Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/180

174 it was formerly taught, and particularly in grammar, which, I believe, is not now made so much of as formerly in common schools. The education which represses curiosity and inquisitiveness, and only educates memory for words, makes learned men of the pedantic kind; so far it discourages and neglects the discipline of the research quality. The fact that the classical system of education trains the study quality to the neglect of research does not, however, diminish the importance of the kind of training it supplies as a fitting for a man for research. It is the neglected part to which attention is directed. I know of no better kind of discipline in study than the thorough and refined methods of the old classical system, supplemented by an early and continuous use of science. It is the neglect of this method which makes the slipshod, careless work which all scientific scholars regret, and unfits many students of science for successful investigation or research. This discipline produces results which may be likened to the tempering of steel, which shows after the steel is hammered into shape and sharpened for its specific purposes. The man who lacks this tempering is incapable of holding the keen edge, or of making the fine and far-reaching discriminations, which a mind well tempered by the rigid discipline of the classical system has acquired.

From the objective side research is the attacking of unsolved problems, the examination of facts undescribed and unexplored, the seeking for truths imagined, but not hitherto formulated. New discoveries of truths, the correction of partial statements of truth, the formation and formulations of new conceptions, these are the results of research. What are the disciplines which foster research?

The first requisite in the discipline required for successful research is the keeping alive of the original faculty of inquisitiveness. It must not be stifled while the student is being taught language and the content of language from the books.

The second point is that the method of exact study must be thoroughly acquired, and applied in a wide field of knowledge, whatever may be the particular field of original research later to be chosen. One of the greatest difficulties met with in selecting men to take up original research in particular fields (as brought to light in the deliberations of the Carnegie Institution) is to find men sufficiently well trained to be competent to go on without guidance in new and untried fields. It is also a great mistake, since it necessarily leads to later disappointment, to tempt, or allow, unripe men to try their hand at deep problems of research—to putter over serious problems which the expert and experienced hand knowingly hesitates to attempt. There is no better way to acquire this part of the discipline than by a thorough classical training, such as might be given in what is called an arts course in our college, with a carefully selected and systematically