Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/145

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A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION
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saying that the products hitherto turned out, as the results of too exclusively scientific training, do not make me incline to trust the promise of substituting in this way something satisfactory for the more old-fashioned curricula. I have not observed that these products are actually men of a truly liberal mind.

On the other hand, I hold most firmly to the opinion that an interest in, and a knowledge of, nature which goes beyond that of a man who has merely the lower education, is a necessary factor in a truly liberal culture. Especially in these days it seems to me that no man is wholly worthy to hold the title belonging to such a culture who has not had a somewhat prolonged scholastic training in natural science. Here again I make deliberate use of the singular rather than of the plural number; and I have said a training in "science" rather than in the sciences. This training implies such a course of study as will impart, in accordance with the average capacity, a conception of what is now understood by the term "science," and of the recognized method of scientific investigation, so far at least as it is in the main common to all the natural sciences.

Undoubtedly, the larger part of the entire body of liberal culture will always consist of intelligent opinions to which it is difficult to give a truly scientific form, in the stricter meaning of the word

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