II. IT is the greatest possible mistake to suppose—as, unfortunately, many yet do—that a scientific education unfits a man for the pursuits of ordinary professional or commercial life. I believe that no one can be unfitted for business life or occupations by the study of phenomena, all of which are based upon law, the knowledge of which can only be obtained by the exercise of exact habits of thought, and patient and laborious effort. I dare say many who have had a scientific education make bad men of business, but so do many who have not had such an education; it is not the scientific education which has spoilt them. Even more directly does the value of scientific education bear upon professional and manufacturing life. The medical man's success depends mainly upon the exercise of faculties which are pre-eminently called forth, and strengthened in original scientific investigations. The manufacturer who aspires to something more than following the rule-of-thumb work of his predecessors, requires exactly these habits of mind which are developed by original research. If the brewer, the calico-printer, the dyer, the alkali-maker, the metallurgist wish to make any advance of their own in their respective trades, they cannot do so without the exercise of powers which an only be gained by the prosecution of original inquiry. Doubtless many—nay, even most—of the great discoveries and improvements in the arts and manufactures may have been made by men who have been self-taught. But these men have acquired for themselves, by slow and difficult steps, the same habits of exact observation, patient and laborious devotion, and manipulative or constructive skill which the modem student of science may, at any rate to a very considerable extent, gain in his college course. So valuable is this kind of education found to be, that in Germany, where it is most practised, the chemical manufacturers now refuse to take young men into their works unless they have not merely had a scientific education, but also have prosecuted original investigation.
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