SCIENCE.-Supplement. 



FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1886. 



THE PHYSICAL LABORATORY IN MODERN 

 EDUCATION. 1 



From the moment we are born into this world, 

 down to the day when we leave it, we are called 

 upon every moment to exercise our judgment with 

 respect to matters pertaining to our welfare. 

 While nature has supplied us with instincts which 

 take the place of reason in our infancy, and which 

 form the basis of action in very many persons 

 through life, yet more and more as the world 

 progresses, and as we depart from the age of 

 childhood, we are forced to discriminate between 

 right and wrong, between truth and falsehood. 

 No longer can we shelter ourselves behind those 

 in authority over us, but we must come to the 

 front, and each one decide for himself what to 

 believe and how to act in the daily routine and 

 the emergencies of life. This is not given to us 

 as a duty which we can neglect, if we please, but 

 it is that which every man or woman, consciously 

 or unconsciously, must go through with. 



Most persons cut this gordian knot, which they 

 cannot untangle, by accepting the opinions which 

 have been taught them, and which appear correct 

 to their particular circle of friends and associates : 

 others take the opposite extreme, and, with in- 

 tellectual arrogance, seek to build up their opin- 

 ions and beliefs from the very foundation, indi- 

 vidually and alone, without help from others. 

 Intermediate between these two extremes comes 

 the man with full respect for the opinions of those 

 around him, and yet with such discrimination 

 that he sees a chance of error in all, and most of 

 all in himself. He has a longing for the truth, 

 and is willing to test himself, to test others, and 

 to test nature, until he finds it. He has the cour- 

 age of his opinions when thus carefully formed, 

 and is then, but not till then, willing to stand 

 before the world and proclaim what he considers 

 the truth. Like Galileo and Copernicus, he in- 

 augurates a new era in science, or, like Luther, 

 in the religious belief of mankind. He neither 

 shrinks within himself at the thought of having 

 an opinion of his own, nor yet believes it to be 

 the only one worth considering in the world ; he 

 is neither crushed with intellectual humility, nor 



1 Address delivered at the tenth anniversary of the 

 Johns Hopkins university. 



yet exalted with intellectual pride ; he sees that 

 the problems of nature and society can be solved, 

 and yet he knows that this can only come about 

 by the combined intellect of the world acting 

 through ages of time, and that he, though his 

 intellect were that of Newton, can, at best, do 

 very little toward it. Knowing this, he seeks all 

 the aids in his power to ascertain the truth ; and 

 if he, through either ambition or love of truth, 

 wishes to impress his opinions on the world, he 

 first takes care to have them correct. Above all, 

 he is willing to abstain from having opinions on 

 subjects of which he knows nothing. 



It is the province of modern education to form 

 such a mind, while at the same time giving to it 

 enough knowledge to have a broad outlook over 

 the world of science, art, and letters. Time will 

 not permit me to discuss the subject of education 

 in general, and, indeed, I w-ould be transgressing 

 the principles above laid down if I should attempt 

 it. I shall only call attention, at this present 

 time, to the place of the laboratory in modern 

 education. I have often had a great desire to 

 know the state of mind of the more eminent 

 of mankind before modern science changed the 

 world to its present condition, and exercised its 

 influence on all departments of knowledge and 

 speculation. But I have failed to picture to my- 

 self clearly such a mind ; while, at the same time, 

 the study of human nature, as it exists at present, 

 shows me much that I suppose to be in common 

 with it. As far as I can see, the unscientific mind 

 differs from the scientific in this, that it is willing 

 to accept and make statements of which it has 

 no clear conception to begin with, and of whose 

 truth it is not assured. It is an irresponsible 

 state of mind without clearness of conception, 

 where the connection between the thought and 

 its object is of the vaguest description. It is 

 the state of mind where opinions are given and 

 accepted without ever being subjected to rigid 

 tests, and it may have some connection with that 

 state of mind where every thing has a personal 

 aspect, and we are guided by feelings rather than 

 reason. 



When, by education, we attempt to correct 

 these faults, it is necessary that we have some 

 standard of absolute truth ; that we bring the 

 mind in direct contact with it, and let it be con- 

 vinced of its errors again and again. We may 

 state, like the philosophers who lived before 



