Science and Morals and Other EssaysWindle, Bertram Coghill Alan, Sir
Religion
Science and Morals and Other Essays
Windle, Bertram Coghill Alan, Sir
Essays; Religion and science; Science
Such was and is the neglect of science by business men. Could it have
been otherwise, considering their bringing up? Let me again be
reminiscent. I suppose the public school in England (not a Catholic
school, for I was then a Protestant) at which I pursued what were
described as studies did not in any very marked degree differ from its
sister schools throughout the country. How was science encouraged there?
One hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time devoted weekly, not to
Greek and Latin (that would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the
writing of Greek and Latin prose and alleged Greek and Latin verse--that
was the amount of time which was devoted to what was called science. I
suppose I had an ingrained vocation for science, for it was the only
subject, except English composition, in which I ever felt interest at
school. If the vocation had not been there, any interest in the subject
must necessarily have been slain once for all in me, as I am sure it was
in scores of others, by the way it was taught; for the instruction was
confided to the ordinary form-master, who doled out his questions from a
text-book perfunctorily used and probably heartily despised by a man
brought up on strict classical or mathematical lines. Our manufacturer
is brought up in a school of this kind, and it would be a miracle if he
emerged from it with any respect for science. Things have changed now,
and for the better, as they have at most of the Universities; but we are
dealing with the generation of manufacturers of my age who were largely
responsible for the neglects now in question. Well, the boy left his
school and went to Oxford or Cambridge, neither of which then greatly
encouraged science. Its followers were, I believe, known as "Stinks
Men." At any rate it is only comparatively recently that we have seen
the splendid developments of to-day in those ancient institutions. One
relic of the ancient days gives us an illuminating idea of how things
used to be, just as a fossil shows us the environment of its day.[30]
Trinity College, Dublin, has fine provision for scientific teaching, and
a highly competent staff to teach. But in its constitution it shows the
attitude towards science which till lately informed the older
Universities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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