Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/538

520 only to understand but also to criticise the methods by which the assumed results have been reached, and thus be in a position to distinguish between the true and the false. Whether we will or not, we must live under the direction of this great power of modern society, and the only question is whether we will be its ignorant slave or its intelligent servant.

In the second place, it seems fitting that I should state to you what I regard as the true aims to be kept in view in a course of scientific study, and to give my reasons for the methods we have adopted in arranging the courses you are about beginning.

In our day there has arisen a warm discussion as to the relative claims of two kinds of culture, and attempts are made to create an antagonism between them. But all culture is the same in spirit. Its object is to awaken and strengthen the powers of the mind; for these, like the muscles of the body, are developed and rendered strong and active only by exercise; while on the other hand they may become atrophied from mere want of use. Science culture differs in its methods from the old classical culture, but it has the same spirit and the same object. You must not, therefore, expect me to advocate the former at the expense of the latter; for, although I have labored assiduously during a quarter of a century to establish the methods of science teaching which have now become general, I am far from believing that they are the only true modes of obtaining a liberal education. So far from this, if it were necessary to choose one of two systems, I should favor the classical; and why?

Language is the medium of thought, and cannot be separated from it. He who would think well must have a good command of language, and he who has the best command of language I am almost tempted to say will think the best. For this reason a certain amount of critical study of language is essential for every educated man, and such study is not likely to be gained except through the great ancient languages; the advocates of classical scholarship frequently say, cannot be gained. I am not ready to accept this dictum; but I most willingly concede that in the present state of our schools it is not likely to be gained. I never had any taste myself for classical studies; but I know that I owe to the study a great part of the mental culture which has enabled me to do the work that has fallen to my share in life. But while I concede all this, I do not believe, on the other hand, that the classical is the only effective method of culture; you evidently do not think so, for you would not be here if you did. But, in abandoning the old tried method, which is known to be good, for the new, you must be careful that you gain the advantages which the new offers; and you will not gain the new culture you seek unless you study science in the right way. In the classical departments the methods are so well established, and have been so long tested by experience, that there can hardly be a wrong way. But in science there is not only a wrong