ON SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION
[1882]
When a man is honoured by such a request as that which
reached me from the authorities of your institution
some time ago, I think the first thing that occurs
to him is that which occurred to those who were bidden
to the feast in the Gospel—to begin to make
an excuse; and probably all the excuses suggested
on that famous occasion crop up in his mind one after
the other, including his “having married a wife,”
as reasons for not doing what he is asked to do.
But, in my own case, and on this particular occasion,
there were other difficulties of a sort peculiar to
the time, and more or less personal to myself; because
I felt that, if I came amongst you, I should be expected,
and, indeed, morally compelled, to speak upon the
subject of Scientific Education. And then there
arose in my mind the recollection of a fact, which
probably no one here but myself remembers; namely,
that some fourteen years ago I was the guest of a
citizen of yours, who bears the honoured name of Rathbone,
at a very charming and pleasant dinner given by the
Philomathic Society; and I there and then, and in this
very city, made a speech upon the topic of Scientific
Education. Under these circumstances, you see,
one runs two dangers—the first, of repeating
one’s self, although I may fairly hope that everybody
has forgotten the fact I have just now mentioned,
except myself; and the second, and even greater difficulty,
is the danger of saying something different from what
one said before, because then, however forgotten your
previous speech may be, somebody finds out its existence,
and there goes on that process so hateful to members
of Parliament, which may be denoted by the term “Hansardisation.”
Under these circumstances, I came to the conclusion
that the best thing I could do was to take the bull
by the horns, and to “Hansardise” myself,—to
put before you, in the briefest possible way, the
three or four propositions which I endeavoured to
support on the occasion of the speech to which I have
referred; and then to ask myself, supposing you were
asking me, whether I had anything to retract, or to
modify, in them, in virtue of the increased experience,
and, let us charitably hope, the increased wisdom of
an added fourteen years.
Now, the points to which I directed particular attention
on that occasion were these: in the first place,
that instruction in physical science supplies information
of a character of especial value, both in a practical
and a speculative point of view—information
which cannot be obtained otherwise; and, in the second
place, that, as educational discipline, it supplies,
in a better form than any other study can supply,
exercise in a special form of logic, and a peculiar
method of testing the validity of our processes of
inquiry. I said further, that, even at that time,
a great and increasing attention was being paid to
