On scientific education / by G. Gore.

  • Gore, George, 1826-1909.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On scientific education / by G. Gore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    having good intentions and a supreme power to enforce them, has not done far more evil than good.” To obviate the difficulty of procuring for large schools, head-masters possessed both of classical and scientific knowledge, it has been suggested in some cases to divide each large .school into literary and scientific departments. The members of our Governments have also largely neglected to encourage scientific education, almost entirely because they have not been educated in scientific subjects, and have consequently not been able to appreciate their great national value; but since the recent progress of foreign competition has begun seriously to affect British industry, their attention has been drawn towards the subject, and a Royal Commission is now enquiring into the degree of encouragement of science and of science education in this country. It has been pubiicly stated that it is rare to find an English Cabinet Minister possessed of even a moderate amount of knowledge of physics or chemistry. The aristocracy of this country have also shown but very little encou- ragement to scientific education, although in many instances the value of their estates has been largely increased in consequence of the develop- ment of new manufactures and of railways by means of science. The numerous researches on the latent heat of water, the tension of steam, the mechanical effect of heat, the strength of iron, &c., contributed to the production of the steam engine and modern machinery; the dis- covery of chlorine by Scheele gave rise to the modern process of bleach- ing, and to many improved methods of dyeing textile fabrics ; and those methods, combined with others, produced the cotton manufacture, which gives employment to many thousands of persons, and has required the erection of numerous buildings, and greatly increased the value of build- ing ground in Lancashire. Many other great advantages derived from science, in its application to agriculture, the discovery of minerals, and in other ways, by the upper classes in this country, might be readily men- tioned. It is a fallacious argument to say that progress of science and increased value of land are only remotely connected together; a cause as certainly produces its effect, however many connections lie between them, provided the connections are certain ; the number of links in a chain makes no difference in the transmission of motion from one end of it to the other. Great causes are frequently distant and wide-spread in their effects; it might easily be shown that the area of the spots upon the sun influences the price of our bread. Persons in general can easily understand that an acorn planted in the ground will in the course of time become an oak, because it is a palpable and visible effect, but they cannot so readily per- ceive that the benefits resulting from a knowledge of science ramify through all our manufacturing, artistic, and commercial occupations, our social relations, and our every-day life, not because the dependence of our welfare upon science is less real, but simply because the connection between the two is less understood. The advantages of science penetrate everywhere. Every man who eats his food with an electro-plated fork is indebted for the use of that article not only to the labours of those inventors who developed the steam-