Scientific Culture, and Other Essays: Second Edition; with AdditionsCooke, Josiah P., Jr. (Josiah Parsons)
Science
Scientific Culture, and Other Essays: Second Edition; with Additions
Cooke, Josiah P., Jr. (Josiah Parsons)
Science
In the former essays of this volume I have earnestly maintained that
scientific culture, rightly understood, is a suitable basis for a
liberal education; and I have maintained this thesis without in any way
attempting to disparage that literary culture hitherto so generally
regarded as the only basis on which the liberal arts could be built.
While, however, I have argued that, in the present condition of the
world, there is more than one basis of true scholarship, I have fully
admitted that for far the larger number of scholars, including all those
whose lives are to be occupied with literary pursuits, the old system of
education is still the best. Moreover, I have endeavored to point out
that scientific culture in no way conflicts with literary culture; that
it has a different spirit, a different method, and a different aim; and
I have only recommended it as suitable to those who are distinctly
preparing themselves for a scientific calling; but I have maintained
that for such men scientific studies, rightly followed, may lead to a
broad, a noble, and in the truest sense a liberal education.
I have used the term scientific culture _rightly understood_ in order to
mark a distinction; because a great deal that passes for scientific
scholarship in the world does not imply true scientific culture. In all
departments of learning, and not less in scientific than in literary
studies, erudition does not necessarily imply a high degree of culture.
We all value the labors of the lexicographer, and the work may be so
done as to task the noblest intellectual power; but there is a higher
form of literary culture than that which dictionary-making usually
implies. So also in science, no amount of book-learning constitutes what
we have called scientific culture rightly understood. For example, the
ability to pass an examination on the facts and principles of science is
no test whatever of the form of culture we are advocating. Not that we
underrate the value of such tests, or of the knowledge they imply; but
the ability to master a subject as presented in a text-book, and to
state that knowledge in a concise and accurate form, is the normal
result of literary, not of scientific culture. The power to do
something well is involved in the very idea of culture, and the scholar
who can pass a successful written examination has acquired a power which
literary culture chiefly gives, and that this power may be applied to
scientific as well as literary subjects is obvious. Here is a most
important distinction in connection with our subject. Culture implies
the acquisition of some power of the mind in an eminent degree, and such
power is constantly associated with erudition, simply because it leads
to erudition. But when we see erudition without such power, as we often
do in every department of scholarship, we perceive at once upon how much
lower a level it stands. What very different things are classical
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