Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/333

 Rh everything, but nothing particular about the subject he discusses, is competent to give sane advice as to the rearing of the young.

In almost every field of human activity outside of education the expert alone, who has become possessed of special knowledge, can gain a hearing and a following. Improvement along most lines of human endeavor has been achieved only by clearing the way of the 'common-sense' men; they always block rational progress, for they never penetrate beneath the surface of any problem. When any particular department of social activity is largely dominated by such men it must certainly lag behind those departments where fact is esteemed more highly than mere fancy, and where searching for truth is more prominent than the promulgation of individual opinion. Little was understood of the laws of nature until people with scientific interests abandoned the 'common-sense' notions of the universe which were current among men until within recent times, and devoted themselves to tracking out these laws without preconception or bias. The mind of the 'common-sense' man, as we find him in daily life, functions only for the purpose of getting his own prejudices adopted by his fellows. He is not fitted, intellectually or temperamentally, to discover the deeper-lying truths in any field. He is a partisan, an advocate, not a truth-seeker; and he must be ejected from every scientific camp before advance can be made.

Consider what would be the situation to-day in physics, or chemistry, or electricity, or medicine, or mechanics, or law, if every aspiring person in the community could set himself up as an authority in any of these fields, and he should be given a chance to disseminate his views. In these departments a man who poses as an authority without having mastered at least the rudiments of the subject he treats is cast into outer darkness without ceremony or apology; but he may be welcomed by teachers if his rhetoric is pleasing, and he claims fellowship with the 'common-sense' tribe, or if he has a reputation for greatness in some sphere of action, though quite remote from education. Educational people have had a liking beyond other persons, perhaps, for generalities and commonplaces and oratory and hero-worship; science has not been emotional enough; it has required too precise thinking, and to appreciate it has involved too elaborate training.

But we are beginning to see evidences of brighter days ahead. The scientific temper is beginning to show itself in those who treat of education. There is developing in some quarters discontent with the methods that have been pursued in discussing questions of education, and we are just ready to enter upon an era of educational investigation in accord with strict scientific method. Men are coming to realize that traditional educational dogmas are, in considerable part surely, founded upon the shifting sands. In many other fields there would be no rest