The Old Humanities and the New Science

Part 1

THE OLD HUMANITIES AND THE NEW SCIENCE

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION MAY 16, 1919

THE OLD HUMANITIES AND THE NEW SCIENCE

BY SIR WILLIAM OSLER, BT., M.D., F.R.S.

WITH INTRODUCTION BY HARVEY CUSHING, M.D.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

INTRODUCTION

IN writing a prefatory note to an American reprint of this notable address there are three things to consider--the writer, his subject, and the occasion. The greatly beloved author had a multitude of friends in all lands, and far abler pens have written much concerning him during the past twelve months. The subject is one of no less moment on this side of the Atlantic than to those in older countries who concern themselves with scholarship and education, though here the classicists are having a particularly hard struggle to retain in our academies, schools, and colleges a proper footing for the ancient languages and learning termed "the humanities." The circumstances under which the address was given are less familiar in this country than the author and his subject, for we as yet have no corresponding organization, or at least none with such an ambitious programme. Consequently it is appropriate that this note should dwell chiefly upon the occasion.

The Classical Association, composed of a large body of university men, teachers, and schoolmasters, with local branches in several places in Great Britain and her colonies, was established in 1904 with this object:

To promote the development and maintain the well-being of classical studies and in particular:

(a) To impress upon public opinion the claim of such studies to an eminent place in the national scheme of education;

(b) To improve the practice of classical teaching by free discussion of its scope and methods;

(c) To encourage investigation and call attention to new discoveries;

(d) To create opportunities for friendly intercourse and co-operation among all lovers of classical learning in this country.

That Sir William Osler should have been chosen to preside over such an assembly of British scholars is no matter for surprise, for though a humanist in the broad sense of the term as a student of human affairs and human nature, rather than of Latin and Greek, he at the same time was a wide reader with a "relish for knowledge," successful not only in its quest in many fields beyond that of his chosen profession, but particularly so in his ability to hand his literary gleanings on to others in a new and attractive form. Nevertheless, the presidency of the Classical Association, considering the avowed objects of this body, was a most signal honour in view of his reputation primarily as a scientist and teacher of medicine.

His immediate predecessor, the Professor of Greek at Christ Church, opened his presidential address of the year before with these words:

It is the general custom of this Association to choose as its President alternately a classical scholar and a man of wide eminence outside the classics. Next year you are to have a man of science, a great physician who is also famous in the world of learning and literature. Last year you had a statesman, who, though a statesman, is also a great scholar and man of letters, a sage and counsellor in the antique mould, of world-wide fame and unique influence.

Thus, though in himself sufficiently representative of humanistic culture, Osler was in this strict sense an alternate, and among the fourteen earlier Presidents of the Association three had like himself been Fellows of the Royal Society, which long since had abandoned even the pretence of concerning itself with classical studies which had been the very basis of the Revival of Learning.

The list of Presidents since the foundation of the Association may be a matter of interest to those in this country who may not have been aware of the existence and purposes of this organization of British scholars:

1904. The Right Hon. Sir R. H. Collins, M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., Master of the Rolls.

1905. The Right Hon. the Earl of Halsbury, D.C.L., F.R.S., Lord Chancellor.

1906. The Right Hon. Lord Curzon of Kedleston, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., D.C.L., F.R.S.

1907. S. H. Butcher, Esq., M.P., Litt.D., D.Litt., LL.D.

1908. The Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P., K.C., D.C.L., Prime Minister.

1909. The Right Hon. the Earl of Cromer, G.C.B., O.M., K.C.S.I., LL.D.

Part 2

1910. Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., Ph.D., President of the Royal Society.

1911. The Right Rev. Edward Lee Hicks, D.D., Lord Bishop of Lincoln.

1912. The Very Rev. Henry Montagu Butler, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

1913. Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, K.C.B., D.Litt., F.B.A., Head of the British Museum.

1914. Professor William Ridgeway, Litt.D., LL.D., Sc.D., F.B.A., Disney Professor of Archæology, Cambridge.

1915. Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B., R.A., D.C.L.

1916. The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M., D.C.L., LL.D., P.B.A., F.R.S.

1917. Professor Gilbert Murray, LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A., F.R.S.L., Christ Church, Oxford.

As reported in the Annual Proceedings of the Association, Professor Murray at the meeting in 1918, in nominating his successor, spoke of him as a man, "who is not only one of the most eminent physicians in the world, but represents in a peculiar way the learned physician who was one of the marked characters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and stands for a type of culture which the Classical Association does not wish to see die out of the world--the culture of a man who, while devoting himself to his special science, keeps nevertheless a broad basis of interest in letters of all kinds."

In seconding this proposal, Sir Frederic Kenyon pointed out that it had come at a very appropriate time in the work of the Association, for: "During this last year our main activity has been directed towards getting representatives of Natural Science and of the Humanities to work together, on the principle that those subjects never should be in conflict with one another, but merely in friendly competition. Both are equally essential for a liberal education. It is a continuation and a symbol of that policy that we should ask Sir William Osler to become our President, and that he should have accepted cordially and readily, as he did. He is eminent as a man of science, is President of the Bibliographical Society, and represents scholarship in medicine in its best form."

It is quite possible that these last remarks may have suggested to the succeeding President an appropriate topic for his address, for he told the writer a few months later that he planned to talk on Science and the Humanities. He was already turning the matter over in his mind, but where he found time or inclination to write the address it is difficult to imagine.

Staggered by the loss of his son, an only child, who had fallen in action near St. Julien during the Passchendaele battles in September the year before, his days occupied with a succession of duties in connection with the war, his household filled as always with friends and visitors innumerable, and every young American or Canadian in service in England gravitating there, eager above all things to further the progress of the elaborate catalogue of his unique and valuable collection of books, he nevertheless set himself to prepare this, one of his most brilliant and what proved to be his last formal address.

The meeting of the Association was to be held in Oxford, the bed-rock of classical learning--the only place, it seems, where the word "humanism" in its narrow sense still survives in modern university terminology as that part of the curriculum known as Litteræ Humaniores. As was characteristic of his methods, the mere address itself did not suffice, but he prepared for the occasion in other ways. Thus he collected from the various Oxford colleges and placed on exhibition an array of historical objects illustrating the important part Oxford had once played in science and natural philosophy in days antedating the Royal Society which had its seeds of origin there. In addition, and as a possible offset to this, he exhibited from his own collection of books those volumes which constituted in their original editions the outstanding classics in Science and Medicine. A small pamphlet concerning them reads as follows:

Faced with a bewildering variety and ever-increasing literature, how is the hard-pressed student to learn--

1. The evolution of knowledge in any subject;

2. The life and work of the men who made the original contributions?

So far as concerns Science and Medicine, an attempt is made to answer the question by the collection of a Bibliotheca Prima, examples from which are here shown. The idea is to have in a comparatively small number of works the essential literature grouped about the men of the first rank, arranged in chronological order.

I have put out the editiones principes of twenty of such works. The fundamental contribution may be represented by a great Aldine edition, e.g. Aristotle, by the brief communication such as that of Darwin and Wallace in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1858, or by a three-page pamphlet of Roentgen. From the card lists of Galen, Hippocrates, Vesalius, and Harvey, those interested will see the aim and scope of the collection.

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