SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
Within less than a generation the scientific leaven has been working rapidly among educational authorities. The high school of to-day is equipped with apparatus and laboratories such as the best technical institution of thirty years ago did not possess. In our lower schools the maps are better than formerly, and a good modern geography gives information that ten years ago could not have been gathered except at a far greater cost. Of course, in this age, as in all its predecessors, a lazy or stupid pupil may go through school, and emerge therefrom with an amount of ignorance suggestive of the darknessof Egypt. A bright pupil, however, has advantages, such asno former era could have presented. Facts unknown to the investigators of our childhood, discoveries unmade until a recent period, observations of the latest date help a lad who has a scientific turn of mind to develop his faculties.
This improvement has been, in no small degree, brought about by the action of scientific institutions. Scientific investigation of some kind has always been in progress. In the English-speaking world it was quickened to a remarkable degree by the philosophers of Charles II's time, and the next century saw Franklin, Rittenhouse, Jefferson, and a host of other keen-witted Americans making experiments with almost boyish delight. Colleges and universities were for a long time ruled by au almost exclusively classical spirit, and scientific institutions grew up to give opportunities to men who wished to study hydraulics rather than Homer, and drainage in place of Demosthenes. For many years, such bodies were as far distant from the common school as from the classical academy. Public education was fought by many citizens and on many grounds; country trustees often favored the teacher who would accept the lowest salary ; and the idea of giving even the barest kind of scientific training to the masses would have encountered a determined resistance. Men still under forty can remember how strong and persistent was the opposition to scientific teaching.
Year after year, the Franklin Institute and bodies of like character kept the even tenor of their way. Quietly and modestly, but steadily and effectively they did their work. Two generations ago intelligent men knew that there was a place in Philadelphia where one could obtain knowledge about meteorology, where scientific books unknown to the ordinary library might be found. Men who were fond of electricity, or who liked to know what was being done at the great iron works, or who wished to know something of the latest achievementsin engineering could find congenial spirits at the Franklin Institute. As the wits and poets of old London flocked to the coffee-houses, so the men who liked to investigate and compare the results of their labors had what might be called their informal scientific clubs. Many a Philadelphian :gained his knowledge of the growth.of manufactures from the Franklin Institute exhibitions. Many a boy, sent to its drawing-school, grew interested in the long shelves of books very different from the dime novel, and in the apparatus which stimulated a desire to know more and more of the