Evening star., 1927-08-28
OBSERVATION HELD NEED
in ATTAINING PROGRESS
Henshaw Ward Characterizes ''Throb-
bing" as Depending ON Personal Opin-
ions and Binding Actual Facts.

"And then there was the case of
Liebig, probably the worlds premiere
chemist. He built up the most famous
school of chemistry in the world I'm
the nineteenth century. He was more
than chemist-he was a profound
and brilliant student of plant and ami
NAL physiology. To his mind, so ex-
traordinarily open and trained to OBJ
servation and examination, came a
novel idea from France Pasteur was
advancing his famous theory Of the
cause of disease For a number of
years Liebig absolutely refused to
even discuss the matter with Pasteur
when he visited him. Liebig's mind
was closed. He believed that disease
was caused by spontaneous generation
and not by breeding and multiplied.
ton of germs as Pasteur held. He
refused to look at a demonstration.
Millions of people hold to beliefs
that they never feel any curiosity
about-they never want to find out
If they are true. They hold to them
because they like them, and they op-
pose bitterly any one who disagrees
with them. 1t has been the 'thobbers'
who have held back progress"
How do you put Upton Sinclair in
the class of 'thobbers?' Surely he has
brilliant mind,' / said.
But Sinclair does not trust to his
powers of observation. He puts his
trust into his reasoning powers. And,
l repeat, reasoning which is not veri-
fed by the senses leads to error. Sin
clair has built up in the mind of his
hearers and disciples world of fic.
tlOn. Should his enraptured followers
trust to their eyes for moment they
would become heretics from his cause
Eye Is Answer.
HE uses the oldest and flimsiest
device known to rhetoric. He tells
only the good about labor and only the
evil about capital. Search the whole
of a book of his and see how many
shreds of admission you can find that
once in great while rich man has
shown slight signs of being kind
hearted for a minute or two of his
cruel. grasping life. Search again for
any tatters of concessions that labor.
ers have on rare occasions, tenn
porarily. been unfair or hard-hearted
or covetous.
Now by such method-collecting
all the evil and excluding all the good
any institution can be shown up as
abominable. Suppose / spent a year
collecting all the scandals and mean
nesseS of the place where l live. and
never admitted to my notes an in
stance of decent conduct; could put
together an assemblage of truths that
would make this place seem worse
| than Sodom was ever charged with
being.
'"The answer to Sinclair Is the eye.
I have looked with my own eye at
people about me. l have not indicted
| -
at it actually working. Most of my
life has been spent among poor people.
I began to earn money on a prairie
farm, working 10-hour days for so
cents a day, when Sinclair was earn
ing that much for one hours singing
in J. p. Morgan's church.
"And l have been acquainted with
good many rich people. My eyes
tell me that there is no particular diff.
ference between these two classes as
to their greed and cruelty. 1 have
never seen that wealthy people are
more unfair or grasping than poor
ones"
Education Is Observing.
"How can we diminish the thob.
bing in the world?" i asked.
when we make education a devel-
| opment of our powers of observation
we will begin to curb thobbing more
effectively than we can today. In our
institutions of learning today we
should train boys and girls to look to
their eyes. ears and noses for truth.
Ever so often you meet one of
those frontier specimens who has no
book learning. but who is possessed of
an extraordinary amount of common
sense. We call him shrewd and won.
der how he ever became so intelligent
without a university degree. The an.
swer is that he has been training his
powers of observation in the great
university of Nature. When we start
training ours in our colleges we will
develop people less capable Of error
IN their thinking"
(CODyrjcht 1921