se 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 aesthetic,
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
whole school existence to physical science: in fact, no one would lament
so one-sided a proceeding more than I. Nay more, it is not necessary for
him to give up more than a moderate share of his time to such studies,
if they be properly selected and arranged, and if he be trained in them
in a fitting manner.

I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as follows. To begin with,
let every child be instructed in those general views of the phenomena of
Nature for which we have no exact English name. The nearest
approximation to a name for what I mean, which we possess, is "physical
geography." The Germans have a better, "Erdkunde," ("earth knowledge" or
"geology" in its etymological sense,) that is to say, a general
knowledge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it. If any
one who has had experience of the ways of young children will call to
mind their questions, he will find that so far as they can be put into
any scientific category, they come under this head of "Erdkunde." The
child asks, "What is the moon, and why does it shine?" "What is t