published ten official bulletins of work done in the laboratory under
his charge, of which Bulletin 125, The Constitution of the Silicates,
and Bulletin 148, Analyses of Rocks and Analytical Methods, by F. W.
Clarke and W. F. Hillebrand jointly, are the most important. Other works
are: Weights, Measures, and Money of All Nations, 1875; The Elements
of Chemistry, a school text-book, 1884; and a Report on the Teaching
of Chemistry and Physics in the United States, published by the United
States Bureau of Education in 1881.
A paper published by him in the Popular Science Monthly for January,
1873 (Volume II), on Evolution and the Spectroscope, showed that the
evolution of the planets from nebulæ was possibly accompanied by an
evolution of the chemical elements. This was nearly a year in advance of
Lockyer's first paper suggesting the same general view. The discussion
of this subject was taken up again in the eighth volume of the Monthly
(February, 1876), in an article, Are the Elements Elementary? in which
the author, after showing how subtle connections significant of unity
run through them all, inquired: "If the elements are all in essence one,
how could their many forms originate save by a process of evolution
upward? How could their numerous relations with each other, and their
regular serial arrangements into groups, be better explained? In this,
as in other problems, the hypothesis of evolution is the simplest,
most natural, and best in accordance with facts. Toward it all the
lines of argument presented in this article converge. Atomic weights,
specific volumes, and spectra, all unite in telling the same story,
that our many elements have been derived from simpler stock." These
views were admitted to be speculative but not baseless. "Science is
constantly reaching forward from the known to the unknown, partly by
careful experiment and partly by the prophetic vision of thought."
Then, speculation upon such questions "is not altogether unprofitable.
The time spent in conjectures and surmises is not wholly wasted, for
it is impossible to follow up any of the lines of thought thus opened
without reaching some valuable suggestions which may pave the way to
new discoveries. New truth, in one direction or another, is sure to be
reached in the long run. So, then, we may proceed to theorize in the
most barefaced manner without entirely quitting the legitimate domain
of science." An article on The Present Status of Mineralogy, in the
thirty-second volume of the Monthly, presents the mutual bearings of
that study and chemistry and geology.
Professor Clarke contributed the chapter Element to the last edition of
Watts's Dictionary of Chemistry. He was made president of the Washington
Chemical Society in 1885, and of the Philosophical Society of Washington
in 1896. He organized and had charge of Government exhibits, on behalf
of the Department of the Interior, at the expositions of Cincinnati,
Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, and Omaha. He is a corresponding member of
the British Association, of the Edinburgh Geological Society, and of the
New York Academy of Sciences.
Correspondence.
THE MOON AND THE WEATHER.
_Editor Popular Science Monthly_:
DEAR SIR: Scientific investigators in meteorology have again and
again declared they have not been able to discover by accurate and
long-continued observation that the moon has any effect whatever upon
terrestrial weather; yet the farmers have, for unreckoned years,
undoubtingly ascribed certain kinds of weather--changes, especially--to
the moon; and, despite the dictum of the scientists, they have persisted
in their confidence in the pale orb as a weather-breeder, and as a
disposer, in a large degree, of the wet and dry features of the months.
Now comes Mr. H. H. Clayton, meteorologist at the Blue Hill
Meteorological Observatory, and shows by diagram and dates that the
_electrical_ condition of the atmosphere varies in close accord with the
position of the moon in her orbit.
That electricity performs various offices in the atmosphere, notably
among the particles of vapor, is well known; but just how and to what
extent atmospheric phenomena result from electrical action has not yet
been clearly demonstrated. However, we have now a scientific basis for
the assumption that the moon has an influence on the weather.
An interesting summary of present knowledge concerning the atmosphere
is contained in Studies of the Upper Atmosphere, by A. Lawrence
Rotch, director of the Blue Hill institution. The diagram of
comparative altitudes, which forms the last illustration of my article
on kite-flying, in the May number of this magazine, is from the
frontispiece of Mr. Rotch's pamphlet just mentioned, for which credit
was inadvertently omitted.
GEORGE J. VARNEY.
57 CORNHILL, BOSTON, _August 19, 1898_.
Editor's Table
_THE GOAL IN EDUCATION._
Many of our readers, we are sure, must have been impressed by the
articles on The Philosophy of Manual Training lately contributed
by Professor Henderson to the pages of this magazine. The thought
underlying them is one to which we have ourselves often endeavored
to give expression, namely, that the end of education is wholly
misconceived unless we consider it as aiming to bring the individual
into right relations, at as many points as possible, with the world in
which he lives, and to place him in as full possession as possible of
the varied powers and capacities of his nature. It is because he regards
manual training as the most effective instrument for awakening the
intellect in the first place, and then for establishing a proper balance
between the mental and bodily activities, that Professor Henderson has
advocated it with so much earnestness. All that he has said on the
subject seems to us deserving of the closest attention.
In the old system of education language was regarded as the supreme
and sufficient instrument of mental development; and in the great
public schools of England this idea enjoyed the very highest degree of
prestige and authority. By language in these establishments, the two
classical languages of Greek and Latin were meant, the English language
receiving very scant attention, and English literature none. If any
one was so far in advance of the times as to express a doubt whether a
knowledge of Greek and Latin was the only preparation needed for life,
he was pointed to the brilliant men who had come from the forms and the
playgrounds of Eton and Winchester and Harrow; and the discussion was
considered closed. The fact is that the radical insufficiency of the
system was masked to a great extent by the circumstance that it was
mainly applied to a ruling class, who early in life obtained a more
practical training in public affairs. Pitt was educated, as has been
remarked, by that great statesman, his father, the Earl of Chatham,
and Peel by a great manufacturer who took a keen interest in politics.
Robert Walpole, leaving the university at an early age, had the society
of his father, a most practical-minded country squire, whose original
ambition had been to make him the greatest grazier in the kingdom. Many
similar cases could be cited in which early introduction to society and
to practical life made up for the deficiencies of scholastic training,
and reflected, or seemed to reflect, on that training a much greater
credit than it deserved.
It may be admitted, however, that as a preparation for a political or
forensic career an old-fashioned classical education was not wholly
without efficacy. It was systematic and orderly; it was rigid in its
requirements; it presented difficulties which had to be overcome, and
afforded the means for unmasking looseness and inaccuracy of thought;
finally, it called into constant activity, though in a narrow field,
the discriminative, and analytical faculties. Its weakness lay in this,
that it did not reveal the nature of things, but promoted a dangerous
habit of "moving about in worlds not realized," and of giving to words
an importance which should only be conceded to verified and comprehended
facts.
Nowadays we mix, or try to mix, a modicum of scientific knowledge with
the education we impart. This is so far good. It affords a training
in observation and verification, and opens up to the young sources of
interest of which they may increasingly avail themselves in later years.
Moreover, as the scientific instruction generally embraces more or less
of physiology and hygiene, it places them on their guard against the
formation of injurious habits, and shows them the conditions on which
health depends. These are advantages which, so far as they go, it is
impossible to appreciate too highly.
It takes more, however, than the admixture of a little physical science
in a school curriculum to make, in a wide sense, the education that
is required for life. What is further required is a proper adjustment
of the mind toward life with its varied activities and its infinite
possibilities of good and evil. When we see men of fine literary
gifts growing more cynical as they advance in years, and treating the
world to stronger and stronger doses of pessimism in their writings,
we are compelled to believe that their adjustment to life must have
been wrong. When we see men of science who year by year appear to have
less and less in common with their fellow-creatures, and whose studies
only develop on the intellectual side an ever-increasing passion for
the infinitely minute and the vastly unimportant, and, on the moral,
a morbid sensitiveness to all kinds of personal questions, we find it
difficult to think that they were properly oriented at the start. It may
not be given to every one to "see life steadily and see it whole"; but
it ought to be possible for a well-trained mind to see it with an eye of
calm, tolerant, and sympathetic contemplation. No education is complete
which leaves out such knowledge of the world, and of the relation which
the individual sustains to it, as shall at least tend to give a right
purpose and direction to the individual life. "The world is very evil,"
is a pious utterance; but it is equally pious for each of us to ask
how much of evil is lurking in ourselves. We conceive of a scientific
education in the full sense as one which, while it imparts true ideas in
regard to the physical history of the globe and the chemical elements
that compose it, aims no less at unfolding the true constitution of
society, the springs of human action, the strength and weakness of human
character, the possibilities of good and evil that reside in every
individual, the misery that waits on wrongdoing, and the happiness that
flows from just and pure deeds. There is a way, we are persuaded, of
presenting the world of humanity to the minds of the young which would
tend to create in most--in the vast majority--a strong desire to take
a helpful part in the work of their age and generation, and not to
concentrate all their efforts on the business of self-advancement. It is
merely a question of seeing the facts in a broadly human, which is after
all the only true, light.
Let us have in education literature and analytical studies and science
with its grand constructions and sanifying discipline--all the useful
elements--but let the true goal of education be kept ever in view, which
is, not to enable this individual or that to shoot to a pre-eminence
over his fellows, but to place the individual in right relations with
his fellows, to give to each a career of useful activity, and to prevent
that dreary disappointment with life and all its works which overtakes
so many in their declining years. Life has its burdens, but it is not
vanity; and the normal action of human beings on one another should be
to give to each separate existence a higher value and deeper sources of
happiness.
_A DOUBTFUL APPENDIX TO SCIENCE._
It was perhaps to be expected that Sir William Crookes, as president
of the British Association, would, whatever else he touched upon in
his presidential address, say something in regard to the special views
which have now for many years been associated with his name. In point of
fact he did do so. Beginning with a survey of the world's resources in
the matter of wheat production, and an inquiry as to how the fertility
of the soil may in future be kept up, he passed to the constitution of
matter and molecular action as illustrated by the phenomena of Röntgen
rays, and finally referred to "experiments tending to show that, outside
our scientific knowledge, there exists a force exercised by intelligence
differing from the ordinary intelligence common to mortals." These
experiments were made, we are told, more than thirty years ago. It does
not appear that any substantial or indubitable addition has been made
to the evidence which these experiments afforded, or were supposed to
afford; but Professor Crookes "thinks" he can "see a little further
now." "I have glimpses," he says, "of something like coherence among the
strange, elusive phenomena." That undoubtedly is a good thing to get
glimpses of; but there is perhaps room for question whether the extreme
interest of the professor in the "strange elusive phenomena" has not
led him to make a little more of the "glimpses" than strict scientific
method would warrant.
It is really only necessary to read the concluding portion of Professor
Crookes's address to see that he is dealing not with science but with
crude imaginations. He says that "confirmation of telepathic phenomena
is afforded by many converging experiments," but especially by "the
subconscious workings of the mind when these are brought into conscious
survey." There is really no meaning in this. How can any "survey" be
other than conscious? And what is there in the subconscious workings
of the mind adapted to prove that impressions can be made upon the
mind otherwise than through the recognized channels of sense? "The
patient experimentation of the Society for Psychical Research is probing
subliminal processes and learning lessons of alternating personalities
and abnormal states." There is no objection in the world to all that;
but it would take more than an alternating personality or an abnormal
state to enable a mind to gather knowledge from another mind without
the intermediation of intelligible signs. A sick man may act in a very
singular way, but his sickness does not enable him to transcend the
ordinary powers of humanity.
The eminent professor speaks of the cures wrought by suggestion
(hypnotism); but seeing that the suggestions are made by intelligible
signs, verbal or other, we find no support here for the telepathic
hypothesis. We really gather from the professor's remarks that while a
great many persons--some of high intelligence and of recognized position
in the scientific or philosophical world--have been pottering away at
this matter of telepathy and other phases of spiritualism for a great
many years, things are to all intents and purposes just as they were
before all these laborious researches began. This is not just the way
the professor puts it; his words are: "A formidable range of phenomena
must be scientifically sifted before we effectually grasp a faculty
so strange, so bewildering, and for ages so inscrutable as the direct
action of mind on mind." Sometimes the reason why a thing is inscrutable
is because it isn't so; and that, we suspect, is the explanation in
the present case. One hypothesis which the professor puts forward is
simple to the last degree. It is that the molecular action of the
brain, when thoughts are passing through it, is taken up by the ether
and communicated to another brain in which it awakens similar thoughts.
But the question we ask at once is why this wireless telegraphy between
brain and brain is not going on all the time, and why we are all not
driven crazy by the everlasting intrusion of other people's thoughts?
If this is the process, why should neighboring brains be skipped, and
the effect be produced upon one particular brain hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of miles away?
"It is henceforth open to science," says Sir William Crookes, "to
transcend all we now think we know of matter, and to gain glimpses of
a profounder scheme of cosmic law." We really do not know when it was
_not_ open to science to do this _if it could_; and we do not see that
the telepathists and other denominations of spiritualists have in any
appreciable manner improved the situation as regards the probability
of the thing being done. They have contributed floods of talk and tons
upon tons of printed matter, and have worked thousands of people into
variously grewsome conditions of mind; but if any one can point to a
single distinct advance in scientific theory due to their peculiar
methods, we can only say that we do not know what it is. Professor
Crookes has been one of the foremost scientific workers of his day; and
we find it hard to believe that he can be under any illusion as to the
futility of the efforts of the spiritualist school. At the same time
he is entitled to the utmost freedom of thought and utterance; and if
he believes there is still hope of important gains to humanity from the
side of spiritualism, he is justified in holding his position; and while
we may think he is sadly misled, we must accord him the respect due to
eminent talents and unquestioned sincerity.
_THE CAUSE OF SPAIN'S DECADENCE._
Until account is taken of the effect of war on the thoughts, feelings,
and institutions of men, no headway can be made toward a rational
explanation of the decadence of Spain. Since the outbreak of hostilities
with that country, which has made the topic a favorite one with
newspaper and magazine writers, every other explanation has been
vouchsafed; but all of them, including the favorite one about the mental
and industrial paralysis produced by the Spanish Inquisition, mistake
effects for causes. Not one of them, so far as we have seen, has touched
the root of the matter and pointed out that Spain has simply gone the
way of every other nation that has devoted itself, not to the pursuits
of peace, but to the destruction of life and property.
Like all other despotisms, Spanish despotism has been the inevitable
product of the necessities of war. Success in that pursuit requires
that the subjects of a monarch shall place unreservedly their lives and
property at his disposal. He must be permitted to levy conscriptions
without let or hindrance, and to impose taxes with the same freedom. The
longer and more intense the militant activities, the more unmitigated
the despotism. In Spain the conditions for the uninterrupted growth of
such irresponsible power have been especially favorable. There were
first the long wars with the Moors, then the Italian wars, the wars of
the Reformation, the wars of the Spanish Succession, the Napoleonic
wars, followed by a period of chronic revolution, and the wars carried
on against the natives and other adversaries in the New World. The
impulse toward a concentration of power in the hands of one man
engendered by these incessant conflicts could not fail to blot out of
existence every sentiment and institution of freedom. Only during the
past twenty-five years of peace has either been able to gain a foothold
and to give a promise of regeneration.
But the despotism growing out of war means more than the bare statement
that all power over life and property has been placed in the hands of
a monarch. It means that his subjects have been deprived of the right
to think and act for themselves. He has taken charge of both their
consciences and their conduct. In Spain, for some reason not easy to
discover, the ecclesiastical despotism that accompanies the growth of
political despotism became more potent and deadly than in the other
countries of Europe. There the priests were more powerful sometimes than
the monarch himself. With the institution of the Inquisition during the
reign of Ferdinand and Isabella they wrought a havoc to the Spanish
intellect that has no parallel outside of the great Oriental despotisms.
To them is due the mental torpor of the Spaniards, who, according to U.
J. Burke, wrapped themselves in a cloak and "sought safety in dignified
silence." How could the spectacle of an _auto-da-fé_ do otherwise than
disincline a prudent man to think for himself and to tell what he
thought?
That devotion to military pursuits inspires a contempt for industrial
pursuits and gives birth to a feeling of superiority over the people
engaged in them we see to-day in France and Germany. In those countries
it has come to such a pass that civilians are regarded as almost without
rights, since an officer imagining himself insulted may run them through
with his sword, and as having no other function in the economy of the
world but to work for their masters. In Spain during the years of her
greatest military activity these feelings of a barbarian reached an
intensity that can not now be realized. The only occupation outside
of killing and plundering enemies either in Europe or America that a
gentleman could follow was a career as a churchman or as an official
in the home or colonial administration. "Public offices," says Henry
C. Lea, describing the results of this absurd belief, "were multiplied
recklessly, and the steady increase in the ranks of the clergy, regular
and secular, was a constant subject of remonstrance. In 1626 Navarette
tells us that there were thirty-two universities and more than four
thousand grammar schools crowded with sons of artisans and peasants
striving to fit themselves for public office or holy orders. Most of
them failed in this through inaptitude, and drifted into the swarms
of tramps and beggars who were a standing curse to the community."
Hence the abnormal proportions of the ecclesiastical and bureaucratic
establishments; hence also the almost total failure to develop the great
natural resources of the country; hence, finally, the unprosperous
condition of the industries, not crushed out of existence by the
regulations of the official parasites.
To many people the callousness of Spaniards to suffering and their
disregard of the rights of others have seemed the greatest mystery. Why
is it that they still cling so tenaciously to the pleasures of the bull
ring? Why was it that they appeared so indifferent to the miseries of
the Cuban reconcentrados? In the light of the influence of war on the
sympathies these questions present no difficulty. Clear also does it
become why the Spaniards possess as little patriotism as the Chinese.
Training for centuries in the belief that the most honorable occupation
is the killing and plundering of enemies or the filling of positions
in church and state that obviate the necessity of earning a livelihood
by honest toil is not fitted to inspire a keen sense of justice or a
lively fellow-feeling. When people have been plundered for centuries by
a greedy bureaucratic despotism they can not persuade themselves that
it is their duty to protect their oppressors from foreign or domestic
assailants. What they are most interested in is an opportunity to get a
living. Whether the honor of their country is at stake, or whether there
is threatened the loss of the last remnant of a colonial empire that has
cost them blood and treasure beyond estimate, they are certain to be as
indifferent as the victims of a slave driver to the misfortunes that
have overtaken him.