Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/537

Rh meant by the Baconian method of science, and to give some idea of the nature of that modern logic which within the last fifty years has produced more wonderful transformations in human society than the author of Aladdin ever imagined in his wildest dreams. In this short address I can of course give you but a very dim and imperfect idea of what I have called the Baconian system of experimental reasoning. Indeed, you cannot form any clear conception of it, until in some humble way you have attempted to use the method, each one for himself and you have come here in order that you may acquire such experience. My object, however, will be gained if these illustrations serve to give emphasis to the following statements, which I feed I ought to make at the opening of these courses of instruction—statements which have an especial appropriateness in this place; since I am addressing teachers, who are in a position to exert an important influence on the system of education in this country.

In the first place, then, I must declare my conviction that no educated man can expect to realize his best possibilities of usefulness without a practical knowledge of the methods of experimental science. If he is to be a physician, his whole success will depend on the skill with which he can use these great tools of modern civilization. If he is to be a lawyer, his advancement will in no small measure be determined by the acuteness with which he can criticise the manner in which the same tools have been used by his own or his opponent's clients. If he is to be a clergyman, he must take sides in the great conflict between theology and science, which is now raging in the world, and, unless he wishes to play the part of the doughty knight Don Quixote, and think he is winning great victories by knocking down the imaginary adversaries which his ignorance has set up, he must try the steel of his adversary's blade. Let me be fully understood. It is not to be expected or desired that many of our students should become professional men of science. The places of employment for scientific men are but few, and more in the future than in the past they will naturally be secured by those whom Nature has endowed with special aptitudes or tastes—usually the signs of aptitudes—to investigate her laws. That our country will always offer an honorable career to her men of genius, we have every reason to expect, and these born students of Nature will usually follow the plain indications of Providence without encouragement or direction from us. It is different, however, with the great body of earnest students who are conscious of no special aptitudes, but who are desirous of doing the best thing to fit themselves for usefulness in the world; and I feel that any system of education is radically defective which does not comprise a sufficient training in the methods of experimental science to make the mass of our educated men familiar with this tool of modern civilization: so that when, hereafter, new conquests over matter are announced, and great discoveries are proclaimed, they may be able not