Evolution in Education [pp. 233-248]

THE PRIN CE TON REVIEW.
works of art are rare and costly, and abortions of art, hideous
and depraving to taste, are too often those ordinarily presented
to the eyes of men. Good works of nature, beautiful, symmetrical, harmonious, and withal perfectly adapted to their
uses, are strewn around our daily paths, and are as accessible
to the poorest country child as to the millionaire. What a
great lever is here for the elevation of the common mind, if
only we put our hands firmly upon it! We must do this; for
tho a certain perception of beauty is a natural gift, it becomes
so dulled by familiarity and neglect, that it is necessary to throw
the light of science on the most common and the most attractive objects in order that they may be fully perceived and have
their due effect upon the mind. Science effects this in two
ways; first by disclosing minute and microscopic beauties not
visible to the ordinary eye, and secondly by enabling us to perceive the great harmony and unity of nature. Science-training
is not what it should be unless it keeps both objects in view,
and accustoms its pupil to work minutely and accurately, and
at the same time to rise to broad general views.
Unfortunately it cannot be affirmed of science teaching, as
it exists in our institutions of learning, that it actually fulfils
the utilities above sketched, and it may be well to inquire as to
the reasons of this.
The time has gone by when it was supposed that science
could be taught merely from books. It is now well known that
it must be taught by actual seeing, working, and thinking on
the part of the learner. But this may be carried out in a
spirit too mechanical and slavish, and there is reason to fear;
that much of the experimenting and dissection of our science
schools, however well it may serve some of the lower ends of
science-teaching, falls infinitely short of its nobler aims. The
evil of a superficial smattering of science has long been felt, but
there is danger of running into the opposite extreme of cultivating petty specialties. Some broad general culture there must
be before the pupil can safely be set to specialties. Again,
while the evolutionists have seen and stoutly maintained theutility of science in developing the mind, the application of'
their own doctrine to nature has worked the other way.
Those of them, more especially, who deny beauty as an object
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