4. The belief in stated scientific facts, the understanding of descriptions, diagrams, etc.
5. The habitual scientific use of events which happen around us.
6. The study of the old to find the new. The principle of the telephone, for instance, is as old as spoken language. The mere[1] pulses in the air--carrying all the characteristics of what you say--may set in vibration either the drum of my ear, or a disk of metal. How simple--and how simple all true science is--when we understand it.
[Transcribers note 1: corrected from 'more']
8. The cultivation of the scientific judgment, and the inventive powers of the mind. One great original investigator, made such by the direction given his mind in one of our common schools, would be cheaply bought at the price of all that the study of science in our schools will cost for the next quarter of a century.
8. Honesty. If there is a study whose every tendency is more in the direction of honesty and truthfulness--both with ourselves and with others--than is the study of experimental science, I do not know what it is.
Physical science, then, will help in making men and women out of our boys and girls. It is worthy of a fair, earnest trial everywhere.
A few minutes each day in which a class or a school study science in some of the ways I have indicated will give a knowledge at the end of a term or a year of no mean value. The time thus spent will have rested the pupils from their books, to which they will return refreshed, and instead of being time lost from other study the work will have been made enough more earnest and intense to make it again.
Apparatus for illustrating many of the ordinary facts of physics can be devised from materials always at hand. Many more can be made by any one skilled in the use of tools. In chemistry, the simplicity of the apparatus, and comparative cheapness of ordinary chemicals, make the use of a large number of beautiful and instructive experiments both easy and cheap.
A nation is what its trades and manufactures--its inventions and discoveries--make it; and these depend on its trained scientific men. Boys become men. Their growing minds are waiting for what I urge you to offer. Science has never advanced without carrying practical civilization with it--but it has never truly advanced save by the use of the experimental method. And it never will.