Since the mass of pupils are never
going to become scientific specialists, it is much more important
that they should get some insight into what scientific method
means than that they should copy at long range and second hand
the results which scientific men have reached. Students will not
go so far, perhaps, in the "ground covered," but they will be
sure and intelligent as far as they do go. And it is safe to say
that the few who go on to be scientific experts will have a
better preparation than if they had been swamped with a large
mass of purely technical and symbolically stated information. In
fact, those who do become successful men of science are those who
by their own power manage to avoid the pitfalls of a traditional
scholastic introduction into it.
The contrast between the expectations of the men who a generation
or two ago strove, against great odds, to secure a place for
science in education, and the result generally achieved is
painful. Herbert Spencer, inquiring what knowledge is of most
worth, concluded that from all points of view scientific
knowledge is most valuable. But his argument unconsciously
assumed that scientific knowledge could be communicated in a
ready-made form. Passing over the methods by which the subject
matter of our ordinary activities is transmuted into scientific
form, it ignored the method by which alone science is science.
Instruction has too often proceeded upon an analogous plan.
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