The Old Humanities and the New ScienceOsler, William, Sir
Philosophy
The Old Humanities and the New Science
Osler, William, Sir
Classical education; Science
1914. Professor William Ridgeway, Litt.D., LL.D., Sc.D., F.B.A.,
Disney Professor of Archæology, Cambridge.
1915. Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B., R.A., D.C.L.
1916. The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M., D.C.L., LL.D.,
P.B.A., F.R.S.
1917. Professor Gilbert Murray, LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A.,
F.R.S.L., Christ Church, Oxford.
As reported in the Annual Proceedings of the Association, Professor
Murray at the meeting in 1918, in nominating his successor, spoke of him
as a man, "who is not only one of the most eminent physicians in the
world, but represents in a peculiar way the learned physician who was
one of the marked characters of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and stands for a type of culture which the Classical
Association does not wish to see die out of the world--the culture of a
man who, while devoting himself to his special science, keeps
nevertheless a broad basis of interest in letters of all kinds."
In seconding this proposal, Sir Frederic Kenyon pointed out that it had
come at a very appropriate time in the work of the Association, for:
"During this last year our main activity has been directed towards
getting representatives of Natural Science and of the Humanities to work
together, on the principle that those subjects never should be in
conflict with one another, but merely in friendly competition. Both are
equally essential for a liberal education. It is a continuation and a
symbol of that policy that we should ask Sir William Osler to become our
President, and that he should have accepted cordially and readily, as he
did. He is eminent as a man of science, is President of the
Bibliographical Society, and represents scholarship in medicine in its
best form."
It is quite possible that these last remarks may have suggested to the
succeeding President an appropriate topic for his address, for he told
the writer a few months later that he planned to talk on Science and the
Humanities. He was already turning the matter over in his mind, but
where he found time or inclination to write the address it is difficult
to imagine.
Staggered by the loss of his son, an only child, who had fallen in
action near St. Julien during the Passchendaele battles in September the
year before, his days occupied with a succession of duties in connection
with the war, his household filled as always with friends and visitors
innumerable, and every young American or Canadian in service in England
gravitating there, eager above all things to further the progress of the
elaborate catalogue of his unique and valuable collection of books, he
nevertheless set himself to prepare this, one of his most brilliant and
what proved to be his last formal address.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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