Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Introductory Address to the Eighth Lecture Course at the Albany College of Pharmacy: Delivered October 1, 1888
Now the other method, which we may call the didactic, dif fers radically from the experimental, and in extolling the one, we are not to lose sight of the fact that the other, rightly used, has been and must ever continue to be of the greatest service in education, and that we cannot separate them without work ing irreparable injury. But it was the mistake of the older pedagogues to suppose that youthful ardor and freedom of thought should be repressed, and a blind allegiance to authori ty demanded. In many countries the Church and the Univer sity were one, and a slavish obedience to the behests of the for mer, and a conservative following of the leaders of the latter, were alike expected and demanded of those who sought in struction at these seats of learning. We cannot now pause to trace the history of the con?icts thus early engendered between religion and science, nor to show how purely dogmatic was most of the teaching of the last few centuries, but despite the bondage in which thinkers were held, there appeared from time to time daring innovators who pushed their inquiries in every direction, and though their books were burned, and they them selves often forced to recant for fear of a like fate, yet the world moved, truth survived, and knowledge increased among men. And is it not a painful fact to contemplate, that after all these years, much of this blind allegiance to authority should still remain among us, exercising as it does an in?uence truly baneful in retarding the general acceptance of evident truths. Astronomy has long since demonstrated that the earth is not the center of the universe geology has long since demonstra ted that the earth was not formed and fitted for man's occupancy in six days' time, but the scarce less certain truths of evolution are combated as fiercely by certain classes in our midst to-day as when they were first promulgated. Such a condition, with its many attendant evils, results from a too dogmatic teaching, and any system of education which fails properly to combine these two methods of instruction, of which we have been speak ing, is one-sided and incomplete. Rousseau, in the work to.
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