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S CEC
tunities, students have not flocked to the the imagination and modifies character,
study of science in the numbers predicted, while knowledge about things remains an
nor has science modified the spirit and inert possession of speculative intelligence.
purport of all education in a degree com- Those who believe, nevertheless, that the
mensurate with the claims made for it. sciences have a part to play in education
The causes for this result are many and equal-at the least-to that of literature
complex. I make no pretense of doing and language, have perhaps something to
more than singling out what seems to me learn from this contention. If we regard
one influential cause, the remedy for which science and literary culture as just so much
most lies with scientific men themselves. subject-matter, is not Mr. Arnold's conten-
I mean that science has been taught too tion essentially just? Conceived from this
much as an accumulation of ready-made standpoint, knowledge of human affairs
material with which students are to be couched in personal terms seems more im-
made familiar, not enough as a method of portant and more intimately appealing
thinking, an attitude of mind, after the than knowledge of physical things con-
pattern of which mental habits are to be veyed in impersonal terms. One might
transformed. well object to Arnold that he ignored the
Among the adherents of a literary educa- place of natural forces and conditions in
tion who have contended against the claims human life and thereby created an impos-
of science, Matthew Arnold has, I think, sible dualism. But it would not be easy to
been most discreetly reasonable. He freely deny that knowledge of Thermopylae knits
admitted the need of men knowing some- itself more readily into the body of emo-
thing, knowing a good deal, about the nat- tional images that stir men to action than
ural conditions of their own lives. Since, does the formula for the acceleration of a
so to say, men have to breathe air, it is flying arrow; or that Burns's poem on the
advisable that they should know something daisy enters more urgently and compel-
of the constitution of air and of the mech- lingly into the moving vision of life than
anism of the lungs. Moreover, since the does information regarding the morphol-
sciences have been developed by human ogy of the daisy.
beings, an important part of humanistic The infinitely extensive character of nat-
culture, of knowing the best that men have ural facts and the universal character of
said and thought, consists in becoming ac- the laws formulated about them is some-
quainted with the contributions of the times claimed to give science an advantage
great historic leaders of science. over literature. But viewed from the
These concessions made, Matthew Arnold standpoint of education, this presumed
insisted that the important thing, the indis- superiority turns out a defect; that is to
pensable thing in education, is to become say, so long as we confine ourselves to the
acquainted with human life itself, its art, point of view of subject-matter. Just be-
its literature, its politics, the fluctuations cause the facts of nature are multitudinous,
of its career. Such knowledge, he con- inexhaustible, they begin nowhere and end
tended, touches more closely our offices nowhere in particular, and hence are not,
and responsibilities as human beings, since just as facts, the best material for the edu-
these, after all, are to human beings and cation of those whose lives are centered in
not to physical things. Such knowledge, quite local situations and whose careers are
moreover, lays hold of the emotions and irretrievably partial and specific. If we
JANUARY28, 1910] SCIENCE 123
turn from multiplicity of detail to general up with what is happily termed the "roll-
laws, we find indeed that the laws of science ing year." They chart the records of
are universal, but we also find that for edu- barometer and thermometer; they plot
cational purposes their universality means changes and velocities of the winds; they
abstractness and remoteness. The condi- exhaust the possibilities of colored crayons
tions, the interests, the ends of conduct to denote the ratio of sunshine and cloud
are irredeemably concrete and specific. in successive days and weeks; they keep
We do not live in a medium of universal records of the changing heights of the sun's
principles, but by means of adapta- shadows; they do sums in amounts of rain-
tions, through concessions and compro- falls and atmospheric humidities-and at
mises, struggling as best we may to enlarge the end, the rolling year, like the rolling
the range of a concrete here and now. So stone, gathers little moss.
far as acquaintance is concerned, it is the Is it any wonder that after a while teach-
individualized and the humanly limited ers yearn for the limitations of the good
that helps, not the bare universal and the old-fashioned studies-for English gram-
inexhaustibly multifarious. mar, where the parts of speech may sink
These considerations are highly theoret- as low as seven but never rise above nine;
ical. But they have very practical coun- for text-book geography, with its strictly
terparts in school procedure. One of the inexpansive number of continents; even for
most serious difficulties that confronts the the war campaigns and the lists of rulers
educator who wants in good faith to do in history since they can not be stretched
something worth while with the sciences is beyond a certain point, and for "memory
their number, and the indefinite bulk of gems" in literature, since a single book
the material in each. At times, it seems as will contain the "Poems Every Child
if the educational availability of science Should Know."
were breaking down because of its own There are many who do not believe it
sheer mass. There is at once so much of amounts to much one way or the other what
science and so many sciences that educators children do in science in the elementary
oscillate, helpless, between arbitrary selec- school. I do not agree, for upon the whole,
tion and teaching a little of everything. I believe the attitude toward the study of
If any questions this statement, let him science is, and should be, fixed during the
consider in elementary education the for- earlier years of life. But in any case, how
tunes of nature-study for the last two far does the situation in the secondary
decades. schools differ from that just described?
Is there anything on earth, or in the Any one who has followed the discussions of
waters under the earth or in the heavens college faculties for the last twenty-five
above, that distracted teachers have not years concerning entrance requirements in
resorted to? Visit schools where they have science, will be able to testify that the situ-
taken nature study conscientiously. This ation has been one of highly unstable equi-
school moves with zealous bustle from librium between the claims of a little of a
leaves to flowers, from flowers to minerals, great many sciences, a good deal (compara-
from minerals to stars, from stars to the tively) of one, a combination of one biolog-
raw materials of industry, thence back to ical and one exact science, and the arbitrary
leaves and stones. At another school you option of the pupil of one, two or three out
find children energetically striving to keep of a list of six or seven specified sciences.
124 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL.XXXI. No. 787
The only safe generalization possible is that much is due to its being a "humanity,"
whatever course a given institution pursues, its giving insight into the best the world
it changes that course at least as often as has thought and said, and how much to its
the human organism proverbially renews being pursued continuously for at least
its tissues. The movement has probably four years'? How much to the graded and
tended in the direction of reduction, but orderly arrangement that this long period
every one who has followed the history of both permitted and compelled? How much
pedagogical discussion will admit that to the cumulative effort of constant re-
every alteration of opinion as to what sub- course to what had earlier been learned,
jects should be taught has been paralleled not by way of mere monotonous repetition,
by a modification of opinion as to the por- but as a necessary instrument of later
tions of any subject to be selected and achievement? Are we not entitled to con-
emphasized. clude that the method demanded by the
All this change is to some extent a symp- study is the source of its efficacy rather
tom of healthy activity, change being espe- than anything inhering in its content?
cially needed in any group of studies so Thus we come around again to the pri-
new that they have to blaze their own trail, mary contention of the paper: that science
since they have no body of traditions upon teaching has suffered because science has
which to fall back as is the case with study been so frequently presented just as so
of language and literature. But this prin- much ready-made knowledge, so much sub-
ciple hardly covers the whole field of ject-matter of fact and law, rather than as
change. A considerable part of it has been the effective method of inquiry into any
due not to intelligent experimentation and subject-matter.
exploration, but to blind action and reac- Science might well take a leaf from the
tion, or to the urgency of some strenuous book of the actual, as distinct from the sup-
soul who has propagated some emphatic posititious, pursuit of the classics in the
doctrine. schools. The claim for their worth has pro-
Imagine a history of the teaching of the fessedly rested upon their cultural value;
languages which should read like this: but imaginative insight into human affairs
"The later seventies and early eighties of has perhaps been the last thing, save per
the nineteenth century witnessed a remark- accidens, that the average student has got
able growth in the attention given in high from his pursuit of the classics. His time
schools to the languages. Hundreds of has gone of necessity to the mastering of a
schools adopted an extensive and elaborate language, not to appreciation of humanity.
scheme by means of which almost the entire To some extent just because of this en-
linguistic ground was covered. Each of forced simplification (not to say meager-
the three terms of the year was devoted to ness) the student acquires, if he acquires
a language. In the first year, Latin and anything, a certain habitual method. Con-
Greek and Sanskrit were covered; in the fused, however, by the tradition that the
next, French, German and Italian; while subject-matter is the efficacious factor, the
the last year was given to review and to defender of the sciences has thought that
Hebrew and Spanish as optional studies." he could make good his case only on analo-
This piece of historic parallelism raises gous grounds, and hence has been misled
the question as to the real source of the into resting his claim upon the superior
educational value of, say, Latin. How significance of his special subject-matter;
JANUARY28, 1910] SCIENCE 125
even into efforts to increase still further things will doubtless be the reply, and
the scope of scientific subject-matter in rightly. But in the order both of time and
education. The procedure of Spencer is of importance, science as method precedes
typical. To urge the prerogative of sci- science as subject-matter. Systematized
ence, he raised the question what knowl- knowledge is science only because of the
edge, what facts, are of most utility for care and thoroughness with which it has
life, and, answering the question by this been sought for, selected and arranged.
criterion of the value of subject-matter, Only by pressing the courtesy of language
decided in favor of the sciences. Having beyond what is decent can we term such
thus identified education with the amassing information as is acquired ready-made,
of information, it is not a matter of sur- without active experimenting and testing,
prise that for the rest of his life he taught science.
that comparatively little is to be expected The force of this assertion is not quite
from education in the way of moral train- identical with the commonplace of sci-
ing and social reform, since the motives of entific instruction that text-book and lec-
conduct lie in the affections and the aver- ture are not enough; that the student
sions, not in the bare recognition of mat- must have laboratory exercises. A stu-
ters of fact. dent may acquire laboratory methods as
Surely if there is any knowledge which so much isolated and final stuff, just as
is of most worth it is knowledge of the ways he may so acquire material from a text-
by which anything is entitled to be called book. One's mental attitude is not neces-
knowledge instead of being mere opinion or sarily changed just because he engages in
guess-work or dogma. certain physical manipulations and handles
Such knowledge never can be learned by certain tools and materials. Many a stu-
itself; it is not information, but a mode dent has acquired dexterity and skill in
of intelligent practise, an habitual disposi- laboratory methods without its ever occur-
tion of mind. Only by taking a hand in ring to him that they have anything to do
the making of knowledge, by transferring with constructing beliefs that are alone
guess and opinion into belief authorized by worthy of the title of knowledge. To do
inquiry, does one ever get a knowledge of certain things, to learn certain modes of
the method of knowing. Because partici- procedure, are to him just a part of the
pation in the making of knowledge has been subject-matter to be acquired; they belong,
scant, because reliance on the efficacy of say, to chemistry, just as do the symbols
acquaintance with certain kinds of facts H2S04 or the atomic theory. They are part
has been current, science has not accom- of the arcana in process of revelation to
plished in education what was predicted him. In order to proceed in the mystery
for it. one has, of course, to master its ritual.
We define science as systematized knowl- And how easily the laboratory becomes lit-
edge, but the definition is wholly ambigu- urgical! In short, it is a problem and a
ous. Does it mean the body of facts, the difficult problem to conduct matters so that
subject-matter ? Or does it mean the proc- the technical methods employed in a sub-
esses by which something fit to be called ject shall become conscious instrumentali-
knowledge is brought into existence, and ties of realizing the meaning of knowledge
order introduced into the flux of experi- -what is required in the way of thinking
ence? That science means both of these and of search for evidence before anything
126 SCIENCE [N. S. VOL.XXXI. No. 787
passes from the realm of opinion, guess science; so many things that one would
work and dogma into that of knowledge. have thought absurd have been substan-
Yet unless this perception accrues, we can tiated, why not one more, and why not this
hardly claim that an individual has been one more? Communication of science as
instructed in science. This problem of subject-matter has so far outrun in educa-
turning laboratory technique to intellectual tion the construction of a scientific habit
account is even more pressing than that of of mind that to some extent the natural
utilization of information derived from common sense of mankind has been inter-
books. Almost every teacher has had fered with to its detriment.
drummed into him the inadequacy of mere Something of the current flippancy of
book instruction, but the conscience of most belief and quasi-scepticism must also
is quite at peace if only pupils are put be charged to the- state of science teach-
through some laboratory exercises. Is not ing. The man of even ordinary culture is
this the path of experiment and induction aware of the rapid changes of subject-
by which science develops? matter, and taught so that he believes sub-
I hope it will not be supposed that, in ject-matter, not method, constitutes science,
dwelling upon the relative defect and back- he remarks to himself that if this is science,
wardness of science teaching I deny its then science is in constant change, and there
absolute achievements and improvements, is no certainty anywhere. If the emphasis
if I go on to point out to what a compara- had been put upon method of attack and
tively slight extent the teaching of science mastery, from this change he would have
has succeeded in protecting the so-called learned the lesson of curiosity, flexibility
educated public against recrudescences of and patient search; as it is, the result too
all sorts of corporate superstitions and silli- often is a blase satiety.
ness. Nay, one can go even farther and I do not mean that our schools should be
say that science teaching not only has not expected to send forth their students
protected men and women who have been equipped as judges of truth and falsity in
to school from the revival of all kinds of specialized scientific matters. But that the
occultism, but to some extent has paved the great majority of those who leave school
way for this revival. Has not science re- should have some idea of the kind of evi-
vealed many wonders? If radio-activity dence required to substantiate given types
is a proved fact, why is not telepathy of belief does not seem unreasonable. Nor
highly probable? Shall we, as a literary is it absurd to expect that they should go
idealist recently pathetically inquired, ad- forth with a lively interest in the ways in
mit that mere brute matter has such capaci- which knowledge is improved and a marked
ties and deny them to mind? When all distaste for all conclusions reached in dis-
allowance is made for the unscrupulous harmony with the methods of scientific
willingness of newspapers and magazines inquiry. It would be absurd, for example,
to publish any marvel of so-called scientific to expect any large number to master the
discovery that may give a momentary thrill technical methods of determining distance,
of sensation to any jaded reader, there is direction and position in the arctic regions;
still, I think, a large residuum of published it would perhaps be possible to develop a
matter to be accounted for only on the state of mind with American people in gen-
ground of densely honest ignorance. So eral in which the supposedly keen Amer-
many things have been vouched for by ican sense of humor would react when it is
JANUARY 28, 1910] SCIENCE 127
proposed to settle the question of reaching proper ends and of the equipment indis-
the pole by aldermanic resolutions and pensable for success in their pursuit.
straw votes in railway trains or even news- The modern warship seems symbolic of
paper editorials. the present position of science in life and
If in the foregoing remarks I have education. The warship could not exist
touched superficially upon some aspects of were it not for science: mathematics, me-
science teaching rather than sounded its chanics, chemistry, electricity supply the
depths, I can not plead as my excuse failure technique of its construction and manage-
to realize the importance of the topic. One ment. But the aims, the ideals in whose
of the only two articles that remain in my service this marvelous technique is dis-
creed of life is that the future of our civil- played are survivals of a pre-scientific age,
ization depends upon the widening spread that is, of barbarism. Science has as yet
and deepening hold of the scientific habit had next to nothing to do with forming the
of mind; and that the problem of problems social and moral ideals for the sake of
in our education is therefore to discover which she is used. Even where science has
how to mature and make effective this received, its most attentive recognition, it
scientific habit. Mankind so far has been has remained a servant of ends imposed
ruled by things and by words, not by from alien traditions. If ever we are to be
thought, for till the last few moments of governed by intelligence, not by things and
history, humanity has not been in posses- by words, science must have something to
sion of the conditions of secure and effect- say about what we do, and not merely about
ive thinking. Without ignoring in the how we may do it most easily and eco-
least the consolation that has come to men nomically. And if this consummation is
from their literary education, I would even achieved, the transformation must occur
go so far as to say that only the gradual through education, by bringing home to
men's habitual inclination and attitude the
replacing of a literary by a scientific educa-
tion can assure to man the progressive significance of genuine knowledge and the
full import of the conditions requisite for
amelioration of his lot. Unless we master
its attainment. Actively to participate in
things, we shall continue to be mastered by the making of knowledge is the highest
them; the magic that words cast upon
prerogative of man and the only warrant
things may indeed disguise our subjection of his freedom. When our schools truly
or render us less dissatisfied with it, but
become laboratories of knowledge-making,
after all science, not words, casts the only not mills fitted out with information-hop-
compelling spell upon things. pers, there will no longer be need to discuss
Scientific method is not just a method the place of science in education.
which it has been found profitable to pur-
JOHN DEWEY
sue in this or that abstruse subject for COLUMBIAUNIVERSITY
purely technical reasons. It represents the THE FUTURE OF THE MEDICAL
only method of thinking that has proved PROFESSION 1
fruitful in any subject-that is what we Mr. President and Colleagues: We are
mean when we call it scientific. It is not here to rejoice over the union of the Ohio
a peculiar development of thinking for and the Miami Medical Colleges, which
highly specialized ends; it is thinking so 1An address on University Day, December 1,
far as thought has become conscious of its 1909, at the University of Cincinnati.