Part 11 (2/2)

The fundamental quality is the capacity for ”observation”; a quality so important that the positive sciences were also called ”sciences of observation,” a tered into ”experimental sciences”

for those in which observation is combined with experiment Now it is obvious that the possession of senses and of knowledge is not sufficient to enable a person to observe; it is a habit which must be developed by _practise_ When an attempt is made to show untrained persons stellar phenomena by means of the telescope, or the details of a cell under the microscope, however much the deht to be seen, the layreat discovery o to his laboratory to observe the mutations in the varied minute plants of the Aenothera, he often explains in vain the infinitesi, indeed, a new species, aerminated It is well known that when a new discovery is to be explained to the public, it is necessary to set forth the coarser details; the uninitiated cannot take in those minute details which constituted the real essence of the discovery And this, because they are unable to observe

To observe it is necessary to be ”trained,” and this is the true way of approach to science For if phenomena cannot be _seen_ it is as if they did not exist, while, on the other hand, the _soul of the scientist_ is entirely possessed by a passionate interest in what he sees He who has been ”trained” to see, begins to feel interest, and such interest is the motive-pohich creates the spirit of the scientist As in the little child internal _coordination_ is the point of crystallization round which the entire psychical form will coalesce, so in the teacher interest in the phenomenon observed will be the center round which her complete new personality will form spontaneously

The quality of observation comprises various minor qualities, such as _patience_ In comparison with the scientist, the untrained person not only appears to be a blind man who can see neither with the naked eye nor with the help of lenses; he appears as an ”iot his telescope in focus, the layman cannot wait until he has done so; while the scientist would be perfor out a long and patient process, the layreat perturbation: ”What a here? I cannot waste time like this” When microscopists expect visits fro row of microscopes already in focus, because they know that their visitors ish to see ”at once” and ”quickly,” and that they ish to see ”a great deal”

We can easily iine a scientist whose contributions to the work of the laboratory are of the highest order, who holds chairs and possesses civil dignities and honors of every sort, a to show a lady a cellular tissue under thein the world, he would proceed as folloith soleravity He would cut off a minute portion of a piece of tissue preserved in spirit, and would carefully clean the slide on which the subject was to be placed and the slide that was to cover it; he would clean again the lenses of the microscope, focus the preparation, and make ready to explain But undoubtedly the lady all this ti a hundred tiereat deal to do” When she has looked without seeing anything, her lamentations are bitter: ”What a lot of ti to do, and fritters away all her time! What she lacks is not tis properly; he can only appreciate his own impulses and his own satisfactions He reckons time solely by his own activity That which satisfies hiatory; no ives hiives him satisfaction, it cannot be said to be a waste of time But what he cannot endure, and what impresses him as a loss of time is a tension of the nerves, awithout an immediate result There is, indeed, a popular Italian proverb: _aspettare e non venire e una cosa dabusiness) These impatient persons are like those busybodies who always h _education_ is indeed necessary to overcome this attitude; weourselves into relation with the external world and appreciate its values

Without this preparation we cannot give due weight to the s from which science draws its conclusions

The capacity for sustained and accurate application to a task the object of which is apparently of very small importance, is indeed a most valuable asset to him who hopes to advance in science Let us call to mind what a physicist does to place an instrument absolutely level; how patiently he turns first one screw and then another, tries again and again, slowly and carefully: and to what end? to procure an absolutely horizontal direction for a surface When this measure of comparison is established in hard metal, how carefully it must be preserved to ensure that the oscillations of teth even in the ree; for this would be fatal to the scientific use of the instru in itself is involved! the preservation of a reat cheive a reaction he see with his phials like a little boy; he takes a retort and fills it with the substance he wishes to study, and then empties it; afterwards he fills it ater, and watches for the reaction; the reaction takes place; then again he empties the retort, fills it aneater, and sees whether there is a further reaction Thus he establishes the degree of dilution in which the substance will leave traces In this case the ; it was to find this ireat man acted like a child

This attitude of _hus the scientist is hu fro at a little table, fro off of his robes to don the worknity of one who states an authoritative and indisputable truth to assuether with his pupils, and inviting them to verify it, to the end not that they should learn a doctrine but that they should be spurred to activity by the truth--from all this, down to the tasks he carries out in his laboratory He considers nothing too small to absorb all his powers, to claim his entire attention, to occupy all his time Even when social honors are heaped upon him, he maintains the same attitude, which is to hireatness A , h he be a senator or a Minister of State The example of Cincinnatus is not to be compared with that of the modern scientist, for these workers surpass Cincinnatus ilory and salvation to huhest foration, not only in externals, but even in spiritual things, such as a cherished ideal, convictions that have germinated in their minds Confronted with truth, the man of science has no pre-conceptions; he is ready to renounce all those cherished ideas of his own that radually, he purifies himself from error, and keeps his mind always fresh, always clear, naked as the Truth hich he desires to blend in a sublime union

Is not this, perhaps, the reason why the specialist in infantile diseases has at present a social dignity and authority far superior to those of a school the excretions of the child's diseased body; but the master veils its soul with errors

But hoould it be if the master should seek the truth in the soul of the child? What an incoht, however, he would have to be initiated into the ways of huation, of patience; and to destroy the pride which is built on the void of vanity After this he, too,to the people: What did you see in the other true sciences? Reeds shaken by the wind? Men clothed in soft raiment? No, you saw prophets; but I am more than a prophet; I am he who crieth in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of the Lord, ht

More, indeed, than the other men of science; for they must always rey, ches diverse and remote from the scientist But the object of the schoolmaster is man himself; the psychicalmore in him than _interest in the phenomenon_; he obtains from them the revelation of himself, and his emotions vibrate at the contact of other souls like his own All life may be his portion, not merely a part of life Then those _virtues_, such as _hu up in the man of science within the limitations of the external aims he has fixed for hier be a question of the ”patience of the man of science,” or the ”humility of the man of science,” but of the virtues of man in all their plenitude

That spiritual expansion of the man of science which is, as it were, coh the cylinders of the telescope,splendor of the sun The so-called virtues are the _necessary means, the methods of existence_ by which we attain to truth; but the delight of the scientist in his work must vary in proportion as this truth is manifested in a physical force, a protozoan, or the soul of man The one name seems scarcely suitable for the two forms We understand at once that, in comparison with the _schoolmaster_, the scientistThe nobility of his spirit is lofty as man, but its dimensions are those of a brute force or an inferior life

The spiritual life of man may blend with the virtues of the man of science only when the student and the subject of study can be fused together Then scienceof wisdom, and true positive science e of the saints

There is a real mechanism of correspondence between the virtues of the man of science and the virtues of the saints; it is by means of humility and patience that the scientist puts himself in contact with material nature; and it is by means of humility and patience that the saint puts his, and as a consequence, mainly with man The scientist is virtuous only within the limits of his material contacts; the saint is ”all compact” of such virtue; his sacrifices and his enjoyments are alike illimitable The scientist is a seer within the limits of his field of observation; the saint is a spiritual seer, but he also _sees_ s and their laws more clearly than other men, and invests them with spirit

Theis marvelous, and that the simplest and most primitive most readily reveal natural lahich help us to interpret the s St Francis indeed knew this: ”Co beneath the fig-tree near theof his cell; ”the smaller the creature the oodness of the Creator”

Each tiny thing is worthy of the scientist's minute attention; he counts the articulations which s of itsdetails where the ordinary eye would not linger for a s, but they awoke in hi of spiritual joy and called forth a hyave me these little fairy feet, furnished with healthy and flexible little bones, to enable ? Who further gave lobes that revolve_ and see before and behind, to spy out all oose? And he gave reen and blue_, which reflect the color of the skies and of my trees”

The vision of the teacher should be at once precise like that of the scientist, and spiritual like that of the saint The preparation for science and the preparation for sanctity should form a new soul, for the attitude of the teacher should be at once positive, scientific, and spiritual

Positive and scientific, because she has an _exact_ task to perform, and it is necessary that she should put herself into iorous observation, that she should strip off all illusions, all the idle creations of the fancy, that she should distinguish truth froly, that, in fact, she should follow the example of the scientist, who takes account of every minute particle of matter, every elementary and embryonic form of life, but eliminates all optical delusions, all the confusion which iht introduce into the search for truth To achieve such an attitude _long practise is necessary, and a wide observation of life_ under the guidance of the biological sciences

Spiritual, because it is to man that his powers of observation are to be applied, and because the characteristics of the creature who is to be his particular subject of observation are spiritual

I would therefore initiate teachers into the observation of the s, with all those aids which science gives; I would e of the cultivation of plants and train they; I would direct their observation to insects, and would y And I would not have thee them to work independently in laboratories and in the bosoram of observation must not exclude the physical aspects of the child Thus the direct and ie of the physical needs of the child, fro to develop in his organization and becomes susceptible to treatment By this I do not y, and hygiene; but a ”practise” a their development closely, and foresees all their physical needs The teacher, in other words, should prepare herself according to thewith simplicity and objectivity into the very domain in which students of the natural sciences and of medicine are initiated, when they make their first experi into the more profound problems of life related to their special study In likemen, who in our universities are destined to study vast and co undertake the quiet and restful work of preparing an infusion, or the section of a rose-stalk, and thus experience, as they observe through the microscope, that emotion born of wonder, which awakens the consciousness and attracts it to the mysteries of life with a passionate enthusiasm It was thus that we, accustomed hitherto to read in school only ponderous and arid printed books, felt that the book of Nature was opening before our spirit, infinite in its possibilities of creation and ofto all our latent and uncomprehended aspirations