current _à priori_ "infidelity."


I hope you will consider that the arguments I have now stated, even if
there were no better ones, constitute a sufficient apology for urging
the introduction of science into schools. The next question to which I
have to address myself is, What sciences ought to be thus taught? And
this is one of the most important of questions, because my side (I am
afraid I am a terribly candid friend) sometimes spoils its cause by
going in for too much. There are other forms of culture beside physical
science; and I should be profoundly sorry to see the fact forgotten, or
even to observe a tendency to starve, or cripple, literary, or æsthetic,
culture for the sake of science. Such a narrow view of the nature of
education has nothing to do with my firm conviction that a complete and
thorough scientific culture ought to be introduced into all schools. By
this, however, I do not mean that every schoolboy should be taught
everything in science. That would be a very absurd thing to conceive,
and a very mischievous thing to attempt. What I mean is, that no boy nor
girl should leave school without possessing a grasp of the general
character of science, and without having been disciplined, more or less,
in the methods of all sciences; so that, when turned into the world to
make their own way, they shall be prepared to face scientific problems,
not by knowing at once the conditions of every problem, or by being able
at once to solve it; but by being familiar with the general current of
scientific thought, and by being able to apply the methods of science in
the proper way, when they have acquainted themselves with the conditions
of the special problem.

That is what I understand by scientific education. To furnish a boy with
such an education, it is by no means necessary that he should devote his