Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/523

Rh laws of Nature, let them study physics and astronomy, where observation, common sense, and mathematics go hand in hand. The object of education is not only to produce a man who knows, but one who does; who makes his mark in the struggle of life, and succeeds well in whatever he undertakes; who can solve the problems of Nature and of humanity as they arise, and who, when he knows he is right, can boldly convince the world of the fact. Men of action are needed as well as men of thought.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is the point in which much of our modern education fails. Why is it? I answer that the memory alone is trained, and the reason and judgment are used merely to refer matters to some authority who is considered final; and, worse than all, they are not trained to apply their knowledge constantly. To produce men of action they must be trained in action. If the languages be studied, they must be made to translate from one language to the other until they have perfect facility in the process. If mathematics be studied, they must work problems, more problems, and problems again, until they have the use of what they know. If they study the sciences, they must enter the laboratory and stand face to face with Nature; they must learn to test their knowledge constantly and thus see for themselves the sad results of vague speculation; they must learn by direct experiment that there is such a thing in the world as truth, and that their own mind is most liable to error. They must try experiment after experiment, and work problem after problem, until they become men of action and not of theory.

This, then, is the use of the laboratory in general education, to train the mind in right modes of thought by constantly bringing it in contact with absolute truth, and to give it a pleasant and profitable method of exercise which will call all its powers of reason and imagination into play. Its use in the special training of scientists needs no remark, for it is well known that it is absolutely essential. The only question is whether the education of specialists in science is worth undertaking at all, and of these I have only to consider natural philosophers or physicists. I might point to the world around me, to the steam-engine, to labor-saving machinery, to the telegraph, to all those inventions which make the present age the "Age of Electricity," and let that be my answer. Nobody could gainsay that the answer would be complete, for all are benefited by these applications of science, and he would be considered absurd who did not recognize their value. These follow in the train of physics, but they are not physics; the cultivation of physics brings them and always will bring them, for the selfishness of mankind can always be relied upon to turn all things to profit. But in the education pertaining to a university we look for other results. The special physicist trained there must be taught to cultivate his science for its own sake. He must go forth into the world with enthusiasm for it, and try to draw others into an appreciation of it, doing his part to