ized self-interest, and it is precisely this enemy with which our system of higher education—in so far as it depends on State support—is beginning to he threatened. If the evil spreads, the result will be the disorganization of all State universities and colleges, because the youth of the country will not long consent to listen to lectures that express, not the thinking of an independent mind enriched by the thoughts of other independent minds, but a system of doctrine carefully adapted to help this or that party in its political struggles. Theology was a tyrant in its day, but it was a respectable, high-minded, and benevolent tyrant compared with the political party that would attempt to capture and pervert education for its own ends. Theology did not object to cramp men's minds if it could only save their souls; but the politician would do it in order to get their votes. Good will come out of evil, however, if the lesson is brought home to the popular mind that education and politics are two things that should have as little as possible to do with one another.
THE NATURE OF SCIENCE.
We have seldom seen the difference between the science of the ancient and that of the modern world so well drawn out as it was in the Harveian oration delivered a few weeks ago by Sir William Roberts before the Royal College of Physicians in London, England. The ancients, the speaker acknowledged, "had a large acquaintance with the phenomena of Nature, and were the masters of many inventions. They knew," he continued, "how to extract the common metals from their ores; they made glass; they were skilled agriculturists; they could bake, brew, and make wine; manufacture butter and cheese; spin, weave, and dye cloth; they had marked the motions of the heavenly bodies, and kept accurate record of times and seasons; they used the wheel, pulley, and lever; and knew a good deal of the natural history of plants and animals, and of anatomy and practical medicine." Here was a body of knowledge "of inestimable value for the necessities, conveniences, and embellishments of life." But, the lecturer went on to say, "it was not science in the modern sense of the word." Why? Because it was not "systematized and interpreted by co-ordinating principles, nor illuminated by generalizations which might serve as incentives and guides to further acquisitions." It had been acquired "mostly through haphazard discovery and chance observation," and, having no innate spring of growth, "could only increase, if at all, by casual additions—as a loose heap of stones might increase—and much of it was liable to be swept away at any time by the flood of barbaric conquest."
With the scientific possessions of the modern world the case is entirely different. They are the product of the direct and purposive efforts of the human mind, which some three centuries ago conceived the fruitful idea that the way to obtain knowledge was to go in search of it by means of observation and experiment, and not to wait for chance revelations. That idea is so familiar to us now that it is difficult to believe that it should not have been fully present to the minds of the civilized ancients. But the facts of history make it plain that it was not present to their minds. They thought acutely on many subjects, and produced an admirable literature and wonderful works of art; but they never learned the secret of interrogating Nature. Aristotle dwelt not a little on the importance of experiment and
