Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/500

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

toward the discoveries of Newton. Many others make lower standards for scientific than for classical students, seemingly upon the idea that a bachelor of science is expected to know less than a bachelor of arts. Perhaps the scientific spirit is now best represented in this country by the Sheffield Scientific School at New Haven. Here the policy of the institution seems to have been entirely shaped and guided by the Faculty rather than by the trustees. The Lawrence Scientific School did stand higher before the abolition of its special laboratory, and approximated closely to the German idea; but of late its Connecticut rival has passed it in the race. As a university, taken for all in all, Harvard is probably far ahead of Yale, but in training scientific students the latter can at present claim superiority. The Columbia College School of Mines is also a good institution, but it errs in the direction of over-thoroughness. The students have so much routine and detail work to do that no time is left for originality. The instructors, too, are overworked, so that they can accomplish little in the way of research, and they are, moreover, in many cases, underpaid. This latter evil the trustees can and should remedy. It also occurs at Cornell University, and has lost to that institution the services of several valuable men. These points are mentioned now, not hypercritically, but because they serve to illustrate certain discouragements which our scientific men have to encounter.

Now, having recognized some of the weaknesses in our American mode of conducting the work of higher education, we may reasonably ask how they are to be remedied. How shall reform be brought about, and by whom?

It is quite evident that improvement must come partly from within and partly from without. The internal management of each college must modify itself for the better, and its efforts should be strengthened and encouraged by exterior influences. From the latter, however, we have most to hope. As long as our colleges are controlled by men who do not appreciate thoroughness in scientific culture, we can expect but little from within. An incompetent Faculty is not likely to become suddenly conscientious and resign, neither are average boards of trustees prone to confess their incapacity. External pressure must be brought to bear both upon trustees and upon professors before they can be made fully to realize the responsibilities resting upon them. This pressure may come, partly from public sentiment, and partly, though later, through legislation.

But how shall public sentiment be properly shaped and made available for service? How is its natural though slow growth to be fostered and directed? Mainly by the efforts, organized and individual, of scientific men. Personally, every worker in science should strive to awaken in the community about him a comprehension of the value and the purposes of his particular branch. In other words, the real investigators ought to do more toward popularizing their discov-