A CONFLICT.
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that a general course of study, such as is recognized and accepted by the best institutions of learning, be universally adopted, and that all students be required to pass that before specializing be allowed, is there, can there be a doubt, that such a preparation would be incomparably better for those who propose to become experts in philosophy, science or art, than the narrow and shallow scheme that is so flippantly heralded abroad now-a-days? The geologist, the chemist, the real scientist, would have his working capacity augmented a hundred fold. There would be less occasion to reject theories once promulgated as fixed verities, and that a new so-called experiment be started on another track.
Beyond a doubt, the exact sciences are of the utmost importance in shaping and influencing all scientific development, by clearness of thought, and by the irresistible logic and force that would then characterize every form of sound reasoning. The celebrated geologist, Professor Sedgwick, of England, is an example of what training in an exact science before devotion to studies of a more popular kind, will do for a man who has a good foundation laid. It is said of him, that "pressed in early life through a strict course of study, he found himself stronger by that training than most of his fellow geologists, but never made them feel his superiority." In his case a two-fold effect was produced—the professor became a better scientist in his chosen field, and the scientist was a truer man.
Now, it is not necessary to become a chemist, that the entire range of mathematics should be mastered, or that all of the writers from Homer to the overthrow of the old Roman Empire be treasured in the memory, or the speculations of all the philosophers from Aristotle down. Will not so
much of all subjects as are usually required in a four year's course, if thoroughly digested, make a better chemist, as well as a stronger one? No doubt of it. But it is objected on the other hand that life is too short in this age of bustling activity, to waste it upon pursuits that are not directly useful in furnishing the means of living. Is life lengthened by the omission of fundamental elements in knowledge, and by a grand rush and hurly-burly for the ways and means of the practical? Again, is it not possible that soundness and strength of mind and character, and real and substantial enjoyment and progress in all that goes towards making the totality of life a rounded, successful, and complete one, are too often swallowed up in the blind rush that those hot-headed zealots who call themselves specialists, would precipitate?
In the swift flight of over twenty centuries, knowledge increased, and in that increase its momentum was wonderfully accelerated, until now it is not a matter for astonishment that the arts and sciences and their ponderous appliances are multiplying os rapidly. The wonder rather would be if such were not the case. Let the iconoclasts demonstrate beyond cavil or doubt that the extinction of at least one half of the world's store of knowledge will result in blessing and only blessing, that science itself is the only thing needful, meeting all the demands and cravings of the human mind, before laying claim to be sole proprietors of truth. Let them remember that the men who dug and delved for the hidden treasures of knowledge, through so many centuries, were the same men who made it possible for the scientist to produce the splendid results that are now visible everywhere.
DELTA.