A. O. Norton

“ Scientific education was despised by practical business men because it seemed not only unnecessary, but actually harmful as a preparation for business. English industries had flourished amazingly without the aid of the sciences, and the captains of industry saw no reason to believe that "rule of thumb," by which they had succeeded, would not continue to suffice for their needs. ”

“ Huxley states very fairly the working ideal of culture which was held by "the great majority of educated Englishmen" of 1880, and which had shaped the whole course of liberal education during the three centuries preceding: "In their belief," he says, "culture is obtainable only by a liberal education; and a liberal education is synonymous, not merely with education and instruction in literature, but in one particular form of literature, namely that of Greek and Roman antiquity. They hold that the man who has learned Latin and Greek, however little, is educated ”

“ To-day Huxley's views seem commonplace, because to-day everyone accepts them. Who, nowadays, disputes his proposition that the sciences are an essential element of modern culture? And who denies that "the diffusion of a thorough scientific education is an absolutely essential condition of industrial progress"? ”

“ In the Middle Ages theology was the sole basis of culture, because it furnished the best ideals and standards then available for the criticism of life. In the fifteenth century the great body of classical literature was revealed to western Europe. ”

“ Toward the close of the address Huxley returns to the charge with evidence that the general sciences are of practical value to the industries, and with the further remark that considered as culture alone they are of practical value, for they both ennoble character and increase and improve in quality the variety of desires which are satisfied by the products of industry. ”

“ The stamp of the educated man, the University degree, is not for him." The best-trained university men undoubtedly took a more liberal attitude than this, but schoolmasters in general, and university men of mediocre quality, often maintained this position with patronizing, not to say insolent, superiority. ”

“ In England in 1880, however, these ideas seemed shockingly radical to a very large majority of the people who were doing the thinking of the country and managing its affairs; and the advocates of scientific studies faced a powerful opposing party composed of two groups—the practical men of business, and the men of liberal education. ”