with the 

 past ; not in the sense of disregarding the 

 rich heritage of experience from our dis- 

 tinguished predecessors, but in the sense 

 that their customs and traditions no longer 

 dominate us. We have corrected their 

 observations for geocentric parallax ; and 

 we must now correct their observations for 

 anthropocentric parallax, just as our suc- 

 cessors, if they prove progressive, will 

 surely correct our blunders and avoid our 

 errors. The need of corrections for an- 

 thropocentric parallax in educational af- 

 fairs is now widely recognized. It leads 

 to the investigations of ]\Iosely Commis- 

 sions, to the conferences of the Association 

 of American Universities, and to the broad- 

 er conferences of world's fair congresses. 

 It is the chief soiirce of the educational 

 activities of our day. In these activities 

 are to be seen the most hopeful signs of 

 the times; for while agitation does not 

 necessarily mean progress, serene content- 

 ment is pretty certain to mean stagnation, 

 if not regress. 



And the readjustment now going on in 

 the academic world must continue. It is a 

 part, simply, of the readjustment going on 



