Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/721

Rh are to-day. We combat them successfully by knowledge: that is evident; and it is not evident, nor, indeed, is there a scintilla of proof, that we combat them successfully by anything else. Of course, if we choose, we may believe without evidence; but whether it is wise to force belief in this manner, or to allow it to be dominated by mere sentiment, each one must decide for himself. To us it seems the part not of wisdom only, but in a true sense—the truest sense—of piety also, to take the world as we find it; to acknowledge, with Matthew Arnold, that

 Limits we did not set Condition all we do";

and then to apply ourselves with all the courage and energy we can command to making the best of the conditions we find prevailing. The more adverse those conditions, the more scope there is for the active brain and resolute will. The intellectual advancement of the civilized man of our day is a measure of the difficulties he has faced and overcome. The most wholesome view, therefore, to take of an unfavorable season is to regard it as an obstacle thrown by the constitution of nature in the way of human effort, but an obstacle which, by developing patience and stimulating reflection, may itself be productive of good results. It is doubtless hard to be philosophical when severe pecuniary loss is staring one in the face; but it may not be amiss to reflect that what to-day is a matter of not irremediable loss might, in days when faith was more active but knowledge more scanty and co-operation less developed, have meant actual death by starvation. It is something to live in an age and belong to a community in which industrious men do not starve, even in the worst of times. If, therefore, we can not command the weather, let us make the best of such weather as we can get, and strive by forethought, by energy, by co-operation with our fellows, to establish more and more effectual compensations for the inequality of the seasons and whatever other disadvantages may be inseparable from our existence on a globe which probably was not fashioned solely with a view to our comfort.

"Popular Miscellany" last month contained two paragraphs in which were embodied some excellent thoughts on the value and purpose of technical education, or "hand-training," in schools. The analysis of the real object of the instruction given by Prof. Le Conte so clearly indicates the direction which the teaching should take, and the tendencies it should encourage, that it may well be referred to again.

As drawing should be taught. Prof. Le Conte affirms, not for making artists, but for training the brain through eye and hand, so hand-work instruction should be given with a similar aim, rather than for making carpenters and blacksmiths. While in biology the training is mainly of the brain through the senses, in hand-work it is mainly of the brain through the hand. If the former is mainly observing and thinking, the other is mainly thinking and doing. It is impossible to doubt the importance of hand-training from this point of view. The absolute necessity of the use of the hand in the brain-culture of the child, and the importance of the use of instruments of research in the best scientific culture of the university, are now admitted by all. But in the wide space between these extremes of the educational course—viz., in the school and the college—this great agent of culture is wholly left out. Now, it may be assumed as certain that for every grade of culture, whether of the individual or of the race, there is a corresponding grade of hand-work necessary for the best brain-development. In the child of pre-school age, and in the savage, it is the simple use of the hand, or of the hand assisted by rude implements. In