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 reason and affect the conduct. To interpret and employ language, even with those who think themselves employed about facts, is consequently one of the chief occupations of all those who have power with their fellowmen, whether their sphere of thought is material or spiritual 'things.' The pretended contrast between thought and words is not valid, especially when used for so sweeping an induction as that made by Professors Cooke and Youmans or President Eliot."

The contrast between words and things is certainly not a pretense but a reality; and we are unable to see how the validity of the induction in this case is in any way dependent upon the sweep of its application. It is claimed by nobody in this controversy that words are unimportant or that language-studies are not of great value; but it is maintained that the things represented are more important than their signs, and Nature-studies of higher value than lingual studies, and the whole issue turns upon the recognition of this fact. Historically, this contrast has been proved to be profound and momentous. In the pre-scientific ages, words were not only put in the place of things, but confounded with them so as to vitiate whole systems of thought as shown in the history of Greek speculation and the scholasticism of the middle ages. The investigation of truth was made to consist in mere verbal manipulations. The Baconian reform in philosophy consisted in demanding that the human mind shall no longer occupy itself in the verbal sphere, but shall break through the barriers of words and study the things they represent. The inductive philosophy began with facts—the observation and investigation of things—and was a new method which has revolutionized knowledge, created the modern sciences, and revealed the order of Nature-It is contrasted with verbal and literary studies, which accept common notions—the loose, vague, crude ideas of ordinary experience—and can not advance and perfect knowledge because it refuses to make facts first and to exercise the mind in their close and careful study. Is a contrast so broad as this, between a fruitless method which kept the mind stationary for centuries and a method so fruitful as to give origin to a vast body of accurate and productive truth, to be regarded as a pretense when it is claimed to be fundamental in education? The verbal system is historic, traditional, popular, and all-prevalent in our systems of mental cultivation. It is proposed by the reformers not to destroy it, but to reduce its exaggerated proportions, and give greater prominence to the systematic study of actual things. The demand is that there shall be a new discipline in education, begun early and pursued thoroughly, by the mastery of given branches of science at first hand. The contrast between words and things must be at any rate held valid for the accomplishment of this reasonable object. That this claim is a moderate and sober one, and has long been firmly held by educators of the highest character, might be shown by quotations from many authorities; Dr, William Whewell thus remarks upon it:

Of the mode in which this culture of the inductive habit of mind, or at least appreciation of the method and its results, is to be promoted—if I might presume to give an opinion—I should say that one obvious mode of effecting this discipline of the mind in induction is, the exact and solid study of some portion of inductive knowledge. I do not mean the mechanical sciences alone, physical astronomy and the like, though these undoubtedly have a prerogative value as the instruments of such a culture; but the like effect will be promoted by the exact and solid study of any portion of the circle of natural sciences; botany, comparative anatomy, geology, chemistry, for instance. But I say the exact and solid knowledge; not a mere verbal knowledge, but a knowledge which is real in its character, though it may be elementary and limited in its extent. The knowledge of which I speak must be a knowledge of things, and not merely of names of things; an acquaintance with the operations and productions of Nature, as they appear to the eye, not merely an acquaintance with what has