Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/498

474 is arranged. In nearly every instance there will be found an enormous disproportion between linguistic studies and science. As a rule, over one-half of a student's time for four years is assigned to language; the remaining half being divided between mathematics, English literature, history, philosophy, and "natural science." Chemistry, for example, is generally taught through a single term (one-third or one-half, as the case may be) of the junior year. Thus a study, extremely important both practically and as a means of culture, is pursued by a student for perhaps three hours a week during one-eighth or one-twelfth of his college course. In some institutions, undoubtedly, more time is given to chemistry; but such cases are comparatively rare. A youth will enter college with at least a year's preparation in Greek, and then will follow that study for the greater part of his four years' course; but the science from whose applications he derives direct benefit every day of his life is crowded out into an obscure corner of the curriculum, and made to seem of little value. Physics is treated like chemistry; while geology, botany, zoölogy, and astronomy, are pushed even closer to the wall.

Now, what effect has this unfair distribution of studies produced upon American science? Plainly, a very bad effect. Our scientific men must be recruited mainly from among the ranks of our college graduates, and hence the latter ought to be imbued with something of the scientific spirit. That spirit is not likely to be very strongly aroused by the present policy of make-believe teaching. In fact, an enthusiasm for science is dampened rather than encouraged in the majority of American universities. The student sees men of fair training employed to teach the classics, while the work in scientific branches is done by wholly-untrained or imperfectly-trained instructors. Frequently it happens that Latin and Greek are taught by separate professors, while a single teacher is called upon to cover all science outside of mathematics. It is easy to see what effect such a state of affairs is liable to produce upon the mind of an average pupil. He becomes accustomed to regard the sciences as comparatively unimportant. He learns almost nothing of their true relations to life, and the little which he does happen to pick up is gleaned from a few superficial lectures and two or three trivial text-books. If he fails in these studies at examination, the failure counts practically nothing against him upon graduating. In short, the college deliberately carries out a policy of scientific smattering, and the student is influenced about as might be expected. He graduates in complete ignorance both of the methods and of the aims of science, having learned only a few disconnected facts concerning the great world about him.

Very many American colleges, however, now provide what claim to be "scientific courses," running for four years parallel with those in classics, and leading to bachelor of science degrees. This fact illustrates only a sham deference to the public demand for less Latin