SCIENTIFIC TEACHING. 
249 
nolentes volcntes , a certain quantity of poetry ! — God save tlie 
mark! — in the Latin and Greek tongues. lie can well re- 
member his father’s remonstrance on finding him working at 
‘ that nasty chemistry, when you have not done your Latin 
verses.’ Perhaps the most singular travestie of teaching was 
the inculcation of that laboriously useless heap of conflict- 
ing rules termed the ‘ Greek Accents.’ It was w r ell known 
to every scholar that they were non-existent in classical times ; 
that they were probably prosodiacal ; that they sprang up about 
the time when Greek was going out of use as a spoken lan- 
guage ; and that, except in very few instances, they now served 
no purpose whatever. In spite of this, they were steadily and 
perseveringly thrust down the throats of schoolboys, insomuch 
that ignorance of the hideous pedantry of a mediaeval gram- 
marian might involve the pain and humiliation of corporal 
punishment. 
That all, or most, of this has been swept away is ground for 
unmixed satisfaction. But it does not absolutely follow that 
what is being substituted for it is beyond comment or improve- 
ment. There may be errors and pedantries developing in the 
new as in the older system. Nor are they difficult to point 
out. 
The teaching of science has tended to give an impulse to 
the computative, to the disadvantage of the judicial and appre- 
ciative functions of students’ minds. Indeed the computa- 
tive faculty, so highly developed at times, in men not otherwise 
liberally educated, is not the widest in intellectual scope, nor 
the fittest preparation for some branches of life-work. Men in 
after-life are* called upon to use their imaginative powers, to 
sift evidence, and to weigh symptoms, as well as to solve pro- 
blems. They may adopt artistic or literary pursuits, they may 
choose the professions of Law or of Medicine. In all these, the 
attempt to reduce the subject-matter laid before them to the 
strict conditions of an equation or a ratio, so far from being a 
fruitful mental effort, may absolutely prove a hindrance. 
There is a common type of mind which fails to see a proof 
which is not of the character of demonstration, and which, in 
its absence, neglects to use the faculty of judgment and decision 
so necessary in the common affairs of business. 
The computing school, and especially those who teach its 
Physical branches, very correctly and consistently insist upon the 
solving of problems as a test of thorough knowledge. Mr. Day, 
whose work appears to be mainly performed ‘ in the laboratory 
of King’s College, under the direction of Professor Adams,’ in 
an excellent collection of questions upon Electrical Measure- 
ment, says : — ‘ It is now universally admitted that numerical 
exercises are necessary in the study of the experimental 
