unavoidable, but it is surely matter for regret. A training in science
and scientific methods, admirable as it is in so many ways, fails to
supply those humanizing influences which the older learning can so
well impart. For the moral stimulus that comes from an association
with all that is noblest and best in the literatures of the past, for
the culture and taste that spring from prolonged contact with the
highest models of literary expression, for the widening of our
sympathies and the vivifying of our imagination by the study of
history, the teaching of science has no equivalents.
Men who have completed their formal education with little or no help
from the older learning may be pardoned should they be apt to despise
such help and to believe that they can very well dispense with it in
the race of life. My first earnest advice to the science students of
this college is, not to entertain this belief and to refuse to act on
it. Be assured that, in your future career, whatever it may be, you
will find in literature a source of solace and refreshment, of
strength and encouragement, such as no department of science can give
you. There will come times, even to the most enthusiastic among you,
when scientific work, in spite of its absorbing interest, grows to be
a weariness. At such times as these you will appreciate the value of
the literary culture you may have received at school or college.
Cherish the literary tastes you have acquired, and devote yourselves
sedulously to the further cultivation of them during such intervals of
leisure as you may be able to secure.
Over and above the pleasure which communion with the best books will
bring with it, two reasons of a more utilitarian kind may be given to
science students why they should seek this communion. Men who have
been too exclusively trained in science, or are too much absorbed in
its pursuit, are not always the most agreeable members of society.
They are apt to be somewhat angular and professional, contributing
little that is interesting to general conversation, save when they get
a chance of introducing their own science and its doings. Perhaps the
greatest bore I ever met was a man of science, whose mind and training
were so wholly mathematical and physical that he seemed unable to look
at the simplest subject save in its physical relations, about which he
would discourse till he had long exhausted the patience of the auditor
whom he detained. There is no more efficacious remedy for this
tendency to what is popularly known as "shop" than the breadth and
culture of mind that spring from wide reading in ancient and modern
literature.
The other reason for the advice I offer you is one of which you will
hardly, perhaps, appreciate the full force in the present stage of
your career. One result of the comparative neglect of the literary
side of education by many men of science is conspicuously seen in
their literary style. It is true that in our time we have had some
eminent scientific workers, who have also been masters of nervous and
eloquent English. But it is not less true that the literature of
science is burdened with a vast mass of slipshod, ungrammatical, and
clumsy writing, wherein sometimes even the meaning of the authors is
left in doubt. Let me impress upon you the obvious duty of not
increasing this unwieldy burden. Study the best masters of style, and
when once you have made up your minds what you want to say, try to
express it in the simplest, clearest, and most graceful language you
can find.
Remember that, while education is the drawing out and cultivation of
all the powers of the mind, no system has yet been devised that will
by itself develop with equal success every one of these powers. The
system under which we have been trained may have done as much for us
as it can do. Each of us is thereafter left to supplement its
deficiencies by self-culture. And in the ordinary science instruction
of the time one of the most obvious of these inevitable deficiencies
is the undue limitation or neglect of the literary side of education.
But in the science instruction itself there are dangers regarding
which we can not be too watchful. In this college and in all the other
well-organized scientific institutions of the country the principles
of science are taught orally and experimentally. Every branch of
knowledge is expounded in its bearings on other branches. Its theory
is held up as the first great aim of instruction, and its practical
applications are made subsequent and subordinate. Divisions of science
are taught here which may have few practical applications, but which
are necessary for a comprehensive survey of the whole circle of
scientific truth. Now, you may possibly have heard, and in the midst
of a busy industrial community you are not unlikely to hear, remarks
made in criticism of this system or method of tuition. The importance
of scientific training will be frankly acknowledged and even insisted
upon, but you will sometimes hear this admission coupled with the
proviso that the science must be of a practical kind; must, in short,
be just such and no other as will fit young men to turn it to
practical use in the manufactures or industries to which they may be
summoned. The critics who make this limitation boast that they are
practical men, and that in their opinion theory is useless or worse
for the main purposes for which they would encourage and support a
great scientific school.
Now I am quite sure that those science students who have passed even a
single session in Mason College can see for themselves the utter
fallacy of such statements and the injury that would be done to the
practical usefulness of this institution and to the general progress
of the industrial applications of science if such short-sighted views
were ever carried into effect. There can be no thorough, adequate, and
effective training in science unless it be based on a comprehensive
study of facts and principles, altogether apart from any economic
uses to which they may be put. Science must be pursued for her own
sake, in the first instance, and without reference to any pecuniary
benefits she may be able to confer. We never can tell when the most
theoretical part of pure science may be capable of being turned to the
most important practical uses. Who could have surmised, for instance,
that in the early tentative experiments of Volta, Galvani, and others
last century lay the germ of the modern world-grasping electric
telegraph? Or when Wedgwood, at the beginning of this century, copied
paintings by the agency of light upon nitrate of silver, who could
have foretold that he was laying the foundations of the marvelous art
of photography?
There can be no more pernicious doctrine than that which would measure
the commercial value of science by its immediate practical usefulness,
and would restrict its place in education to those only of its
subdivisions which may be of service to the industries of the present
time. Such a curtailed method of instruction is not education in the
true sense of the term. It is only a kind of cramming for a specific
purpose, and the knowledge which it imparts, being one-sided and
imperfect, is of little value beyond its own limited range. I by no
means wish to undervalue the importance of technical instruction. By
all means let our artisans know as much as can be taught them
regarding the nature and laws of the scientific processes in which
they are engaged. But it is not by mere technical instruction that we
shall maintain and extend the industrial and commercial greatness of
the country. If we are not only to hold our own, but to widen the
boundaries of applied science, to perfect our manufactures, and to
bring new departments of Nature into the service of man, it is by
broad, thorough, untrammeled scientific research that our success must
be achieved.
When, therefore, you are asked to explain of what practical use are
some of the branches of science in which you have been trained, do not
lose patience with your questioner, and answer him as you think such a
Philistine deserves to be answered. Give him a few illustrations of
the thousands of ways in which science, that might have been
stigmatized by him as merely abstract and theoretical, has yet been
made to minister to the practical needs of humanity. Above all, urge
him to attend some of the classes of Mason College, where he will
learn, in the most effectual manner, the intimate connection between
theory and practice. If he chances to be wealthy, the experiment may
possibly open his eyes to the more urgent needs of the institution,
and induce him to contribute liberally toward their satisfaction.
Among the advantages and privileges of your life at college there is
one, the full significance and value of which you will better
appreciate in later years. You have here an opportunity of acquiring
a wide general view of the whole range of scientific thought and
method. If you proceed to a science degree you are required to lay a
broad foundation of acquaintance with the physical and biological
sciences. You are thus brought into contact with the subjects of each
great department of natural knowledge, and you learn enough regarding
them to enable you to understand their scope and to sympathize with
the workers who are engaged upon them. But when your academical career
is ended, no such chance of wide general training is ever likely to be
yours again. You will be dragged into the whirl of life, where you
will probably find little time or opportunity to travel much beyond
the sphere of employment to which you may have been called. Make the
most, therefore, of the advantages which in this respect you meet with
here. Try to insure that your acquaintance with each branch of science
embraced in your circle of studies shall be as full and accurate as
lies in your power to make it. Even in departments outside the bounds
of your own tastes and ultimate requirements, do not neglect the means
provided for your gaining some knowledge of them. I urge this duty,
not because its diligent discharge will obviously tell in your
examinations, but because it will give you that scientific culture
which, while enabling you to appreciate and enjoy the successive
advances of other sciences than that which you may select for special
cultivation, will at the same time increase your general usefulness
and aid you in your own researches.
The days of Admirable Crichtons are long since past. So rapid and
general is the onward march of science that not only can no man keep
pace with it in every direction, but it has become almost hopelessly
impossible to remain abreast of the progress in each of the several
subdivisions of even a single science. We are entering more and more
upon the age of specialists. It grows increasingly difficult for the
specialists, even in kindred sciences, to remain in touch with each
other. When you find yourselves fairly launched into the vortex of
life you will look back with infinite satisfaction to the time when
you were enabled to lay a broad and solid platform of general
acquirement within the walls of this college.
Perhaps the most remarkable defect in the older or literary methods of
education was the neglect of the faculty of observation. For the
training of the other mental faculties ample provision was made, but
for this, one of the most important of the whole, no care was taken.
If a boy was naturally observant, he was left to cultivate the use of
his eyes as he best might; if he was not observant, nothing was done
to improve him in this respect, unless it were, here and there, by the
influence of such an intelligent teacher as is described in Mrs.
Barbauld's famous story of Eyes and No Eyes. Even when science began
to be introduced into our schools, it was still taught in the old or
literary fashion. Lectures and lessons were given by masters who got
up their information from books, but had no practical knowledge of the
subjects they taught. Class-books were written by men equally
destitute of a personal acquaintance with any department of science.
The lessons were learned by rote, and not infrequently afforded
opportunities rather for frolic than for instruction. Happily, this
state of things, though not quite extinct, is rapidly passing away.
Practical instruction is everywhere coming into use, while the
old-fashioned cut-and-dry lesson-book is giving way to the laboratory,
the field excursion, and the school museum.
It is mainly through the eyes that we gain our knowledge and
appreciation of the world in which we live. But we are not all equally
endowed with the gift of intelligent vision. On the contrary, in no
respect, perhaps, do we differ more from each other than in our powers
of observation. Obviously, a man who has a quick eye to note what
passes around him must, in the ordinary affairs of life, stand at a
considerable advantage over another man who moves unobservantly on his
course. We can not create an observing faculty any more than we can
create a memory, but we may do much to develop both. This is a feature
in education of much more practical and national importance than might
be supposed. I suspect that it lies closer than might be imagined to
the success of our commercial relations abroad. Our prevalent system
of instruction has for generations past done nothing to cultivate the
habit of observation, and has thus undoubtedly left us at a
disadvantage in comparison with nations that have adopted methods of
tuition wherein the observing faculty is regularly trained. With our
world-wide commerce we have gone on supplying to foreign countries the
same manufactured goods for which our fathers found markets in all
quarters of the globe. Our traders, however, now find themselves in
competition with traders from other nations who have been trained to
better use of their powers of observation, and who, taking careful
note of the gradually changing tastes and requirements of the races
which they visit, have been quick to report these changes and to take
means for meeting them. Thus, in our own centers of trade, we find
ourselves in danger of being displaced by rivals with sharper eyes and
greater powers of adaptation.
It is the special function of science to cultivate this faculty of
observation. Here in Mason College, from the very beginning of your
scientific studies you have been taught to use your eyes, to watch the
phenomena that appear and disappear around you, to note the sequence
and relation of these phenomena, and thus, as it were, to enter
beneath the surface into the very soul of things. You can not,
however, have failed to remark among your fellow-students great
inequalities in their powers of observation, and great differences in
the development of these powers under the very same system of
instruction. And you may have noticed that, speaking generally, those
classmates who have shown the best observing faculty have taken
foremost places among their fellows. It is not a question of mere
brain power. A man may possess a colossal intellect, while his faculty
of observation may be of the feeblest kind. One of the greatest
mathematicians of this century who, full of honors, recently passed
away from us, had so little cognizance of his surroundings that many
ludicrous stories are told of his childlike mistakes as to place and
time.
The continued development of the faculty of prompt and accurate
observation is a task on which you can not bestow too much attention.
Your education here must already have taught you its value. In your
future career the use you make of this faculty may determine your
success or your failure. But not only have your studies in this
college trained your observing powers, they have at the same time
greatly widened the range of your mental vision by the variety of
objects which you have been compelled to look at and examine. The same
methods which have been so full of benefit to you here can be
continued by you in after life. And be assured that in maintaining
them in active use you will take effective means for securing success
in the careers you may choose to follow.
But above and beyond the prospect of any material success there is a
higher motive which will doubtless impel you. The education of your
observing faculty has been carried on during your introduction to new
realms of knowledge. The whole domain of Nature has been spread out
before you. You have been taught to observe thousands of objects and
processes of which, common though they may be, you had previously
taken no note. Henceforth, wherever you may go, you can not wander
with ignorant or unobservant eyes. Land and sea and sky, bird and
beast and flower now awaken in you a new interest, for you have
learned lessons from them that have profoundly impressed you, and you
have discovered meanings in them of which you had never dreamed. You
have been permitted to pass within the veil of Nature, and to perceive
some of the inner mechanism of this world.
Thus, your training in science has not only taught you to use your
eyes, but to use them intelligently, and in such a way as to see much
more in the world around you than is visible to the uninstructed man.
This widened perception might be illustrated from any department of
natural science. Let me take, by way of example, the relation of the
student of science toward the features and charms of landscape. It
may be said that no training is needed to comprehend these beauties;
that the man in the street, the holiday maker from town, is just as
competent as the man of science to appreciate them, and may get quite
as much pleasure out of them. We need not stop to discuss the relative
amounts of enjoyment which different orders of spectators may derive
from scenery; but obviously the student of science has one great
advantage in this matter. Not only can he enjoy to the full all the
outward charms which appeal to the ordinary eye, but he sees in the
features of the landscape new charms and interests which the ordinary
untrained eye can not see. Your accomplished professor of geology has
taught you the significance of the outer lineaments of the land. While
under his guidance you have traced with delight the varied features of
the lovely landscapes of the Midlands, your eyes have been trained to
mark their connection with each other, and their respective places in
the ordered symmetry of the whole scene. You perceive why there is
here a height and there a hollow; you note what has given the ridges
and vales their dominant forms and directions; you detect the causes
that have spread out a meadow in one place and raised up a hill in
another.
Above and beyond all questions as to the connection and origin of its
several parts, the landscape appeals vividly to your imagination. You
know that it has not always worn the aspect which it presents to-day.
You have observed in these ridges proofs that the sea once covered
their site. You have seen the remains of long-extinct shells, fishes,
and reptiles that have been disinterred from the mud and silt left
behind by the vanished waters. You have found evidence that not once
only, but again and again, after vast lapses of time and many
successive revolutions, the land has sunk beneath the ocean and has
once more emerged. You have been shown traces of underground
commotion, and you can point to places where, over central England,
volcanoes were once active. You have learned that the various elements
of the landscape have thus been gradually put together during
successive ages, and that the slow processes, whereby the
characteristic forms of the ground have been carved out, are still in
progress under your eye.
While, therefore, you are keenly alive to the present beauty of the
scene, it speaks to you, at every turn, of the past. Each feature
recalls some incident in the strange primeval history that has been
transacted here. The succession of contrasts between what is now and
what has been fills you with wonder and delight. You feel as if a new
sense had been given to you, and that with its aid your appreciation
of scenery has been enlarged and deepened to a marvelous degree.
And so, too, is it with your relation to all the other departments of
Nature. The movements of the clouds, the fall of rain, the flow of
brook and river, the changes of the seasons, the succession of calm
and storm, do not pass before your eyes now as they once did. While
they minister to the joy of life, they speak to you of that
all-embracing system of process and law that governs the world. The
wayside flower is no longer to your eyes merely a thing of beauty. You
have found it to be that and far more--an exquisite organism in which
the several parts are admirably designed to promote the growth of the
plant and to perpetuate the life of the species. Every insect and bird
is now to you an embodiment of the mystery of life. The forces of
Nature, once so dark and so dreaded, are now seen by you to be
intelligible, orderly, and capable of adaptation to the purposes of
man. In the physical and chemical laboratories you have been brought
into personal contact with these forces, and have learned to direct
their operations, as you have watched the manifold effects of energy
on the infinite varieties of matter.
When you have completed your course of study and leave this college,
crowned, I hope, with academic distinction, there will be your future
career in life to choose and follow. A small number among you may,
perhaps, be so circumstanced as to be able to devote yourselves
entirely to original scientific research, selecting such branches of
inquiry as may have specially interested you here, and giving up your
whole time and energy to investigation. A much larger number will, no
doubt, enter professions where a scientific training can be turned to
practical account, and you may become engineers, chemists, or medical
men. But in the struggle for existence, which every year grows keener
among us, these professions are more and more crowded, so that a large
proportion of your ranks may not succeed in finding places there, and
may in the end be pushed into walks in life where there may be little
or no opportunity for making much practical use of the knowledge in
science which you have gained here. To those who may ultimately be
thus situated it will always be of advantage to have had the mental
training given in this institution, and it will probably be your own
fault if, even under unfavorable conditions, you do not find, from
time to time, chances of turning your scientific acquirements to
account. Your indebtedness to your professors demands that you shall
make the effort, and, for the credit of the college, you are bound to
do your best.
Among the mental habits which your education in science has helped to
foster, there are a few which I would specially commend to your
attention as worthy of your most sedulous care all through life.
In the first place, I would put accuracy. You have learned in the
laboratory how absolutely essential this condition is for scientific
investigation. We are all supposed to make the ascertainment of the
truth our chief aim, but we do not all take the same trouble to attain
it. Accuracy involves labor, and every man is not gifted with an
infinite capacity for taking pains. Inexactness of observation is sure
sooner or later to be detected, and to be visited on the head of the
man who commits it. If his observations are incorrect, the conclusions
he has drawn from them may be vitiated. Thus all the toil he has
endured in a research may be rendered of no avail, and the reputation
he might have gained is not only lost but replaced by discredit. It is
quite true that absolute accuracy is often unattainable; you can only
approach it. But the greater the exertion you make to reach it, the
greater will be the success of your investigations. The effort after
accuracy will be transferred from your scientific work to your
everyday life and become a habit of mind, advantageous both to
yourselves and to society at large.