IGNORABIMUS ET RESTRINGAMUR.
The dangerous attempt which Virchow made in Munich against the
freedom of science is not the first of its kind. On the contrary,
five years before, it experienced a similar attack which is most
intimately connected with this later one, so that, in conclusion,
we must here add a few words on the subject. Undoubtedly the famous
"Ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond, which he delivered in 1872 at
the forty-fifth meeting of German naturalists and physicians in
Leipzig, forms only the first portion of that same crusade against the
freedom of science of which Virchow's "Restringamur speech" of 1877,
at the fiftieth meeting of the same society, forms the second part.
That brilliant and powerful essay by Du Bois-Reymond "on the
Limitation of Natural Knowledge" has already been discussed so often,
and from such different sides, that it might seem superfluous to say
another word about it. It seems to me, nevertheless, that by most
people the centre-of-gravity of its contents was overlooked in
admiration of the brilliant accessories of the essay. Indeed this
frequently happens with Du Bois-Reymond's articles, for he knows too
well how to conceal the weakness of his argument and evidence, and the
shallowness of his thought, by striking images and flowery metaphors,
and by all the phraseology of rhetoric in which the versatile French
nature is so superior to our sober German one. It is all the more
important that we should not let ourselves be dazzled by these
seductive tricks, and particularly by adduced facts which bear upon
the most important and fundamental questions of human science, but
that we should extract the hard kernel from the savoury and fragrant
fruit. In the preface to my "Evolution of Man," and in the notes 22
and 23 of my Munich address, I have already incidentally alluded to
the chief weaknesses of the "Ignorabimus-speech;" but I must here
return somewhat more fully to the subject.
There are, as is well known, two problems which Du Bois-Reymond
propounds as the impassable boundary of human knowledge of nature;
limits which indeed the human mind is not only incapable of passing at
the present stage of its development, but which it never can be
capable of passing in any more advanced stage. The first problem is
the nature and connection of matter and force; the second is human
consciousness. Now, first of all, as has already been said in the
preface to the "Evolution of Man," we must raise a decided protest
against the air of infallibility with which Du Bois-Reymond pronounces
that these two problems are insoluble, not only at the present time
but to all futurity. The power of development inherent in science and
knowledge is hereby simply swept away with a word. Almost every great
and difficult problem of knowledge seems to most or all contemporary
thinkers insoluble, and every path to the solution of it seems closed,
till at last the bold genius appears whose clear sight detects the
right path which till then was hidden, and which leads to the required
knowledge. We need only call to mind our present doctrine of
evolution. The problem of creation--the question as to the origin of
animal and vegetable species--was universally looked upon as
transcendental and perfectly insoluble, till the genius of Lamarck
established the principles of the theory of descent in his admirable
"Philosophie Zoologique" in 1809. Nay, even then most--and among them
the most distinguished--biologists thought the problem of creation a
quite insoluble mystery, and Darwin was the first to solve it, fifty
years later, by his theory of selection in 1859. Hence we venture to
assert that there is no scientific problem of which we may dare to say
that the mind of man will never solve it even in the remotest future.
Well does Darwin say, in the introduction to his "Descent of Man,"
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it
is those who know little and not those who know much who so positively
assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." As
far as concerns the two separate limits which Du Bois-Reymond fixes
for human knowledge, in my opinion they are undoubtedly identical. The
problem of the origin and nature of consciousness is only a special
case of the general problem of the connection of matter and force. Du
Bois-Reymond himself indicates that this is possible at the close of
his paper; for he says, "Finally, the question arises whether the two
limitations to our natural knowledge may not perhaps be identical;
that is to say, whether if we could conceive of the true essence of
matter and force, we should not also understand how the substance
which lies at their root can, under certain given conditions, feel,
desire, and think. This conception is, no doubt, the simplest, and
according to admitted principles of inquiry it is to be preferred to
that other which it confutes, and according to which, as has been
said, the world appears doubly incomprehensible. But it is in the very
nature of things that we cannot on this point come to any clear
conclusion, and all further words on the subject are idle--and so,
'Ignorabimus.'"
The light way in which Du Bois-Reymond here passes over the most
important part of his subject is truly surprising; as if it were
ultimately indifferent whether we have before us one single insoluble
fundamental problem or two quite different ones; and as if mature
reflection did not lead to the conviction that, in fact, the second
problem is only a special case of the first general problem. I, for my
part, cannot conceive of them in any other relation; I think, too,
that all further words are by no means superfluous, but on the
contrary conduce to a very strong conviction of the unity of the
problem. That Du Bois-Reymond also has not come to any clear
conclusion on this point lies, not alone in the "nature of things,"
but, as in Virchow's case, in the nature of the investigator himself;
in his lack of knowledge of the history of evolution, and in his
neglect of those comparative and genetic methods of study, without
which, in my opinion, not even an approximate solution of this highest
and most difficult question is to be looked for.
Nothing appears to me to be of more importance for the mechanical
explanation of consciousness than the comparative consideration of its
development. We know that a new-born child has no consciousness, but
that it is slowly and gradually acquired and developed. We perceive
for ourselves how unconscious actions become conscious, and _vice
versa_. Innumerable actions which at first are troublesome and have
to be learnt with consciousness and reflection--as for instance
walking, swimming, singing, and so forth--become unconscious only by
repetition, practice, and the habit of using the organs. On the
contrary, unconscious actions become conscious as soon as we direct
our attention to them or our self-observation is attracted to them; as
for instance when we miss a step in going up stairs or touch a wrong
note on the piano; and beyond a doubt, conscious and unconscious
actions pass into each other without any distinct line of demarcation.
Finally, we see no less plainly by a comparative consideration of the
soul-life of animals, that their consciousness is slowly, gradually,
and serially developed, and that a long unbroken series of steps leads
from unconscious to conscious existence. From these comparative and
genetic experiences we may draw the conclusion that consciousness,
like sensation and volition, like all the other soul-activities, is a
function of the organism, a mechanical activity of the cells; and, as
such, is referable to chemical and physical processes. Hence, if we
were in a position to understand force as a necessary function of
matter, we could explain consciousness, as well as the soul in
general, as a necessary function of certain cells.
How little Du Bois-Reymond is acquainted with the facts of comparative
and genetic psychology, nothing shows more strikingly than the
following astounding proposition in the "Ignorabimus-speech:"--"Where
the material conditions for psychical activity, in the form of a
nervous system, are wanting, as in plants, the naturalist cannot
recognise a soul-life, and, on this point, he but seldom meets with
contradiction." Begging your pardon! Every naturalist who is familiar
with the comparative morphology and physiology of the lower animals
will here put in a decided contradiction, for he can no more refuse to
admit the undoubted sensation and voluntary motion of the one-celled
Infusoria than of the many-celled hydroid polyps. The body of the true
Infusoria (Ciliata, Acineta, &c.), and many other Protista, remain
throughout life one single cell, and, nevertheless, this cell is as
fully furnished with all the most important attributes of the soul,
with sensation and volition, as any one of the higher animals with a
nervous system. The same obtains of the Hydra and the related hydroid
polyps, in which the neuro-muscular cells, or other distributed cells
of the outer germ-layer, fulfil the soul-functions. But as these
cells, besides this, exercise motor and other functions as well, we
cannot as yet designate them as nerve-cells, at any rate there can be
no idea of a special nervous-system. The characteristic soul-organs of
the higher animals, which we include under the conception of a
nervous-system, in fact originated by the division of labour of the
cells out of those neutral cell-groups in their lower-typed ancestors.
In the great Soul-question Du Bois-Reymond, like Virchow, still keeps
his position on the standpoint of neural-psychology, according to
which no personal soul-life is conceivable without a nervous system.
We look upon this standpoint as left far behind, and set up in
opposition to it Cellular-psychology, the doctrine that every animal
cell has a soul; that is to say, that its protoplasm is endowed with
sensation and motion. In the one-celled Infusoria, which are so highly
sensitive and have such an energetic will, this conception will be
clear without any farther explanation. But we cannot refuse to allow
that plant-cells as well as animal-cells have psychic functions, since
we know that the phenomena of irritability, and of "automatic motion,"
are the universal attributes of all protoplasm. No doubt the specific
mechanism, the cause of motion, in the irritable Mimosa and other
"sensitive" plants, is quite different from the muscular motions of
animals; but these, like those, are only specifically different forms
of development of the "cell-soul," and both proceed from the
"mechanical energy of the protoplasm." The sensibility of the
irritable protoplasm is the same in the vegetable-cell of the Mimosa
as in the animal-cell of the Hydra. How far Du Bois-Reymond is from
discerning this, and how deeply he is still entangled in
neuro-psychological views is shown most clearly in the astonishing
sentence which he has thought good to append to his above-quoted,
erroneous assertion. "And what could we reply to the naturalist if,
before he could agree to the assumption of a World-soul he required
that we should show him--bedded in neuroglia and nourished by warm
arterial blood--anywhere in the world a convolution of ganglionic
centres co-extensive with the psychic capacity of such a Soul" (!)
In other respects we will not deny that Du Bois-Reymond stands far
nearer to our recent evolution-theory than Virchow; nay, that from
year to year he has always pronounced more and more emphatically in
favour of the theory of descent as the one possible explanation of
morphological phenomena; indeed, Du Bois-Reymond has lately counted
himself as one of those naturalists who were convinced of the truth of
evolution even before Darwin! Then it is only to be wondered why so
acute and gifted an inquirer, who is certainly not lacking in
scientific ambition, left it to Charles Darwin to place the egg of
Columbus on the ring and to point out to biological science a new
method of unlimited capacity by giving the theory of descent a
definite and reliable basis!
It is clear from some remarks in his discourse bearing the title
"Darwin versus Galiani" (1876), that Du Bois-Reymond is still far
from understanding the full significance of transmutation as affording
a mechanical explanation of morphological problems. In this paper the
"History of Creation" is treated simply as a romance, and the
genealogies of phylogenesis are in his eyes "of about as much value as
the pedigrees of the Homeric heroes are in the eyes of historical
critics." Geologists may be extremely grateful for this estimate of
their science, for undoubtedly geology, as a structure of hypotheses,
is neither more nor less justifiable than phylogenesis, as I have
already pointed out in my Munich address: "Our phylogenetic hypotheses
may claim to have equal value with the universally-admitted hypotheses
of geology; the only difference is this, that the mighty structure of
hypotheses called geology is incomparably more complete, simpler, and
easier to grasp than that more youthful one called phylogenesis." But
as to the much-talked-of "genealogies," though they are nothing more
than the simplest, barest, and most superficial expression of the
hypotheses of phylogenesis, as provisional hypotheses they are just as
indispensable to specific phylogenesis as the theoretical
section-tables of the strata of the earth's crust are to geology.
If Du Bois-Reymond is so convinced of the truth of transmutation as he
has lately given himself out to be, why does not he make at least one
earnest attempt to test the interpreting power of the theory of
descent in physiology--his own most special province of inquiry? Why
does he not labour at that hitherto quite unworked-out branch,
physiogenesis, at the history of the evolution of functions, at the
ontogenesis and phylogenesis of vital processes? The one idea which
has lately been often spoken of as an important discovery of Du
Bois-Reymond's--[the idea which had already been anticipated by
Leibnitz, that the "innate ideas,"--intuitions _a priori_--have
originated by transmission from primordial experience, _i.e._,
empirical, _a posteriori_ convictions], was distinctly enunciated by
me long before Du Bois-Reymond (as he omits to mention), in 1866, in
my "General Morphology" (vol. ii. p. 446), and in 1868 in the "History
of Creation" (vol. i. p. 31, vol. ii. p. 344). If Du Bois-Reymond had
practically busied himself with these problems he would certainly have
thought a little about the development of consciousness, and not have
set down as an eternally insoluble problem, "How is it possible that
matter can think?"--a form of words, be it observed, which has about
as much sense as "how matter runs," or "how matter strikes the hours."
Surely he would have guarded himself in that case from uttering the
ponderous "Ignorabimus."
The question has been repeatedly asked why two such prominent Berlin
biologists as Virchow and Du Bois-Reymond availed themselves of the
particularly solemn occasions of the fiftieth anniversary and of the
fiftieth meeting of the German naturalists and physicians to lay lance
in rest against the progress and freedom of science. The eager
approbation which they both promptly met with from the party of the
clergy and of all other enemies of free thought--Virchow, indeed, in
much greater measure than Du Bois-Reymond--appears to justify this
inquiry. I believe I can contribute something towards answering it,
and as I am not fettered by any reverence for the Berlin tribunal of
science or by any anxiety as to vexing influential Berlin connections,
as most of my colleagues are who think as I do, I do not hesitate,
here as elsewhere, to express my honest conviction in the freest and
frankest manner, not troubling myself about the wrath which may be
roused in many actual--and not actual--officials in Berlin at this
exposition of the unvarnished truth.
The primary cause of their "misunderstanding," and the best excuse
that can be offered for it, in Virchow and Du Bois-Reymond alike, lies
in their unacquaintance with the advance of modern morphology. As has
been repeatedly stated, no natural science is so directly to be
referred to the doctrine of evolution--and more particularly to the
theory of descent--as morphology. It is because we morphologists can
neither explain nor comprehend all the manifold and infinitely complex
form-phenomena of the animal and plant worlds without this theory,
because to us transmutation contains the only possible, rational
explanation of organic types, that we all regard it as the
indispensable basis of the scientific doctrine of form, and as
demanding no further proofs of its certainty than those which now lie
in abundance before us.
Du Bois-Reymond, and still more Virchow, ignore these proofs, because
they are to a great extent ignorant alike of the inquiries and
results, of the methods and the aims of our modern morphology, and
this ignorance may be accounted for partly by the one-sided direction
which their biological studies have taken, partly by the fact that
there are few universities where the study of morphology is so
behindhand as at the University of Berlin. Fully twenty years have now
elapsed since the great Johannes Mueller died, the last naturalist who
could command all the departments of biology. The three great
provinces of science which had been reunited into a triune kingdom
under his powerful sceptre, were then divided among three professors'
chairs: Du Bois-Reymond took that of physiology, Virchow, theoretical
pathology (pathological anatomy and physiology), and the third, and
most important chair, that of morphology (human and comparative
anatomy, including the history of evolution) fell to Boguslaus
Reichert. This choice was, as is now universally admitted, an
incomprehensible mistake. Instead of calling Carl Gegenbaur, or Max
Schultze, or some one else of youthful capacity and vigour to the
chair of morphology--a science which is the first foundation of
zoology as well as of medicine--in Reichert they selected an elderly
school anatomist cramped by strong old-fashioned notions, who had done
some good and useful specialist work, but whose general views had
developed all awry, and who for the unexampled obscurity of his
conceptions and the confusion of his ideas, was outdone by none save
only Adolf Bastian. For twenty years this man has represented animal
morphology in the second university of Germany, and in these twenty
years hardly any work worth mentioning has been done there in the
whole of this vast department--neither by the master nor by his
pupils. We have only to compare the many worthless anatomical
productions of Berlin during these two decades (for instance, the
recent confused work by Fritsch on the brain of fishes) with the rich
mine of invaluable work produced during the preceding twenty years by
Johannes Mueller and his crowd of disciples.
But, as if this were not enough, Reichert took advantage of his
influential position to hinder as far as possible all scientific study
of morphology. For example, he, with the co-operation of his
colleagues, carried through that pretended "reform" of medical
examination which puts the so-called _Tentamen physicum_ in the place
of the _philosophicum_; philosophy was entirely eliminated. Zoology
and botany, which for centuries have been very justly regarded as the
indispensable foundation of all instruction in natural science for the
young medical student, disappeared from the curriculum. Only, as if in
scorn of these sciences, in each examination a small place was
reserved for comparative anatomy--for that most difficult and
philosophical part of animal morphology which cannot be at all
understood without some previous knowledge of the other branches of
zoology. And yet comparative anatomy and the history of development
are the indispensable preliminary steps to a true scientific
comprehension of human anatomy, that most essential foundation of all
medical knowledge. Without the vivifying idea of development, mere
anatomical knowledge is an empty and lifeless cramming of the memory.
In the place of morphology, thus degraded from its office, a detailed
study of physiology was introduced, but always in a one-sided
direction. Now these two great branches of biology, which are equally
important and have an equal claim on our attention, are so dependent
the one on the other, that a real scientific understanding of organic
life can never be obtained without due relative study of both. The
masterly and incomparable teaching of Johannes Mueller owed a great
part of its captivating charm to his equitable regard for morphology
and physiology, as well as to his comprehensive treatment, from the
broadest point of view, of the enormous mass of details to be dealt
with. I therefore have not the smallest doubt that the morphological
training of medical students, as at present conducted at Berlin under
the influence of Reichert and his colleagues, is as far behind that of
Mueller's day, twenty or thirty years ago, in all general comprehension
of the typical organism, as it is in advance of it in specialist
acquirements.
In medical, as in all other scientific learning, the highest aim does
not consist in seeking to accumulate a vast chaotic mass of isolated
items of knowledge, but in a general comprehension of the science, its
aims and problems. The teacher should, above everything, guide the
pupil to this general knowledge, and then it will be easy to him, by
the aid of proper methods, to acquire mastery in each individual and
special branch. Thus in medicine, as in every other science, he is not
the best qualified who, on Bastian's method, has loaded his memory
with a confused mass of undigested facts, and has flung them all
together into his brain without any order; but, on the contrary, he
who has practically digested a considerable number of the most
important facts, and has critically co-ordinated them to a harmonious
whole. It is precisely under this aspect that transmutation is of such
inestimable value to morphology; it enables us to rise from the bare
empirical knowledge of numberless isolated facts to a philosophical
conception of their efficient causes.
The aversion and contempt which the theories of descent and selection
have met with at Berlin, more than in any other place, is in great
measure to be explained by the circumstance that, during the last two
decades, morphological studies have been more neglected in that
university than any others. In no other city of Germany has evolution
in general, as well as Darwinism in particular, been so little valued,
so utterly misunderstood, and treated with such sovereign disdain as
in Berlin. Nay, Adolf Bastian, the most zealous of all the Berlin
opponents of our doctrines, has insisted on these facts with peculiar
satisfaction. Of all the conspicuous naturalists of Berlin only one
accepted the doctrine of transmutation from the beginning with sincere
warmth and full conviction, being, indeed, persuaded of its truth even
before Darwin himself. This was the gifted botanist Alexander Braun,
who is lately dead--a morphologist who was equally distinguished by
the extent of his comprehensive knowledge of details, as by his
philosophical mastery over them. His firm conviction of the truth of
the theory of descent is all the more remarkable because he was at the
same time a spotless character, a pious Christian in the best sense of
the word, and an extremely conservative politician; a striking example
that these convictions can dwell side by side with the principles of
the recent doctrines of evolution in one and the same person. But in
comparison with the powerful influence of the rest of the Berlin
naturalists who, for the most part, are decided opponents of
transmutation, and who have only lately--a few of them, to follow the
fashion--become converts to it, a man like Alexander Braun could have
no effect in procuring that it should be taught.
However, this is not the first time that this very Berlin society of
learned men has set itself with remarkable firmness against the most
important advances of science. Virchow's former colleague, the
deceased Stahl, with a similar purpose and with great success,
preached this principle: "Science must turn back again." Just as at
the present day the Berlin biologists have opposed the most obstinate
and pertinacious resistance to the greatest scientific stride of this
century, so did it happen in former times with regard to other
doctrines of progress. We have only to recall Caspar Friedrich Wolff,
the great inquirer, who in 1759 first detected the nature of the
individual processes of development in the animal ovum, and founded
on it his observations in his "Theoria Generationes," which marked
an epoch in biological science. The Berlin savants, full of the
prevailing prejudices, so contrived at that time that Wolff never once
could obtain the permission which he craved, to lecture publicly, and
in consequence found himself compelled to retire to St. Petersburg for
the sake of peace. And yet in that instance there was no question
of a "theory" properly so-called. For the fundamental theory of
generation--the "theory of epigenesis"--as propounded by Wolff was
nothing more than a simple, general exposition of embryological facts
which he had been the first to recognise, and of whose truth every one
might convince himself by direct observation. In spite of this, for
another half century, the predominant error of the "Preformation-theory"
continued to be universally accepted--the ludicrous and nonsensical
doctrine, supported by the authority of Haller, that all the successive
generations of animals exist preconceived and enclosed one within the
other, and that no individual development ever takes place! _Nulla est
epigenesis!_ (Compare my "Evolution of Man," vol. i. p. 31.)
But it would appear that it is the fate of that most interesting of
all sciences, the history of evolution, to find its most important
steps and its greatest discoveries met by the firmest and most
persistent opposition. For while Wolff's fundamental theory of
epigenesis, which was promulgated in 1759, was not recognised until
1812, Lamarck's theory of descent, founded in 1809, had to wait fully
fifty years before Darwin, in 1859, showed it to be the greatest
acquisition of modern science; and during that period, in spite of all
the progress made in empirical science, how persistently this most
comprehensive of all biological theories was combated. We need only
recollect how, in 1830, the celebrated George Cuvier silenced its most
eloquent supporter, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in the midst of the Paris
Academy, and how almost at the same time its founder, the great
Lamarck, ended his life in blindness, misery and want, while his
opponent Cuvier was enjoying the highest honours and the greatest
splendour. And yet we know now that the despised and contemned Lamarck
and Geoffroy had already grasped truths of the highest significance,
while Cuvier's much-admired and universally-accepted theory of
creation is now on all hands neglected as an absurd and untenable
delusion. But as neither Haller as against Wolff, nor Cuvier as
against Lamarck, could permanently hinder the progress of free
inquiry, neither will Virchow succeed in turning back the course of
Darwin's admirable achievement; no, not even when he is supported by
the discourses of his friend Bastian.
While we cannot but earnestly lament Virchow's inimical attitude in
this great struggle for truth, we must not overlook the effects of his
well-founded authority in a yet wider sphere. For instance, the
hostile attitude which the greater part of the Berlin press
persistently maintains towards the doctrine of development
(particularly the Liberal "National-Zeitung") is to be referred to the
influence of his authority. But much as this reactionary vein, in this
and in other intelligent circles at Berlin, must be regretted on the
one hand, on the other we must observe that by this evil we have been
preserved from a far greater one. This greater evil--the greatest, in
fact, which German science could have to encounter--would be the
monopoly of knowledge at Berlin; a Centralisation of Science. The
injurious fruits of this system of centralisation in France, for
instance, the continual deterioration of French science through the
Parisian "Monopoly of Knowledge," and its steady decline during half a
century from the sublimest heights--these are all well known. From
such a centralisation of German science--which would be especially
dangerous if it occurred in the capital, Berlin--we may hope to be
preserved; in the first place by the manifold differences and the
many-sided individuality of the German national spirit, the
much-abused German provincialism (Particularismus). While these
provincial modes of thought can never have any permanent political
value, nor be productive of a desirable form of government, it is
beyond a doubt that their outcome has been fruitful and happy for
German science. For it owes its splendid pre-eminence over that of
other countries precisely to the many centres of culture which were
offered by those numerous petty capitals of the minor German States
which strove to outdo each other in eager emulation. It is to be hoped
that this happy decentralisation of science in our politically united
fatherland may continue to subsist!
And next to this centrifugal tendency of our German national mind
nothing will so greatly contribute to it as a vigorous opposition to
the free advance of science, such as is just now declaring itself in
the metropolis. For by just so much as Berlin is dragged back by it in
the mighty onward stream of free intellectual movement, by so much
will it see itself outstripped by the other seats of culture in
Germany, which follow the stream with enthusiasm, or at least without
resistance. If Emil du Bois-Reymond raises the cry of "Ignorabimus,"
and Rudolf Virchow his still more audacious one of "Restringamur," as
the watchwords of science, then, from Jena, let the shout be raised
and echoed from a hundred other universities--"Impavidi progrediamur!"
THE END.
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ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE. By T. H. HUXLEY and W. J. YOUMANS.
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* * * * *
RECENT EDUCATIONAL WORKS.
=Principles and Practice of Teaching.=
By JAMES JOHONNOT.
1 volume, 12mo. Cloth. 396 pages. Price, $1.50.
CONTENTS.
I. WHAT IS EDUCATION?
II. THE MENTAL POWERS: their Order of Development, and the
Methods most conducive to Normal Growth.
III. OBJECTIVE TEACHING: its Methods, Aims, and Principles.
IV. SUBJECTIVE TEACHING: its Aims and Place in the Course of
Instruction.
V. OBJECT-LESSONS: their Value and Limitations.
VI. RELATIVE VALUE OF THE DIFFERENT STUDIES in a Course of
Instruction.
VII. PESTALOZZI, and his Contributions to Educational Science.
VIII. FROEBEL AND THE KINDERGARTEN.
IX. AGASSIZ; and SCIENCE IN ITS RELATION TO TEACHING.
X. CONTRASTED SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION.
XI. PHYSICAL CULTURE.
XII. AESTHETIC CULTURE.
XIII. MORAL CULTURE.
XIV. A COURSE OF STUDY.
XV. COUNTRY SCHOOLS.
_Extract from Preface._
"Experience is beginning to show that teaching, like every
other department of human thought and activity, must
change with the changing conditions of society, or it will
fall in the rear of civilization, and become an obstacle
to improvement.... In this volume an endeavor has been
made to examine education from the standpoint of modern
thought, and to contribute something to the solution of
the problems that are forcing themselves upon the
attention of educators. To these ends, a concise statement
of the well-settled principles of psychology has been
made, and a connected view of the interdependence of the
sciences given, to serve as a guide to methods of
instruction, and to determine the subject-matter best
adapted to each stage of development. The systems of
several of the great educational reformers have been
analyzed, with a view to ascertain precisely what each has
contributed to the science of teaching, and how far their
ideas conform to psychological laws; and an endeavor has
been made to combine the principles derived from both
experience and philosophy into one coherent system."
ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN HISTORICAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR, containing Accidence
and Word-Formation. By the Rev. RICHARD MORRIS, LL. D., President of
the Philological Society, London. 18mo. Cloth, 254 pages. Price,
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WORDS, and how to put them together. By HARLAN H. BALLARD, Principal
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GENERAL HISTORY, from B. C. 800 to A. D. 1876. Outlined in Diagrams
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HARKNESS'S PREPARATORY COURSE IN LATIN PROSE AUTHORS, comprising four
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* * * * *
New Volume of "The International Scientific Series."
EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE.
BY
ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D.,
PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.
1 _vol._, 12_mo. Cloth, price_, $1.75.
"In the present work I have surveyed the Teaching Art, as far as
possible, from a scientific point of view; which means, among other
things, that the maxims of ordinary experience are tested and amended by
bringing them under the best ascertained laws of the mind."--_From
Preface._
"Dr. Bain's _renovated curriculum_ is certainly extensive enough, even
if it omits Greek and Latin. According to this, higher education should
embrace--first, science; second, the humanities, including history and
the social science, and some portions of the universal literature; and,
third, English composition and literature."--_New York Evening Express._
"The work should become a text-book for teachers, not to be followed
servilely or thoughtlessly, but used for its suggestiveness."--_Boston
Gazette._
"Professor Bain is not a novice in this field. His work is admirable in
many respects for teacher, parent, and pupil."--_Philadelphia North
American._
"A work of great value to all teachers who study it
intelligently."--Boston Advertiser.__
"At once speculative and practical, entering largely into the philosophy
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* * * * *
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The object of these primers is to convey information in such a manner
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APPLETONS' SCHOOL READERS,
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BY
W. T. HARRIS, LL. D.,
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St. Louis, Mo._
A. J. RICKOFF, A. M.,
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Cleveland, O._
MARK BAILEY, A. M.,
_Instructor in Elocution,
Yale College._
RETAIL PRICES.
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represent vowel-sounds, correct spelling, exercises well arranged for
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lessons of self-help, self-dependence, the habit of application),
exercises that develop a practical command of correct forms of
expression, good literary taste, close critical power of thought, and
ability to interpret the entire meaning of the language of others.
THE AUTHORS.
The high rank which the authors have attained in the educational field
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everywhere.
Of Professor Bailey, Instructor of Elocution in Yale College, it is
needless to speak, for he is known throughout the Union as being
without a peer in his profession. _His methods make natural, not
mechanical readers._
* * * * *
A SHORT HISTORY
OF
Natural Science and the Progress of Discovery,
_FROM THE TIME OF THE GREEKS TO THE PRESENT DAY._
FOR SCHOOLS AND YOUNG PERSONS.
By ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY.
With Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
"During many years the author acted as secretary to Sir Charles
Lyell, and was brought in contact with many of the leading scientific
men of the day, and felt very forcibly how many important facts and
generalizations of science, which are of great value both in the
formation of character and in giving a true estimate of life and
its conditions, are totally unknown to the majority of otherwise
well-educated persons. This work has been written for this purpose,
and it is not too much to say that it will effect its
purpose."--_European Mail_.
"The volume is attractive as a book of anecdotes of men of science and
their discoveries. Its remarkable features are the sound judgment with
which the true landmarks of scientific history are selected, the
conciseness of the information conveyed, and the interest with which
the whole subject is nevertheless invested. Its style is strictly
adapted to its avowed purpose of furnishing a text-book for the use of
schools and young persons."--_London Daily News_.
"Before we had read half-a-dozen pages of this book we laid it down
with an expression of admiration of the wonderful powers of the
writer. And our opinion has increased in intensity as we have gone on,
till we have come to the conclusion that it is a book worthy of being
ranked with Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences'; it is one
which should be first placed in the hands of every one who proposes to
become a student of natural science, and it would be well if it were
adopted as a standard volume in all our schools."--_Popular Science
Review_.
"A most admirable little volume. It is a classified resume of the
chief discoveries in physical science. To the young student it is a
book to open up new worlds with every chapter."--_Graphic_.
"We have nothing but praise for this interesting book. Miss Buckley
has the rare faculty of being able to write for young
people."--_London Spectator_.
"The book will be a valuable aid in the study of the elements of
natural science."--_Journal of Education_.
* * * * *
FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE.
BY ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY,
Author of "A Short History of Natural Science," etc.
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.
12mo Cloth, price, $1.50.
"A child's reading-book admirably adapted to the purpose intended. The
young reader is referred to nature itself rather than to books, and is
taught to observe and investigate, and not to rest satisfied with a
collection of dull definitions learned by rote and worthless to the
possessor. The present work will be found a valuable and interesting
addition to the somewhat overcrowded child's library."--_Boston
Gazette._
"Written in a style so simple and lucid as to be within the
comprehension of an intelligent child, and yet it will be found
entertaining to maturer minds."--_Baltimore Gazette._
"It deserves to take a permanent place in the literature of
youth."--_London Times._
"The ease of her style, the charm of her illustrations, and the
clearness with which she explains what is abstruse, are no doubt the
result of much labor; but there is nothing labored in her pages, and
the reader must be dull indeed who takes up this volume without
finding much to attract attention and to stimulate inquiry."--_Pall
Mall Gazette._
"So interesting that having once opened it we do not know how to leave
off reading."--_Saturday Review._
"We are compelled to admit that there is indeed a fairy-land of
science. This is the fairy-land upon which Miss Arabella Buckley
lectured last year, and upon which she has now produced a child's
reading-book, which is most charmingly illustrated, and which is in
every way rendered especially interesting to the juvenile
reader."--_London Athenaeum._
* * * * *
THE EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE SERIES.
In neat 12mo volumes, bound in cloth, fully illustrated. Price per
volume, $1.00.
This series of scientific books for boys, girls, and students of every
age, was designed by Prof. Alfred M. Mayer, Ph. D., at the Stevens
Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. Every book is addressed
directly to the young student, and he is taught to construct his own
apparatus out of the cheapest and most common materials to be found.
Should the reader make all the apparatus described in the first book
of this series, he will spend only $12.40.
NOW READY:
I.--LIGHT.
A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the
Phenomena of Light, for Students of every Age.
_By ALFRED M. MAYER and CHARLES BARNARD._
II.--SOUND:
A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the
Phenomena of Sound, for the Use of Students of every Age.
_By ALFRED MARSHALL MAYER_,
Professor of Physics in the Stevens Institute of Technology; Member of
the National Academy of Sciences; of the American Philosophical
Society, Philadelphia; of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Boston; of the New York Academy of Sciences; of the German
Astronomical Society; of the American Otological Society; and Honorary
Member of the New York Ophthalmological Society.
IN ACTIVE PREPARATION:
III. Vision and the Nature of Light.
IV. Electricity and Magnetism.
V. Heat.
VI. Mechanics.
VII. Chemistry.
VIII. The Art of experimenting with Cheap and Simple Instruments.
* * * * *
LIGHT:
_A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the
Phenomena of Light, for the Use of Students of Every Age._
BY ALFRED M. MAYER and CHARLES BARNARD.
NEAT 12MO VOLUME, FULLY ILLUSTRATED. CLOTH, PRICE, $1.00.
"Professor Mayer has invented a series of experiments in Light which
are described by Mr. Barnard. Nothing is more necessary for
sound-teaching than experiments made by the pupil, and this book, by
considering the difficulty of costly apparatus, has rendered an
important service to teacher and student alike. It deals with the
sources of light, reflection, refraction, and decomposition of light.
The experiments are extremely simple and well suited to young
people."--_Westminster Review._
"This work describes, in simple language, a number of experiments
illustrating the principal properties of light, by means of a beam of
sunlight admitted into a dark room, and various contrivances. The
experiments are highly ingenious, and the young student can not fail
to learn a great deal from the book. As an example of the effective
experimental method employed, we may specially mention the device for
illustrating the refraction of light. This book is specially designed
'to give to every teacher and scholar the knowledge of the art of
experimenting.'"--_The Quarterly Journal of Science_ (London).
"A singularly excellent little hand-book for the use of teachers,
parents, and children. The book is admirable both in design and
execution. The experiments for which it provides are so simple that an
intelligent boy or girl can easily make them, and so beautiful and
interesting that even the youngest children must enjoy the exhibition.
The experiments here described are abundantly worth all that they cost
in money and time in any family where there are boys and girls to be
entertained."--_New York Evening Post._
"The experiments are capitally selected, and equally as well
described. The book is conspicuously free from the multiplicity of
confusing directions with which works of the kind too often abound.
There is an abundance of excellent illustrations."--_New York
Scientific American._
"The experiments are for the most part new, and have the merit of
combining precision in the methods with extreme simplicity and
elegance of design. The value of the book is further enhanced by the
numerous carefully-drawn cuts, which add greatly to its
beauty."--_American Journal of Science and Arts._
* * * * *
SOUND:
_A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the
Phenomena of Sound, for the Use of Students of Every Age._
By ALFRED MARSHALL MAYER,
Professor of Physics in the Stevens Institute of Technology; Member of
the National Academy of Sciences, etc.
Uniform with "LIGHT," first volume of the Series.
Neat 12mo volume, fully illustrated. Cloth, price, $1.00.
"It would be difficult to find a better example of a series which is
excellent throughout. This little work is accurate in detail, popular
in style, and lucid in arrangement. Every statement is accompanied
with ample illustrations. We can heartily recommend it, either as an
introduction to the subject or as a satisfactory manual for those who
have no time for perusing a larger work. It contains an excellent
description, with diagrams, of Faber's Talking Machine and of Edison's
Talking Phonograph, which can not fail to be interesting to any reader
who takes an interest in the marvelous progress of natural
science."--_British Quarterly._
"The style of the book is very clear, and the experiments interesting.
It can not fail to have an important educational influence."--_Westminster
Review._
"It would really be difficult to exaggerate the merit, in the sense of
consummate adaptation to its modest end, of this little treatise on
'Sound.' It teaches the youthful student how to make experiments for
himself, without the help of a trained operator, and at very little
expense. These hand-books of Professor Mayer should be in the hands of
every teacher of the young."--_New York Sun._
"An admirably clear and interesting collection of experiments,
described with just the right amount of abstract information and no
more, and placed in progressive order. The recent inventions of the
phonograph and microphone lend an extraordinary interest to this whole
field of experiment, which makes Professor Mayer's manual especially
opportune."--_Boston Courier._
* * * * *
The Works of Professor E. L. YOUMANS, M. D.
_Class-book of Chemistry._
New edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
_The Hand-book of Household Science._
A Popular Account of Heat, Light, Air, Aliment, and Cleansing, in
their Scientific Principles and Domestic Applications. 12mo.
Illustrated. Cloth, $1.75.
_The Culture demanded by Modern Life._
A Series of Addresses and Arguments on the Claims of Scientific
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_Correlation and Conservation of Forces._
A Series of Expositions by Professor Grove, Professor Helmholtz, Dr.
Mayer, Dr. Faraday, Professor Liebig, and Dr. Carpenter. Edited, with
an Introduction and Brief Biographical Notices of the Chief Promoters
of the New Views, by EDWARD L. YOUMANS, M. D. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth,
$2.00.
* * * * *
_The Popular Science Monthly._
Conducted by E. L. and W. J. YOUMANS.
Containing instructive and interesting articles and abstracts of
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leading scientific men of different countries;
Accounts of important scientific discoveries;
The application of science to the practical arts;
The latest views put forth concerning natural phenomena, by savants of
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TERMS: Five dollars per annum; or fifty cents per number. A Club of
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY and APPLETONS' JOURNAL, together, for
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* * * * *
_A New and Valuable Work for the Practical Mechanic and Engineer._
APPLETONS' CYCLOPAEDIA OF APPLIED MECHANICS.
A DICTIONARY OF
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND THE MECHANICAL ARTS.
ILLUSTRATED BY 5,000 ENGRAVINGS.
Edited by PARK BENJAMIN, Ph. D.
CONTRIBUTORS.
T. A. EDISON, PH. D.
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PROF. DE VOLSON WOOD.
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JOHN HOLLINGSWORTH, ESQ.
APPLETONS' CYCLOPAEDIA OF APPLIED MECHANICS of 1879 is a new work, and
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Its production is deemed timely in view of the existing popular
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past three years.
The CONTRIBUTORS whose names are given above number many of the most
eminent American mechanical experts and engineers. Several of their
contributions contain the results of original research and thought,
never before published. Their efforts have in all cases tended to
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render all that is presented easily understood by the general reader
as well as by the mechanical student. Examples are appended to all
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In semi-monthly Parts, 50 cents each.
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* * * * *
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