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nto pure or theoretical sciences, and mixed or applied sciences. Then arranging the 
‘heoretical sciences according to their historical development and logical connections, 
we shall put first in the series mathematics, the science of abstract relations. Then 
ouilt on mathematics will come mechanics, serving as a bridge to that vast science we 
call physics. Then on top of physics will come chemistry, and on top of chemistry, if 
it were as fully developed for teaching purposes, would be placed biology. The scale of 
pure sciences is thus, roughly, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. Then there 
are the mixed, or, as they might be styled, the applied sciences, such as astronomy and 
geology. We must keep for the Bachelor’s degree at least the elements of mathematics, 
mechanics, physics, chemistry; and as soon as biology reaches a development and attains 
a body of doctrine so that its elements are capable of dogmatic inculcation, biology 
should be included as a required subject for the Bachelor of Arts degree. Room can be 
found for the elements of the pure or theoretical sciences as a complete body, but it is 
doubtful whether there is room for any more. 
Proressor HALE wished to inquire whether it were possible to prepare a young man, 
say in Chicago high-schools, for the strongest universities, giving him, besides his 
nathematies, classics, and modern languages, physics and chemistry also. 
Mg. FrENCH, of the Hyde Park High School, answered that they were now attempting 
-0 do this in the high-schools. 
ProFEssorR HALE thought that the saving of time which might be effected in the 
ower schools would yet make possible all that he hoped for, and Professor West asked 
tor. and thought that the solution would be found in this direction. 
PRESIDENT JORDAN, of Stanford University, said he had listened with great interest 
0 the discussion. He did not agree with the reader of the paper in regard to the les- 
sons to be drawn for our own time. Ie did not agree with Professor West’s remark 
:hat instruction in biology would be suitable for his proposed course of study, when 
biology became dogmatic, when it had a groundwork of doctrine which could be taught 
and learned by heart from a text-book. President Jordan referred to a paper which had 
recently come under his notice, which took the ground that only those subjects are fitted 
for training the mind which have no groundwork of dogma; that is, in which the stu- 
jent must find out the truths and facts for himself. It is this which gives the unde- 
veloped and unsettled sciences an enormous value for educational purposes over those 
~hich are settled. 
ProressorR WEST said, in reference to the dogmatic teaching of science, that it was 
difficult to conceive how anything could be learned at the start, even the alphabet, 
without its being in a sense dogmatically inculeated. It was difficult indeed to see how 
we are to learn anything, without beginning with some body of provisionally received 
truth. The atomic theory in chemistry, for example, like the elements of anything else, 
is to be received at the start as a working basis, or else the student must quit study. 
What he thus provisionally receives is to be tested by experience. Applying this to 
biology, it does not seem to be the fact that the doctrine of evolution is yet formulated 
with such precision that the elements of biology can be as profitably taught as the ele- 
ments of the older sciences which have had completer development. 
PRESIDENT BLANCHARD, of Wheaton College, held that the likenesses among men were 
far more important than their differences, and that the likenesses among men called for 
culture and training just as much as their differences. While every man is to have his 
special occupation, every man before he has an occupation ought to be a man, and ought 
never to lose his gencral humanity in his profession. It does seem that a man who is 
to be a biologist, and is never compelled to learn anything in his preliminary education 
for which he has not a natural aptitude and which he would not himself naturally 
choose, is in danger of becoming a man with a narrow horizon. On the other hand, if 
while he is in the elementary stages of his training he could be required to learn some 
things which naturally he would not choose to learn, and develop those parts of his 
mind where he is naturally weak, then he will in this way attain a certain intellectual 
symmetry, and will by and by exert far more intellectual power in his specialty than he 
sould possibly do if he were to omit everything which he does not wish to study from 
he beginning of his training. 
The advocates of the old education do not at all object to special training. They do 
10t object to special courses for specialists ; but what they do object to is the present