Kitabı oku: «History of Human Society», sayfa 32

Evolution as a working theory for science has correlated truths, unified methods, and furnished a key to modern thought. As a co-operative science it has had a stimulating influence on all lines of research, not only in scientific study of physical nature, but also in the study of man, for there are natural laws as well as man-made laws to be observed in the development of human society.

Some evolutionary scientists will be dogmatic at times, but they return to their laboratories and proceed to reinterpret what they have assumed, so that their dogmatism is of short duration. Theological dogmatists are not so fortunate, because of persistence of religious tradition which has not yet been put fully to the laboratory test. Some of them are continuously and hopelessly dogmatic. They still adhere to belief founded on the emotions which they refuse to put to scientific test. Science makes no attempt to undermine religion, but is unconsciously laying a broader foundation on which religion may stand. Theologians who are beginning to realize this are forced to re-examine the Bible and reinterpret it according to the knowledge and enlightenment of the time. Thus science becomes a force to advance Christianity, not to destroy it.

On the other hand, science becomes less dogmatic as it applies its own methods to religion and humanity and recognizes that there is a great world of spiritual truth which cannot be determined by experiments in the physical laboratory. It can be estimated only in the laboratory of human action. Faith, love, virtue, and spiritual vision cannot be explained by physical and chemical reactions. If in the past science has rightly pursued its course of investigation regardless of spiritual truth, the future is full of promise that religion and human reactions and science will eventually work together in the pursuit of truth in God's great workshop. The unity of truth will be thus realized. The area of knowledge will be enlarged while the horizon of the unknown will be extended. The mystery of life still remains unsolved.

Galton followed along in the study of the development of race and culture, and brought in a new study of human life. Pasteur and Lister worked out their great factors of preventive medicine and health. Madame Curie developed the radioactivity as a great contribution to the evolution of science. All of this represents the slow evolution of science, each new discovery quickening the thought of the age in which it occurred, changing the attitude of the mind toward nature and life, and contributing to human comfort and human welfare. But the greatest accomplishment always in the development of science is its effect on the mental processes of humanity, stimulating thought and changing the attitude of mind toward life.

Science and War. – It is a travesty on human progress, a social paradox, that war and science go hand in hand. On one side are all of the machines of destruction, the battleships, bombing-planes, huge guns, high explosives, and poisonous gases, products of scientific experiment and inventive genius, and on the other ambulances, hospitals, medical and surgical care, with the uses of all medical discoveries. The one seeks destruction, the other seeks to allay suffering; one force destroys life, the other saves it. And yet they march forth under the same flag to conquer the enemy. It is like the conquest of the American Indians by the Spaniards, in which the warrior bore in one hand a banner of the cross of Christ and in the other the drawn sword.

War has achieved much in forcing people into national unity, in giving freedom to the oppressed and protecting otherwise helpless people, but in the light of our ideals of peace it has never been more than a cruel necessity, and, more frequently, a grim, horrible monster. Chemistry and physics and their discoveries underlying the vast material prosperity of moderns have contributed much to the mechanical and industrial arts and increased the welfare and happiness of mankind. But when war is let loose, these same beneficent sciences are worked day and night for the rapid destruction of man. All the wealth built up in the passing years is destroyed along with the lives of millions of people.

Out of the gloom of the picture proceeds one ray of beneficent light, that of the service rendered by the discoveries of medical science and surgical art. The discoveries arising from the study of anatomy, physiology, bacteriology, and neurology, with the use of anaesthetics and antiseptics in connection with surgery, have made war less horrible and suffering more endurable. Scientists like Pasteur, Lister, Koch, Morton, and many others brought forth from their laboratories the results of their study for the alleviation of suffering.

Yet it seems almost incredible that with all of the horrid experiences of war, an enterprise that no one desires, and which the great majority of the world deplore, should so long continue. Nothing but the discovery and rise of a serum that will destroy the germs of national selfishness and avarice will prevent war. Possibly it stimulates activity in invention, discovery, trade and commerce, but of what avail is it if the cycle returns again from peace to war and these products of increased activity are turned to the destruction of civilization? Does not the world need a baptism of common sense? Some gain is being made in the changing attitude of mind toward the warrior in favor of the great scientists of the world. But nothing will be assured until the hero-worship of the soldier gives way to the respect for the scholar, and ideals of truth and right become mightier than the sword.

Scientific Progress Is Cumulative. – One discovery leads to another, one invention to others. It is a law of science. Science benefits the common man more than does politics or religion. It is through science that he has means of use and enjoyment of nature's progress. It is true this is on the side of materialistic culture, and it does not provide all that is needed for the completed life. Even though the scientific experiments and discoveries are fundamentally more essential, the common man cannot get along without social order, politics, or religion.

Perhaps we can get the largest expression of the value of science to man through a consideration of the inventions and discoveries which he may use in every-day life.⁵¹ Prior to the nineteenth century we have to record the following important inventions: alphabetic writing, Arabic numbers, mariner's compass, printing, the telescope, the barometer and thermometer, and the steam-engine. In the nineteenth century we have to record: railroads, steam navigation, the telegraph, the telephone, friction matches, gas lighting, electrical lighting, photography, the phonograph, electrical transmission of power, Röntgen rays, spectrum analysis, anaesthetics, antiseptic surgery, the airplane, gasoline-engine, transmission of news by radio, and transportation by automobile. Also we shall find in the nineteenth century thirteen important theoretical discoveries as compared with seven in all previous centuries.

It is interesting to note what may have taken place also in the last generation. A man who was born in the middle of the last century might reflect on a good many things that have taken place. Scientifically he has lived to see the development of electricity from a mere academic pursuit to a tremendous force of civilization. Chemistry, although supposed to have been a completed science, was scarcely begun. Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy and Darwin's Origin of the Species had not yet been published. Huxley and Tyndall, the great experimental scientists, had not published their great works. Transportation with a few slow steam-propelled vessels crossing the ocean preceded the era of the great floating palaces. The era of railroad-building had only just started in America. Horseless carriages propelled by gas or electricity were in a state of conjecture. Politically in America the Civil War had not been fought or the Constitution really completed.

The great wealth and stupendous business organization of to-day were unknown in 1850. In Europe there was no German Empire, only a German Federation. The Hapsburgs were still holding forth in Austria and the Hohenzollerns in Prussia and the Romanoffs in Russia. The monarchial power of the old régime was the rule of the day. These are institutions of the past. Civilization in America, although it had invaded the Mississippi valley, had not spread over the great Western plains nor to the Pacific coast. Tremendous changes in art and industries, in inventions and discoveries have been going on in this generation. The flying-machine, the radio, the automobile, the dirigible balloon, and, more than all, the tremendous business organization of the factories and industries of the age have given us altogether a complete revolution.

Research Foundations. – All modern universities carry on through instructors and advanced students many departments of scientific research. The lines of research extend through a wide range of subjects – Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Anatomy, Physiology, Medicine, Geology, Agriculture, History, Sociology, and other departments of learning. These investigations have led to the discovery of new knowledge and the extension of learning to mankind. Outside of colleges and universities there have been established many foundations of research and many industrial laboratories.

Prominent among those in the United States are The Carnegie Corporation and The Rockefeller Foundation, which are devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to the service of research, for the purpose of advancing science and directly benefiting humankind. The results play an important part in the protection and daily welfare of mankind. The Mellon Institute contributes much to the solution of problems of applied chemistry.⁵² It is interesting to note how the investigation carried on by these and other foundations is contributing directly to human welfare by mastering disease. The elimination of the hookworm disease, the fight to control malaria, the mastery of yellow fever, the promotion of public health, and the study of medicine, the courageous attack on tuberculosis, and the suppression of typhoid fever, all are for the benefit of the public. The war on disease and the promotion of public health by preventive measures have lowered the death-rate and lengthened the period of life.

The Trend of Scientific Investigations. – While research is carried on in many lines, with many different objectives, it may be stated that intense study is devoted to the nature of matter and the direct connection of it with elemental forces. The theories of the molecule and the atom are still working hypotheses, but the investigator has gone further and disintegrated the atom, showing it to be a complex of corpuscles or particles. Scientists talk of electrons and protons as the two elemental forces and of the mechanics of the atom. In chemistry, investigation follows the problems of applied chemistry, while organic chemistry or biochemistry opens continually new fields of research. It appears that biology and chemistry are becoming more closely allied as researches continue and likewise physics and chemistry. In the field of surgery the X-ray is in daily use, and radium and radioactivity may yet be great aids to medicine. In medical investigation much is dependent upon the discoveries in neurology. This also will throw light upon the studies in psychology, for the relation of nerve functions to mind functions may be more clearly defined.

Explorations of the earth and of the heavens continually add new knowledge of the extent and creation of the universe. The study of anthropology and archaeology throw new light upon the origin and early history of man. Experimental study of animals, food, soils, and crops adds increased means of sustenance for the race. Recent investigations of scientific education, along with psychology, are throwing much light on mental conditions and progress. And more recently serious inquiry into social life through the study of the social sciences is revealing the great problems of life. All of knowledge, all of science, and all of human invention which add to material comforts will be of no avail unless men can learn to live together harmoniously and justly. But the truths discovered in each department of investigation are all closely related. Truly there is but one science with many divisions, one universe with many parts, and though man is a small particle of the great cosmos, it is his life and welfare that are at the centres of all achievements.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. In what ways has science contributed to the growth of democracy?

2. How has the study of science changed the attitude of the mind toward life?

3. How is every-day life of the ordinary man affected by science?

4. Is science antagonistic to true Christianity?

5. What is the good influence of science on religious belief and practice?

6. What are the great discoveries of the last twenty-five years in Astronomy? Chemistry? Physics? Biology? Medicine? Electricity?

7. What recent inventions are dependent upon science?

8. Relation between investigation in the laboratory and the modern automobile.

9. How does scientific knowledge tend to banish fear?

10. Give a brief history of the development of the automobile. The flying-machine.

11. Would a law forbidding the teaching of science in schools advance the cause of Christianity?

CHAPTER XXX
UNIVERSAL EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY

Universal Public Education Is a Modern Institution. – The Greeks valued education and encouraged it, but only those could avail themselves of its privileges who were able to pay for it. The training by the mother in the home was followed by a private tutor. This system conformed to the idea of leadership and was valuable in the establishment of an educated class. However, at the festivals and the theatres there were opportunities for the masses to learn much of oratory, music, and civic virtues. The education of Athens conformed to the class basis of society. Sparta as an exception trained all citizens for the service of state, making them subordinate to its welfare. The state took charge of children at the age of seven, put them in barracks, and subjected them to the most severe discipline. But there was no free education, no free development of the ordinary mind. It was in the nature of civic slavery for the preservation of the state in conflict with other states.

During the Middle Ages Charlemagne established the only public schools for civic training, the first being established at Paris, although he planned to extend them throughout the empire. The collapse of his great empire made the schools merely a tradition. But they were a faint sign of the needs of a strong empire and an enlightened community. The educational institutions of the Middle Ages were monasteries, and cathedral schools for the purpose of training men for the service of the church and for the propagating of religious doctrine. They were all institutional in nature and far from the idea of public instruction for the enlightenment of the people.

The Mediaeval University Permitted Some Freedom of Choice. – There was exhibited in some of them especially a desire to discover the truth through traditional knowledge. They were composed of groups of students and masters who met for free discussion, which led to the verification of established traditions. But this was a step forward, and scholars arose who departed from dogma into new fields of learning. While the universities of the Middle Ages were a step in advance, full freedom of the mind had not yet manifested itself, nor had the idea of universal education appeared. Opportunity came to a comparatively small number; moreover, nearly all scientific and educational improvement came from impulses outside of the centres of tradition.

The English and German Universities. – The English universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, gave a broader culture in mathematics, philosophy, and literature, which was conducive to liberality in thought, but even they represented the education of a selected class. The German universities, especially in the nineteenth century, emphasized the practical or applied side of education. By establishing laboratories, they were prepared to apply all truths discovered, and by experimentation carry forward learning, especially in the chemical and other physical sciences. The spirit of research was strongly invoked for new scientific discoveries. While England was developing a few noted secondary schools, like Harrow and Eton, Germany was providing universal real schule, and gymnasia, as preparatory for university study and for the general education of the masses. As a final outcome the Prussian system was developed, which had great influence on education in the United States in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Early Education in the United States. – The first colleges and universities in the United States were patterned after the English universities and the academies and high schools of England. These schools were of a selected class to prepare for the ministry, law, statesmanship, and letters. The growth of the American university was rapid, because it continually broadened its curriculum. From the study of philosophy, classical languages, mathematics, literature, it successively embraced modern languages, physical sciences, natural science, history, and economics, psychology, law, medicine, engineering, and commerce.

In the present-day universities there is a wide differentiation of subjects. The subjects have been multiplied to meet the demand of scientific development and also to fit students for the ever-increasing number of occupations which the modern complex society demands. The result of all this expansion is democratic. The college class is no longer an exclusive selection. The plane of educational selection continually lowers until the college draws its students from all classes and prepares them for all occupations. In the traditional college certain classes were selected to prepare for positions of learning. There was developed a small educated class. In the modern way there is no distinctive educated class. University education has become democratic.

The Common, or Public, Schools. – In the Colonial and early national period of the United States, education was given by a method of tutors, or by a select pay school taught by a regularly employed teacher under private contract. Finally the sympathy for those who were not able to pay caused the establishing of "common schools." This was the real beginning of universal education, for the practice expanded and the idea finally prevailed of providing schools by taxation "common" to all, and free to all who wish to attend. Later, for civic purposes, primary education has become compulsory in most states. Following the development of the primary grades, a complete system of secondary schools has been provided. Beyond these are the state schools of higher education, universities, agricultural and mechanical schools, normal schools and industrial schools, so that a highway of learning is provided for the child, leading from the kindergarten through successive stages to the university.

Knowledge, Intelligence, and Training Necessary in a Democracy. – Washington, after experimenting with the new nation for eight years, having had opportunity to observe the defects and virtues of the republic, said in his Farewell Address: "Promote, then, as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."⁵³ Again and again have the leaders of the nation who have had at heart the present welfare and future destiny of their country urged public education as a necessity.

And right well have the people responded to these sentiments. They have poured out their hard-earned money in taxation to provide adequate education for the youth of the land. James Bryce, after studying in detail American institutions, declared that "the chief business of America is education." This observation was made nearly forty years ago. If it was true then, how much more evident is it now with wonderful advance of higher education in colleges and universities, and in the magnificent system of secondary education that has been built up in the interval. The swarming of students in high school and college is evidence that they appreciate the opportunities furnished by the millions of wealth, largely in the form of taxes, given for the support of schools.

Education Has Been Universalized. – Having made education universal, educators are devoting their energies to fit the education to the needs of the student and to assist the student in choosing the course of instruction which will best fit him for his chosen life-work. The victory has been won to give every boy and girl an educational chance. To give him what he actually needs and see that he uses it for a definite purpose is the present problem of the educator. This means a careful inquiry into mental capacity and mental traits, into temperament, taste, ambition, and choice of vocation. It means further provision of the special education that will best prepare him for his chosen work, and, indeed, it means sympathetic co-operation of the teacher and student in determining the course to be pursued.

Research an Educational Process. – Increased knowledge comes from observation or systematic investigation in the laboratory. Every child has by nature the primary element of research, a curiosity to know things. Too often this is suppressed by conventional education instead of continued into systematic investigation. One of the great defects of the public school is the failure to keep alive, on the part of the student, the desire to know things. Undue emphasis on instruction, a mere imparting of knowledge, causes the student to shift the responsibility of his education upon the teacher, who, after all, can do no more than help the student to select the line of study, and direct him in methods of acquiring. Together teacher and student can select the trail, and the teacher, because he has been over it, can direct the student over its rough ways, saving him time and energy.

Perhaps the greatest weakness in popular government to-day is indifference of citizens to civic affairs. This leads to a shifting of responsibility of public affairs frequently to those least competent to conduct them. Perhaps a training in individual responsibility in the schools and more vital instruction in citizenship would prepare the coming generation to make democracy efficient and safe to the world. The results of research are of great practical benefit to the so-called common man in the ordinary pursuits of life. The scientist in the laboratory, spending days and nights in research, finally discovers a new process which becomes a life-saver or a time-saver to general mankind. Yet the people usually accept this as a matter of fact as something that just happened. They forget the man in the laboratory and exploit the results of his labor for their own personal gain.

How often the human mind is in error, and unobserving, not to see that the discovery of truth and its adaptation to ordinary life is one of the fundamental causes of the progress of the race. Man has advanced in proportion as he has become possessed of the secrets of nature and has adapted them to his service. The number of ways he touches nature and forces her to yield her treasures, adapting them to his use, determines the possibility of progress.

The so-called "common man," the universal type of our democracy, is worthy of our admiration. He has his life of toil and his round of duties alternating with pleasure, bearing the burdens of life cheerfully, with human touch with his fellows; amid sorrow and joy, duty and pleasure, storm and sunshine, he lives a normal existence and passes on the torch of life to others. But the man who shuts himself in his laboratory, lives like a monk, losing for a time the human touch, spends long days of toil and "nights devoid of ease" until he discovers a truth or makes an invention that makes millions glad, is entitled to our highest reverence. The ordinary man and the investigator are complementary factors of progress and both essential to democracy.

The Diffusion of Knowledge Necessary to Democracy. – Always in progress is a deflecting tendency, separating the educated class from the uneducated. This is not on account of the aristocracy of learning, but because of group activity, the educated man following a pursuit different from the man of practical affairs. Hence the effort to broadcast knowledge through lectures, university extension, and the radio is essential to the progress of the whole community. One phase of enlightenment is much neglected, that of making clear that the object of the scholar and the object of the man of practical affairs should be the same – that of establishing higher ideals of life and providing means for approximating these ideals. It frequently occurs that the individual who has centred his life on the accumulation of wealth ignores the educator and has a contempt for the impractical scholar, as he terms him. Not infrequently state legislatures, when considering appropriations for education, have shown more interest in hogs and cattle than in the welfare of children.

It would be well if the psychology of the common mind would change so as to grasp the importance of education and scientific investigation to every-day life. Does it occur to the man who seats himself in his car to whisk away across the country in the pursuit of ordinary business, to pause to inquire who discovered gasoline or who invented the gasoline-engine? Does he realize that some patient investigator in the laboratory has made it possible for even a child to thus utilize the forces of nature and thus shorten time and ignore space? Whence comes the improvement of live-stock in this country? Compare the cattle of early New England with those on modern farms. Was the little scrubby stock of our forefathers replaced by large, sleek, well-bred cattle through accident? No, it was by the discovery of investigators and its practical adaptation by breeders. Compare the vineyards and the orchards of the early history of the nation, the grains and the grasses, or the fruits and the flowers with those of present cultivation. What else but investigation, discovery, and adaptation wrought the change?

My common neighbor, when your child's poor body is racked with pain and likely to die, and the skilled surgeon places the child on the operating-table, administers the anaesthetic to make him insensible to pain, and with knowledge gained by investigation operates with such skill as to save the child's life and restore him to health, are you not ready to say that scientific investigation is a blessing to all mankind? Whence comes this power to restore health? Is it a dispensation from heaven? Yes, a dispensation brought about through the patient toil and sacrifice of those zealous for the discovery of truth. What of the knowledge that leads to the mastery of the yellow-fever bacillus, of the typhoid germ, to the fight against tuberculosis and other enemies of mankind? Again, it is the man in the laboratory who is the first great cause that makes it possible for humanity to protect itself from disease.

Could our methods of transportation by steamship, railroad, or air, our great manufacturing processes, our vast machinery, or our scientific agriculture exist without scientific research? Nothing touches ordinary life with such potent force as the results of the investigation in the laboratory. Clearly it is understood by the thoughtful that education in all of its phases is a democratic process, and a democratic need, for its results are for everybody. Knowledge is thus humanized, and the educated and the non-educated must co-operate to keep the human touch.

Educational Progress. – One of the landmarks of the present century of progress will be the perfecting of educational systems. Education is no longer for the exclusive few, developing an aristocracy of learning for the elevation of a single class; it has become universal. The large number of universities throughout the world, well endowed and well equipped, the multitudes of secondary schools, and the universality of the primary schools, now render it possible for every individual to become intelligent and enlightened.

But these conditions are comparatively recent, so that millions of individuals to-day, even in the midst of great educational systems, remain entirely unlettered. Nevertheless, the persistent effort on the part of people everywhere to have good schools, with the best methods of instruction, certainly must have its effect in bringing the masses of unlearned into the realm of letters. The practical tendency of modern education, by which discipline and culture may be given while at the same time preparing the student for the active duties of life, makes education more necessary for all persons and classes. The great changes that have taken place in methods of instruction and in the materials of scientific investigation, and the tendency to develop the man as well as to furnish him with information, evince the masterly progress of educational systems, and demonstrate their great worth.

The Importance of State Education. – So necessary has education become to the perpetuation of free government that the states of the world have deemed it advisable to provide on their own account a sufficient means of education. Perpetuation of liberty can be secured only on the basis of intellectual progress. From the time of the foundation of the universities of Europe, kings and princes and state authorities have encouraged and developed education, but it remained for America to begin a complete and universal free-school system. In the United States educators persistently urge upon the people the necessity of popular education and intelligence as the only means of securing to the people the benefits of a free government, and other statesmen from time to time have insisted upon the same principle. The private institutions of America did a vast work for the education of the youth, but proved entirely inadequate to meet the immediate demands of universal education, and the public-school system sprang up as a necessary means of preparation for citizenship. It found its earliest, largest, and best scope in the North and West, and has more recently been established in the South, and now is universal.