Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/227

Rh the seed, which he then moves into it, and, when the growth is completed, he moves the result, and thereby makes his harvest.

The same may be said of every other operation. Man alters the position of physical things in such wise that the forces of Nature shall operate upon them and produce the changes or other results that he requires.

My reasons for this introductory digression will be easily understood, as this view of the doings of man and the doings of Nature displays fundamentally the business of human education, so far as the physical proceedings and physical welfare of mankind are concerned.

It clearly points out two well-marked natural divisions of such education: education or training in the movements to be made, and education in a knowledge of the consequences of such movements—i. e., in a knowledge of the forces of Nature which actually do the work when man has suitably arranged the materials.

The education ordinarily given to apprentices in the workshop, or the field, or the studio—or, as relating to my present subject, the kitchen—is the first of these; the second, and equally necessary, being simply and purely the teaching of physical science as applied to the arts.

I can not proceed any further without a protest against a very general (so far as this country is concerned) misuse of a now very popular term—a misuse that is rather surprising, seeing that it is accepted by scholars who have devoted the best of their intellectual efforts to the study of words. I refer to the word technical as applied in the designation "technical education."

So long as our workshops are separated from our science-schools and colleges, it is most desirable, in order to avoid continual circumlocution, to have terms that shall properly distinguish between the work of the two, and admit of definite and consistent use. The two words are ready at hand, and, although of Greek origin, have become by analogous usage plain, simple English. I mean the words technical and technological.

The Greek noun techne signifies an art, trade, or profession, and our established usage of this root is in accordance with this signification. Therefore "technical education" is a suitable and proper designation of the training which is given to apprentices, etc., in the strictly technical details of their trades, arts, or professions. When we require a name for the science or the philosophy of anything, we obtain it by using the Greek root logos, and appending it in English form to the Greek name of the general subject, as geology, the science of the earth; anthropology, the science of man; biology, the science of life, etc.

Why not, then, follow this general usage, and adopt "technology" as the science of trades, arts, or professions, and thereby obtain consistent and convenient terms to designate the two divisions of