Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1908-07-03

ed the very idea of literature, there
will be no question OF its benefit tc
him. That is what l mean by the
study of the classics in humane spirit
and unto human end.
Geology is a pure science. 1t has
to do with the facts concerning the
earth on which we live, the history and
manner Of its construction, the forms
of life it has contained in the vast sue
cessive ages. 1t can be made a mere
catalogue of facts, dry chronicle of
happenings that have been a very long
time dead. 1t can also be made a
marvellous story of the childhood of
the world, days of tremendous physical
catastrophes and changes, through
the long ages beside which our little
human history is the tiniest moment
of child's afternoon. How then the
mind is enlarged, and the vision of the
eye is heightened. A man then
acquires sense of proportion, a reali-
cation of his size, and takes to him
self becoming reverence and humility,
as creature of but a moment of the
great eternities. So taught, geology
becomes a humanity.
The question for present education
is not whether science or letters should
be chiefly pursued, but whether science,
and letters also, shall be followed in a
utilitarian and materialistic spirit, or
with view to the larger development
OF manhood. One may study me-
chanics and physics and become
merely a machine ditch-digger, of
ditch-digging manhood, superior only
in the quantity of dirt that is handled
at a scoop. Ifa man is concerned only
with the transportation of things, it
matters little whether he build a cart
to be hitched to donkey, or an cleo
trio system of thousand cars at sixty
miles an hour. Things are things, and
their size is of little moment. But it
is possible to study physics and learn
something more than the material
properties of objects, and the mighty
forces and currents which may be set in
motion in physical bodies. Descartes
observed that Scientific truths are
battles won". There Isl personal side
to every physical law and discovery.
Somebody found it out; somebody
gave patience and love to its discovery,
sought for it, not for lucre's sake, but
for fair truths beauty. The bio
graphical side of every. science is of
exceeding Importance. Many a STU
dent who is dull and dead to mathe-
NAUTICAL formulate and principles could
be made to thrill with interest if the
history of the science could be brought
to his notice. No department of
study has a larger and nobler story of
devotion and severe labor; none has
done more to expand the mind of the
race: none is more richly lowered
with tales of romance, of heroism,
even of martyrdom, than this pro-
verbally dry and difficult science.
Only small number of students will
ever become mathematicians, and few
will employ its principles in their after
life. The notion that its problems
furnish the principles of reasoning in
life's practical problems is a baseles
superstition. The man who tries to
work out problems of life by algebraic
formulae is not right in his mind.
Two and two do not make four when
you have to do with persons. But
taught and studied as one of the
sciences that have nobly occupied and
uplifted the men of our race, through
whose mastery the student is preparing
to hold himself to anv question, until
he sees it as it is, discerning the
essential and neglecting the negligible,
and Until further he arrives at a result
that is not approximate, not guess
work, but correct, and capable of
explanation and of successful defense,
so studied mathematics take on
living interest and are entitled to their
honor also as a humane branch of
learning.
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