Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1900: Vol. 56, November, 1899 to April, 1900Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1900: Vol. 56, November, 1899 to April, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The practical value of the scientific training is perhaps most fully
recognized in Germany. There the importance of the investigator, the
apparently abstract scholar, is thoroughly understood, and to his work
the great industrial advance of Germany is largely attributable. In
chemical and electrical industries this is particularly true, and their
growth can be directly traced to the influence of the universities.
The German professor is a man trained to research, and from among his
students many of the best investigators are chosen for service in
the factories. German competition in the commercial world is to-day
the bugbear of other European countries, and its success is due,
first of all, to the utilization of trained intelligences. In our own
country the importance of applied science is fully realized and its
achievements are beyond dispute, but the scholar as yet receives less
consideration than the commercial expert. The latter is practical, the
former is regarded as visionary. Accurate knowledge is a good thing,
but rule-of-thumb experience is often thought to be better. It is only
when knowledge and experience join hands that the highest practical
results are attainable, the one factor tending to advance, the other to
perpetuate, industry. The man of affairs is not a practical man until
he appreciates the force of these propositions.
At bottom the scientific training is a training in clear thought,
precise statement, accurate observation, the verification of evidence,
and the ascertainment of truth. Why should its recipient be unfitted
for practical things? Good administration, the effective transaction
of business, implies system, exactness, the judgment of evidence upon
its merits, and the prompt solution of problems as they arise, and to
each of these requisites the scientific education is directly related.
What other training is less likely to produce dreamers, or more likely
to develop efficient men? The main distinction between the workers
in science and men of other vocations is one of aim, a difference in
ambition, perhaps a difference in the point of view. The scientific
scholar seeks to discover and possibly to apply new truth; and after
that his ambition is to win the recognition of his fellows, to gain
reputation, rather than to acquire wealth. He may not be indifferent to
the latter purpose, but it is not his chief end. It is difficult to do
both things well.
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