Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/169

Rh question whether this accuracy is not itself a contributing factor in the selection of their specialties, rather than a result of pursuing the studies. But in so far as the ability to make minute observations on special material is the result of training, it may mean simply the acquisition of a special technique for running a fine-tooth comb over particular classes of objects, and not a general habit of taking in details at a glance. Teachers of physics are not especially acute in noting variations in the leaves of plants that they happen to pass; teachers of biology are not especially keen in observing delicate changes in the facial muscles; teachers of chemistry are not exceptionally alert in discovering the new fashionable angle for the cut of reveres. Whatever excellence of observation any of these may show seems to be confined either to the subject-matter or to the material in which the individual has a special interest. But this is just as true of mathematics teachers and of milliners, who never studied any "science" at all.

The method of science or of the science laboratory is supposed to develop a certain "instinct" for system or order. My observations do not support the expectation that science teachers are exceptionally orderly in their handling of materials. A working scientist must certainly have some sort of system in his head, but scientific work of a very high grade seems to be quite compatible with personal habits of a very high degree of disorderliness. Science teachers can not guarantee to the fond parents that the science courses will make the children any more careful about hanging up their hats and putting away the books than they were before. It is not to be denied that many individuals received from some well-conducted laboratory their first inspiration to make a place for everything and to keep everything in its place; but it is equally true that a successful science teacher may reside in the same skin as that occupied by a person who only occasionally gets his personal belongings into the right place—at home. At any rate, the science teachers that I happen to know are not as a class more systematic in their handling of materials than are the teachers of other subjects, or than the business men and housekeepers who never studied science at all. When we extend this principle of order to the matter of time, we find the same failure to generalize the training. Teachers of science within my experience are not more punctual in keeping engagements; they are not more prompt in setting to work when it is time to set to work, or in stopping when it is time to stop; they are not more systematic in planning the work of an hour or of a day. The individual variations seem to be as great among science teachers as among shoppers, and their general efficiency with respect to planning their time to the best advantage is exceeded by many housekeepers and clerks who lay no claim to special training.

When it comes to having system or order in the handling of ideas