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THE HIGHER EDUCATION

"scientific." Undoubtedly also—to repeat the remark of a colleague, a professor of physics—"most of the advances in science consist in correcting mistakes." Notwithstanding the hardship which would be involved in the effort to draw a fixed line between the region where opinion dwells and the domain ruled over by science, the characacter of the conception to which the latter word answers should be made clear to every educated mind. How often does one meet men of fine literary culture who still show no little bigotry, and commit not a few important mistakes, because they simply do not know what science really is. And again, if they wanted to attain knowledge on any subiect which should be worthy of being called scientific, they simply do not know how to go to work; they know nothing about scientific method in the investigation of any subject.

It seems to me, then, especially desirable in these days that the somewhat prolonged scholastic study of natural science should be made a required part of every liberal education. And if I were asked that difficult practical question, "How much?" I should be inclined to answer: "Enough to give the student a pretty firm grasp on those fundamental physical principles upon which the world of things is built, and enough of the pursuit of some form of descriptive natural science to impart the training of the powers of observation and the habit of properly