SCIENTIFIC CULTURE,

AND OTHER ESSAYS.

BY
JOSIAH PARSONS COOKE, LL. D.,
PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND MINERALOGY, IN HARVARD COLLEGE.

SECOND EDITION; WITH ADDITIONS.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
1, 3, and 5 BOND STREET.
1885.

Copyright, 1881, 1885,
By JOSIAH PARSONS COOKE.

TO
MY ASSOCIATES
IN
THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY
OF
HARVARD COLLEGE
THIS VOLUME
IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

The essays collected in this volume, although writtenfor special occasions without reference to each other, haveall a bearing on the subject selected as the title of thevolume, and are an outcome of a somewhat large experiencein teaching physical science to college students.Thirty years ago, when the writer began his work atCambridge, instruction in the experimental sciences wasgiven in our American colleges solely by means of lecturesand recitations. Chemistry and Physics wereallowed a limited space in the college curriculum asbranches of useful knowledge, but were regarded aswholly subordinate to the classics and mathematics as ameans of education; and as physical science was thentaught, there can be no question that the accepted opinionwas correct. Experimental science can never be[Pg v]made of value as a means of education unless taught byits own methods, with the one great aim in view to trainthe faculties of the mind so as to enable the educatedman to read the Book of Nature for himself.

Since the period just referred to, the example earlyset at Cambridge of making the student's own observationsin the laboratory or cabinet the basis ofall teaching, either in experimental or natural historyscience, has been generally followed. But in most centersof education the old traditions so far survive thatthe great end of scientific culture is lost in attempting toconform even laboratory instruction to the old academicmethods of recitations and examinations. These, asusually conducted, are simply hindrances in a course ofscientific training, because they are no tests of the onlyability or acquirement which science values, and thereforeset before the student a false aim. To point outthis error, and to claim for science teaching its appropriatemethods, was one object of the writer in these essays.

It is, however, too often the case that, in followingout our theories of education, we avoid Scylla only toencounter Charybdis, and so, in specializing our coursesof laboratory instruction, there is great danger of falling[Pg vi]into the mechanical routine of a technical art, and losingsight of those grand ideas and generalizations which givebreadth and dignity to scientific knowledge. That thesegreat truths are as important an element of scientific cultureas experimental skill, the author has also endeavoredto illustrate, and he has added brief notices of the livesof two noble men of science which may add force to theillustrations.

[Pg vii]

CONTENTS.