PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3119, 9 February 1871, Page 3

PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

The following extract from an address by Professor Rolleston, at the meeting of the British Association for the advancement of science, held at Liverpool in September last, is of interest, as showing the value now attached to scientific studies in England : — He would say something about the intellectual and moral benefits accruing from the pursuit of the natural history of sciences. With regard to the former the real psychologist and the true logician knew that the briefest discourse on method of an actual investigator was worth whole volumes of the sophistical dialectic of the ancient schoolmen and of their modern followers. "If you wish your son to be a logican,'' said Johnston, " let him study Chillingworth," meaning thereby that real vital j knowledge of art and science can arise only out of the practice of reasoning. With regard to the influence of natural science studies on the faculty of atttention, the connecting link between the intellectual and the moral elements of our immaterial nature, the Professor illustrated the power of such studies to

produce carefulness and to enforce perseverance by a story turning upon the use of, or rather upon the need for words. Von Baer, the Nestor of biologists, explained the errors of some who differed from him by their " ungenirtlieit" a word which will not be found in any German dictionary, the thing itself, said Von Baer, not being German either. Happily, also, there is no precise English equivalent — a rough approach to a translation being tiotalcingpainsness — the word being intended to mean the enure opposite of the Englibh quality of fairly facing the drudgery of details, without which nothing worth doing ever yet was done. Referring only to one of the moral benefits arising from the pursuit of science, Professor Helm hoi tz had said in effect that ihe peculiarities characteristic of German men of science were to be ascribed to their severe simplicity of manners, to their want of any spirit of self-seeking, and to their indisposition to bow down before the prejudices of society — in a word, to the reverse of all that Mr Matthew Arnold had happily called Philistinism. Success in the pursuit of science was incompatible with a spirit of self-seeking, and with the habits of even refined self-indulgence. The following extract from " The Builder," with 'reference to what are called the Science Schools, is also very significant : — The number of persons receiving instruction in science applicable to industry, under the auspices of the department, has increased from 15,010 in 1868 to 21,500 in 1860. The number of individuals instructed in art has increased from 123,562 in 1868 to 157,198 in 1869, or at the rate of 27 per cent., the increase in the science schools being upwards of 43 per cent. The Royal School of Mines numbers only 17 regular and 93 occasional students; the Eoyal College of Chemistry, 136 students ; the Royal School of Naval Architecture, 40 ; and the Metallurgical Laboratory, 35. The evening lectures have been attended by 1617 artisans and school teachers, and 253 science teachers attended the special course of lectures provided for their instruction. There have been 32 students at the Royal College of Science in Ireland, and 5773 persons have attended the various courses of lectures delivered in connection with the departments in Dublin. The attendance at the evening popular lectures delivered in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art during the session 1868-9 was 1386. Thus the total number of persons who have received instruction as students or as attendants upon lectures in connection with the Science and Art Department in 1869, is upwards of 187,000 — a total exceeding that of the preceding year by 41,300, or 28 per cent. The increase in 1868 over 1867 was about 18 per cent, so that the rate of progressive increase, as compared with the former year, shows an acceleration of more than 30 percent. The general march of the public scientific education of the country may be readily appreciated from the above statisaical summary.