New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-12-08
sCIENCR AND EDUCATION.

SCIENCE AND EDUCATION.
In q preceding article, We have shown that rules
precede principles that art is earlier than science,
the latter being developed out of the former.
Education follows the same course OF transition.
Long pursued as an affair of arbitrary and en-
prical precepts, its maxims shifting with the
caprice of ignorant custom-perhaps the least
rational and settled of all human arts-we are at
length beginning to perceive that here, too, Is
region Of order; memorable facts to be observed
and studied, unbending principles to be eucidated
laws recognized and science established, here as
in all other departments Of activity. There are
those who will be surprised at the statement that
scientific progress can directly have anything to
do with the art Education.
ais not the human mind the same in all ages"
they ask. Physical transitions and oTolutions
there may be, but mind is another order of
"exstence-a world of its own, separate from
:" and far transeending the world of matter.
- Physical science and physical progress may be
very important in their subordinate places; but
"between mind and matter there is an impasSa.
" bic ocean; they differ in essence, in nature,
" and in destiny; y0n cannot reason across the
Gulf from matter to mind What have We,
to do with the outward objects, materialities,
Z" and utilities of science, except to teach little
a." of them as we do other branches Of study ?"
To this vulgar misconception, We reply that, in
the case of the lowest material arts the progress
is not loithou but foithin the external waits
upon the internal. The physical, chemical, and
psychological laws are immutabe; they do not pro-
gregs; it is our knowledge of them which ad-
yances; it is the mind which goes forward.
There attempts to exat mind and degrade the
mechanic arts by CONTEMPORARY speaking OF
''gross material progress are simply nonsense.
Who does not know that the substitution OF an
iron plow for q wooden one was merely step
of mental progression! The farmer thought
wooden plows, and practice executed the idea
he subsequently conceived Of iron plows, aud
change of practice followed the advance Of
thought. And thus the material arts, in all their
interesting history and all their nameless diver
sfy are but attesting witnesses TO the highest
law of mans spiritual nature--that of progressive
evolution.
The mind gro,cs; but growth implies develop
meIt by conditions, and according to laws. The
tree grows, rising and spreading ill such graceful
and majestic beauty that we are almost tempted
to regard it as a phantom which has suddenly
burst into being through sOmo strange enchant-
meut Yet it is the resultant of forces acting
increasingly for perhaps hundreds of years, as
with relentless fate-like persistence. There
were tie ine1Jrab'e conditions of termination, the
ordinations q growth in the air, the terms of
nutrition and assimilation, the order of leaf and
branch distribution, tie principles of inflOrescence
and qualification, and numberless other ord-
Dances which Prof. Gray has so admirably taught
Us. Tie trunk has its body of enactments, wiser
.han the code of Justinian. Every leaf, every cell
discharges its wonderful functions in obedience TO
determinate set Of laws, which, unlike those of
the N,des and Persans, never pass away. Moth
ing TO be- sure, il more commonly known than
that trees grow; and something, of course, has
been long understood Of the conditions by which
this growth is controlled; but only in quite
recelt times hase We arrived at those
clear aud definite conceptions of tne vegetable
processes which gave rise 10 the science of
physiological botany. So, too, with the human
mind 1t has always been perfectly understood
that il passes through a course of evolution from
infancy to maturity; but, while there has been
no end 10 metaph!s steal speculation and ingenious
systsn.-making with, perhaps, something Ike u
vogue discerument OF intellectual order, il il
only lately that distinct aud positive results have
begun to b. reached, and the fixed laws which
govern our mental nature in It's course Of eroiuton
are beginning to be definitely traced out. First
in the historic order came the calculation of tho
laws Of phenomena, exhibited by means Of mat.
ter, astronomy and physics; then deeper i'll
quiTy into the nature and constitution Of matter
or ehmistryi still later, pky,iOlOgy or rather,
biology, which investigates the laws and copstitu.
tons of life; while last in this series of out
gowths--the sequel of u necessary order--the
product of a long and varied discipline of scien.
tifc research-laest and highest and still most
imperfect is the science of psychology, which
treats of the laws Of mental phonOIeaa IN their
Widoft rfhso, Though yet in its infancy il Ess