SEA SAND. 
fragments of Scarboro’ sand. I suspect that the rain washes 
the salt out of sandhills, making the sand habitable for plants, 
and that ages of percolating water might also remove the less 
soluble limestone. It is remarkable that the limestone is 
practically absent in the beds of sand already referred to at 
Strensall, Catton, Sand Hutton, and near the York Water¬ 
works. 
Not very long ago, a few winged words whispered in the 
audience reached the ear of a lecturer. The speaker wondered 
what the poor man did it all for, perhaps it was his hobby. 
In the present case it is partly the poor man’s hobby, and 
partly he is daily concerned in trying to use the methods of 
scientific research as a means of education. It is not here 
proposed to weigh the relative values of Science and of Litera¬ 
ture. What gives Science its dignity in the curriculum is 
that it is a part of a larger whole. As an element of instruction 
Science has been praised for having added to the older com¬ 
forts of life, the telephone, the motor car, and the lyddite 
shell; and as helping to maintain the commercial supremacy 
of every nation that has not learnt to measure a man’s wealth 
by the multitude of things which he can do without. 
Instead of dwelling on the triumphant achievements of 
Science in the recent past, it has seemed wiser to get our 
pupils to tackle for themselves some real inquiries, however 
trivial, in which the answer is not a forgone conclusion. 
Because apart from the results of Scientific inquiry, the 
process and methods of research are slowly but profoundly 
influencing the habits of thought in our age. The great care 
spent in avoiding errors, the patient repetition of experiments, 
the averaging of results, the tentative hold on final figures, 
the fertile use made of imagination and theory to illuminate 
and explore the surrounding darkness, whilst judgment on the 
truth of such theories is still suspended—all these influences 
are conspiring to spread a philosophic tone and temper of 
thought which must breed a different attitude of mind to the 
far greater problems, political, social, and religious, which 
stretch unsolved before us, and to which we are still as Sir 
Isaac Newton said :—Like children playing with pebbles on 
the sea shore, whilst the great ocean of truth lies unexplored 
in front of us. 
