Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/182

 in geology; and with how much more of justice might that line of Pope—

have been applied to Tyndall than to Lord Mansfield, had Tyndall also cultivated the muses! And yet it is safe to say that neither Hugh Miller nor Tyndall, by rivaling some of the first poets of the day, would have acquired as much honor, and, what is of far more importance, would have been of as much service to the world, as in filling so worthily and performing so honestly the respective spheres of scientific labor assigned to each of them.

Besides opening up such an avenue to men of real genius, the pursuit of science, when properly understood, is far more attractive and more in harmony with their tastes than can possibly be the cultivation of an art already touched by the hand of decay, and passing into the limbo of faded and effete systems. In the pursuit of science we go in quest of natural laws that there is every reason for believing are almost innumerable and inexhaustible; in poetry, the search is for phantoms of the imagination which, ten to one, have already flitted across other minds and been appropriated by them. In science, we search for the real, oftentimes more wonderful and beautiful than the most splendid visions; in poetry we search for the ideal, which, if it be new, now almost impossible, fails to command admiration, unless it be set before us in the most pleasing colors, and in a style of the highest finish. This elaborate toilet being unnecessary, though admissible to some extent in the treatment of scientific subjects, more range is given to the reason and less to the discursive faculties. And herein lies one of the chief advantages of the scientific method. While giving sufficient rein to the imagination to keep it in healthy exercise, it makes use of the reflective and perceptive powers in an eminent degree. Hence it engenders the greatest strength and breadth of the intellect; and it is no exaggeration to say that, if all other methods were abandoned, the study of science alone is capable of raising the mind to the loftiest possible standard of development.

Sooner or later educational institutions must take notice of this fact, and give it the heed its vast importance deserves. It seems impossible that a few narrow-minded patrons and disciples of the old system, watching at the gates, should much longer shut out from our seminaries of learning that great herald of freedom, of reform, and of progress, panoplied in the armor of truth, who has already dethroned so many idols of the forum, the pulpit, and the market-place, and who stands ready, on entering these seminaries, to perform a similar lustration. And nothing needs it more. Palsied almost by a régime which administers public instruction on pretty much the same plan upon which wars are conducted in some of the countries of the Old World—that is, without adopting either the new discipline or the new arms