Jr. Josiah P. Cooke

“ Moreover, I hope, my friends, that you will come to value scientific studies, not simply because they cultivate the perceptive and reasoning faculties, but also because they fill the mind with lofty ideals, elevated conceptions, and noble thoughts. Indeed, I claim that there is no better school in which to train the æsthetical faculties of the mind, the tastes, and the imagination, than the study of natural science.
The beauty of Nature is infinite, and the more we study her works the more her loveliness unfolds. The upheaved mountain, with its mantle of eternal snow ”

“ Let me begin by asserting that the responsible advocates of an expansion of the old academic system do not wish in the least degree to diminish the study of the Greek language, the Greek literature, or the Greek art. On the contrary, they wish to encourage such studies by every legitimate means. For myself I believe that the old classical culture is the best culture yet known for the literary professions; and among the literary professions I include both law and divinity. Fifty years ago I should have said that it was the only culture worthy of the recognition of a university. ”

“ I therefore believe that it is the first duty of a country to foster the highest culture, and that it should be the aim of every scholar to promote this culture both by his own efforts and his active influence. A nation can become really great in no other way. We live in a country of great possibilities; and the danger is that, as with many men I have known in college, of great potential abilities, the greatness will end where it begins. ”

“ But let it not be supposed that skill in such professions is the end or aim of scientific culture; any more than legal skill is the end or aim of literary culture. If literary scholars regard the study of science solely from this point of view, it is no wonder that they think that the tone of scholarship would be lowered if it rested solely on such a utilitarian basis; and, on the other hand, if they could once realize the sublimity of Nature, as Copernicus, Newton, Faraday, and unnumbered others have realized it, this fear that devotion to science must degrade scholarship would disappear. ”

“ Classical culture on the one hand and scientific culture on the other are excellent things, but, if your boy can not be made to take an interest either in classics or in science, how plain it is that such treasures are not for him, and, in the absence of the one condition which can give value to any study, how idle and inconsequent all questions in regard to the relative merits of these studies appear! On the other hand, a love of study once gained, all studies are alike good. ”

“ The last century of the world's history has been marked, more than by anything else, by the increase of our knowledge of Nature, and it will be known in history as the age of great discoveries; but valuable as the facts and principles of science certainly are, greatly as they have promoted the well-being of mankind, and important, therefore, as the knowledge of these facts and principles must be to man, yet nevertheless I should never urge the claims of physical science as a basis of liberal education if they could be defended on no other grounds than these. ”

“ Do you rejoin that we can see the suns in a stellar cluster, but can not even begin to see the molecules? I must again remind you that, in fact, you only see points of light in the field of the telescope, and that your knowledge that these points are immensely distant suns is an inference of astronomical science; and, further, that our knowledge—if I may so call our confident belief—that the lump of sugar is an aggregate of moving molecules is an equally legitimate inference of molecular mechanics, a science which, although so much newer, is as positive a field of study as astronomy. ”

“ We look, therefore, to entirely different schools for the two kinds of preparation for the university which modern society demands—schools, which for the want of better distinctive names, we may call classical and scientific schools. In the classical school the aim should be, as it has always been, literary culture, and the end should be that power of clothing thought in words which awakens thought. Of course, the results of natural science must to a certain extent be taught; for even literary men can not afford to be wholly ignorant of the great powers that move the world. ”

“ I know very well that the proper teaching of physical science is wholly incompatible with our usual school methods. But this only proves to me that these methods ought to be changed, and I am persuaded that the changes required will benefit the literary and classical as well as the scientific courses of study. For do not the same general principles apply to the acquisition of knowledge in all subjects? And when a child's perceptive faculties have been duly stimulated, and his intelligence fully awakened, he will find interest in grammar, in literature, or in history, as well as in science. ”

“ Identified with an institution in which mental culture is the chief aim, I felt that I was asked to address a body of cultivated working-men with whom, though employed in the mechanic arts, the acquisition of knowledge was also a privilege and a pride. I felt, moreover, that a proper appreciation of the true dignity of knowledge, in itself considered, and apart from all economical considerations, is one of the great wants of our age and of our country.
"Knowledge is power." "Knowledge is wealth." ”

“ And if such a life does not lead man to feel his own dependence, to yearn toward the Infinite Father, and to rest on the bosom of Infinite Love, it is simply because it is not the noble in intellect, not the great in talent, not the profound in knowledge, not the rich in experience, not the lofty in aspiration, not the gifted in imagery, but solely the pure in heart, who see God. ”

“ He took a lively interest in all questions of chemical philosophy, which he discussed with great earnestness and warmth. There was the same fire and the same exuberance of fancy which had enchanted me in his lectures thirty years before. At an age when most men hold speculation in small esteem, I was much struck with his criticism of a contemporary, who, he said, had no imagination, although he spoke with the highest praise of his experimental skill. At that time Dumas showed no signs of impaired strength. ”

“ In order to teach successfully the results of science to college students, I have no desire that they should have any preliminary preparation. It has been my duty for more than thirty years to present the elements of chemistry to the youngest class in one of our colleges, and I have never had any reason to complain of their want of interest in the subject. Indeed, I regard it as a great privilege to be the first to point out to enthusiastic young men the wonderful vistas which modern science has opened to our view. ”

“ As in classical scholarship the true test of attainment is the power to interpret the delicate shades of meaning expressed by the classical authors, so in science the true test is the power to read and interpret Nature; and this last power, like the other, can as a rule only be acquired by careful and systematic training. As some men have a remarkable facility for acquiring languages, so also there are men who seem to be born investigators of Nature; but by most men such powers can only be acquired through a careful training and exercise of the faculties of the mind, on which success depends. ”

“ I address young men who are just entering on life, who are at an age when the mystery of our being usually presses most closely upon the soul, and whose aspirations for higher culture and clearer vision have not been deadened by the sordid damps of the world. ”

“ Many a boy of good capabilities has been irretrievably ruined, as a scholar, by being compelled to learn the Latin grammar by rote at an age when he was incapable of understanding it; and I fear that schools may still be found where young minds are tortured by this stupefying exercise. Those of us who have faith in the educational value of scientific studies are most anxious that the students who resort to our colleges should be as well fitted in the physical sciences as in the classics, for otherwise the best results of scientific culture can not be expected. ”

“ No one who is not familiar with the history of physical science can appreciate how very modern are those grand conceptions which add so much to the loftiness of scientific studies; and, of the many who, on one of our starlit nights, look up into the depths of space, and are awed by the thoughts of that immensity which come crowding upon the mind, there are few, I imagine, who realize the fact that almost all the knowledge which gives such great sublimity to that sight is the result of comparatively recent scientific investigation ”