But why should we labour to prove the advantage of practical science
to the University? Let us rather speak of the help which the
University may give to science, when men well trained in mathematics
and enjoying the advantages of a well-appointed Laboratory, shall
unite their efforts to carry out some experimental research which no
solitary worker could attempt.
At first it is probable that our principal experimental work must be
the illustration of particular branches of science, but as we go on we
must add to this the study of scientific methods, the same method
being sometimes illustrated by its application to researches belonging
to different branches of science.
We might even imagine a course of experimental study the arrangement
of which should be founded on a classification of methods, and not on
that of the objects of investigation. A combination of the two plans
seems to me better than either, and while we take every opportunity of
studying methods, we shall take care not to dissociate the method from
the scientific research to which it is applied, and to which it owes
its value.
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