Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/267

Rh The study of the development of cortical neurones and association fibers makes it probable that every mental process modifies these nervous elements; so that education, whatever else it may be, is a matter of developing specific nervous organs through which the mind may work. Thus the study of mathematics means, on the neurological side, the building up of cortical neurones, with their association fibers, which shall constitute a mathematical nervous mechanism. So, likewise, the study of Latin or Greek means the building up of nervous structures specifically adapted for those languages. The clinics of nervous and mental pathology tend to show that this probable process of specialization of brain-structures, parallel with special mental activities, actually takes place. Thus when the centers of the brain having to do with mathematical relations are diseased, the subject may lose the power of perceiving mathematical symbols, or of thinking in them. So, too, when the centers of the brain having to do with language relations are diseased, the subject may lose the power of perceiving words, or of thinking in them. That is to say, the elements of mathematical and linguistic experience and culture may be lost, and meanwhile the other elements of experience and culture remain unimpaired. This would seem to prove that human experience is mediated by specialized nervous organs, and that the culture derived therefrom is special, and not general, in character. In fact, it but confirms the conclusions that all scientific students of nervous organs and of mind must reach, in any comprehensive interpretation of the facts.

Here then, is a body of facts and inferences supplied by experimental psychology, the histology of the brain, and nervous and mental pathology, which point to the conclusion that so-called "general culture" is not general but specific, that it affects organs and functions appropriate to the particular study pursued, and that to be. of any adequate advantage to the life such organs and functions must continue the activity through which they were developed. There is here, evidently, a vast territory of unknown and debatable ground, but the headlands and mountain peaks stand out more and more clearly for the explorer who approaches the problems of education and life in a scientific spirit and with adequate command of scientific facts. It is clear, for example, that those educators who will subject an adolescent girl to five or six years of severe training in higher mathematics, should be peremptorily challenged as to why they do it. They should be asked to show, in terms more specific and modern than most of the vague opinions one commonly hears about "culture," just how the fund of power that is supposed to be generated by mathematical study, is, in fact, generated; and how it becomes available throughout the girl's subsequent life. So, too, these same educators should be asked to give reason why they compel an adolescent boy to spend five or more years upon the study of Latin before they will accredit him as being educated.