The Old Humanities and the New ScienceOsler, William, Sir
Philosophy
The Old Humanities and the New Science
Osler, William, Sir
Classical education; Science
In the School of _Literæ Humaniores_ the studies are based on classical
literature and on history, "but a large number of students approach
philosophical study from other sides. Students of such subjects as
mathematics, natural science, history, psychology, anthropology, or
political economy become naturally interested in philosophy, and their
needs are at present very imperfectly provided for in this university."
This I quote from a Report to the Board of the Faculty of Arts made just
before the war on a proposed new Honour School, the subject of which
should be the principles of philosophy considered in their relation to
the sciences. That joint action of this kind should have been taken by
the Boards of Arts and of Science indicates a widespread conviction that
no man is cultivated up to the standard of his generation who has not an
appreciation of how the greatest achievements of the human mind have
been reached; and the practical question is how to introduce such
studies into the course of liberal education, how to give the science
school the leaven of an old philosophy, how to leaven the old
philosophical school with the thoughts of science.[13]
[13] Since I wrote this lecture, Professor J. A. Stewart has
sent me his just-published essay on _Oxford after the War
and a Liberal Education_, in which he urges with all the
weight of his learning and experience that the foundations
of liberal education in Oxford should be "No Humane Letters
without Natural Science and no Natural Science without
Humane Letters."
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