Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/418

404, put on the same footing as drilling or drawing, while it can and ought to be made as much a discipline as the Latin grammar or Euclid, affording as it does, in my opinion, if properly taught, an excellent training-ground for acquiring that reasoning power and habit of application which it is usually supposed can only be gained through one or other of these older channels. . . . The Balliol scholarship and the other great university 'advertisements' I believe to be in many ways stumbling-blocks in the path of true education in this country. . . . Are we never to break loose from this degrading Moloch of examination? I.. . look forward with hope to the ultimate emancipation of school-boys from their ancient fetters. Then those subjects will be taught at school which are best suited to make the mass of boys good citizens, and to forward the highest interests of the country instead of the great aim of the schoolmaster being to secure a Balliol scholarship."

His views of the scope, objects, and benefits of science were presented in his address at the opening of the new building of Owens College, Manchester, in 1873, the subject of which was "Original Research as a Means of Education," when he said:

"It does not take long to convince us that almost every great material advance in modern civilization is due, not to the occurrence of hap-hazard or fortuitous circumstances, but to the long-continued and disinterested efforts of some man of science. Nor do I need to quote many examples to show us the immediate dependence of the national well-being and progress upon scientific discoveries thus patiently and quietly made."

In other parts of this address he laid down these principles:

"The essence of the scientific spirit is, first, that it is free and disinterested; second, that it knows nothing of tradition or authority, but lays down laws for itself, and refuses to be bound by any others. Scientific education starts in simple communion with Nature, and is content to pick up little by little the truth which she is always ready to communicate to patient listeners. The process is at once opposed to and, if successfully carried out, subversive of the old order of things. Between a system based on authority and one founded on freedom of thought and opinion, there never can be united action; and, while fully acknowledging that intellectual and moral excellence are common to all classes of men, it is as well that we should admit that the followers of the old system have no claim to be called scientific, and that there is, from the nature of things, a great and impassable gulf between us and them. I must, however, here be not misunderstood. It would ill become me. . . to undervalue or depreciate the study of subjects other than those included under the head of the physical sciences. Literary studies, whether of modern or ancient authors, giving an acquaintance with the noblest thoughts and opinions of the great men of past ages; historical studies, giving us a knowledge of the acts of men in times