well to remark, Gilbert,[1] Hervey, and Galileo were educated in medical schools abroad.
Bacon was not only the first to lay down regulæ philosophandi, but he insisted upon the far-reaching results of research, not forgetting to point out that "lucifera experimenta, non fructifera quœrenda,"[2] as a caution to the investigator, though he had no doubt as to the revolution to be brought about by the ultimate application of the results of physical inquiry.
As early as 1560 the Academia Secretorum Naturæ was founded at Naples, followed by the Lincei in 1609, the Royal Society in 1645, the Cimento in 1657, and the Paris Academy in 1666.
From that time the world may be said to have belonged to science, now no longer based merely on observation but on experiment. But, alas! how slowly has it percolated into our universities.
The first organized endeavor to teach science in schools was naturally made in Germany (Prussia), where, in 1747 (nearly a century and a half ago), Realschulen were first started; they were taken over by the Government in 1832, and completely reorganized in 1859, this step being demanded by the growth of industry and the spread of the modern spirit. Eleven hours a week were given to natural science in these schools forty years ago.
Teaching the Teachers.—Until the year 1762 the Jesuits had the education of France almost entirely in their hands, and when, therefore, their expulsion was decreed in that year, it was only a necessary step to create an institution to teach the future teachers of France. Here, then, we had the École Normale in theory; but it was a long time before this theory was carried into practice, and very probably it would never have been had not Holland d'Erceville made it his duty for more than twenty years, by numerous publications, among which is especially to be mentioned his Plan d'Education, printed in 1783, to point out not merely the utility but the absolute necessity for some institution of the kind. As generally happens in such cases, this exertion was not lost, for in 1794 it was decreed that an École Normale should be opened at Paris, "ou seront appelés de toutes les parties de la République, des citoyens dejà instruits dans les sciences utiles, pour apprendre, sous les professeurs les plus habiles dans tous les genres, l'art d'enseigner."
To follow these courses in the art of teaching, one potential schoolmaster was to be sent to Paris by every district containing twenty thousand inhabitants. Fourteen or fifteen hundred young men therefore arrived in Paris, and in 1795 the courses of the school were opened first of all in the amphitheater of the Museum
