science.
What right have I, then, to speak of the scientific study of the
teaching of English, when science and literature seem to belong to two
quite separate rubrics of mental life?

I refer to this point of view, not because its inconsistencies are not
fully apparent to you even upon the surface, but because it is a point
of view that has hitherto interfered very materially with our
educational progress. It has sometimes been assumed that, because we
wish to study education scientifically, we wish to read out of it
everything that cannot be reduced to a scientific formula,--that,
somehow or other, we intend still further to intellectualize the
processes of education and to neglect the tremendous importance of those
factors that are not primarily intellectual in their nature, but which
belong rather to the field of emotion and feeling.

I wish, therefore, to say at the outset that, while I firmly believe the
hope of education to lie in the application of the scientific method to
the solution of its problems, I still hold that neither facts nor
principles nor any other products of the scientific method are the most
important "goods" of life. The greatest "goods" in life are, and always
must remain, I believe, its ideals, its visions, its insights, and its
sympathies,--must always remain those qualities with which the teaching
of literature is primarily concerned, and in the engendering of which in
the hearts and souls of his pupils, the teacher of literature finds the
greatest opportunity that is vouchsafed to any teacher.

The facts and principles that science has given us have been of such
service to humanity that we are prone to forget that they have been of
service because they have helped us more effectively to realize our
ideals and attain our ends; and we are prone to forget also that,
without the ideals and the ends and the visions, the facts and
principles would be quite without function. I have sometimes been taken
to account for separating these two factors in this way. But unless we
do distinguish sharply between them, our educational thinking is bound
to be hopelessly obscure.

You have all heard the story of the great chemist who was at work in his
laboratory when word was brought him that his wife was dead. As the
first wave of anguish swept over him, he bowed his head upon his hands
and wept out his grief; but suddenly he lifted up his head, and held
before him his hands wet with tears. "Tears!" he