that such training should be real: that is to say, that the mind of the
scholar should be brought into direct relation with fact, that he should
not merely be told a thing, but made to see by the use of his own
intellect and ability that the thing is _so_ and no otherwise. The great
peculiarity of scientific training, that in virtue of which it cannot be
replaced by any other discipline whatsoever, is this bringing of the
mind directly into contact with fact, and practising the intellect in
the completest form of induction; that is to say, in drawing conclusions
from particular facts made known by immediate observation of Nature.

The other studies which enter into ordinary education do not discipline
the mind in this way. Mathematical training is almost purely deductive.
The mathematician starts with a few simple propositions, the proof of
which is so obvious that they are called self-evident, and the rest of
his work consists of subtle deductions from them. The teaching of
languages, at any rate as ordinarily practised, is of the same general
nature,--authority and tradition furnish the data, and the mental
operations of the scholar are deductive.

Again: if history be the subject of study, the facts are still taken
upon the evidence of tradition and authority. You cannot make a boy see
the battle of Thermopylæ for himself, or know, of his own knowledge,
that Cromwell once ruled England. There is no getting into direct
contact with natural fact by this road; there is no dispensing with
authority, but rather a resting upon it.

In all these respects, science differs from other educational
discipline, and prepares the scholar for common life. What have we to do
in every-day life? Most of the business which demands our attention is
matter of fact, which needs, in the first place, to be accurately