It is contemporary commonplace that if science were more prominent in our educational system everybody would learn it and things would come all right.  That interest in science would be extended is probable.  There is in the population a residuum of which we will speak later, who would profit by the opportunity; but that the congenitally unscientific, the section from which the heads of government temporal and spiritual, the lawyers, administrators, politicians, the classes upon whose minds the public life of this country almost wholly depends, would by imbibition of scientific diet at any period of life, however early, be essentially altered seems in a high degree unlikely.  Of the converse case we have long experience, and I would ask those who entertain such sanguine expectations, whether the results of administering literature to scientific boys give much encouragement to their views.  This consideration brings us to the one hard, physiological fact that should form the foundation of all educational schemes:  the congenital diversity of the individual types.  Education has too long been regarded as a kind of cookery:  put in such and such ingredients in given proportions and a definite product will emerge.  But living things have not the uniformity which this theory of education assumes.  Our population is a medley of many kinds which will continue heterogeneous, to whatever system of education they are submitted, just as various types of animals maintain their several characteristics though nourished on identical food, or as you may see various sorts of apples remaining perfectly distinct though grafted on the same stock.  Their diversity is congenital.

According to the proposal of the reformers the natural sciences should be universally taught and be given “capital importance” in the examinations for the government services, but, cordially as we may approve the suggestion, we ought to consider what exactly its adoption is likely to effect.  The intention of the proposal is doubtless that our public servants, especially the highest of them, shall, while preserving the great qualities they now possess, add also a knowledge of science and especially scientific habits of mind.  Such is the “ample proposition that hope makes.”  Does experience of men accord with it at all?  Education, whether we like it or not, is a selective agency.  I doubt whether the change proposed will sensibly alter the characters of the group on whom our choice at present falls.  Rather, if forced upon an unwilling community, must it act by substituting another group.  The most probable result would not be that the type of men who now fill great positions would become scientific, but rather that their places would be taken by men of an altogether distinct mental type.  At the present time these two types of men meet but little.  They scarcely know each other.  Their differences are profound, affecting thoughts, ways of looking at things, and mental interests of