2. A feeling that the laboratory or scientific method consists primarily of observation of facts and their record. In reality these are three great steps instead of one in this method, which the student of biology should master: (1) the getting of facts, one device for doing which is observation; (2) the appraisal and discrimination of these facts to find which are important; and (3) the drawing of the conclusions which these facts seem to warrant. There are two practical corollaries of this truth. One is that the laboratory should be so administered that the pupil shall appreciate the full scope of the scientific method, its tremendous historic value to the race, and the necessity of using _all_ the steps of it faithfully in all future progress as well as in the sound solution of our individual problems and the guidance of conduct. The second is that we may make errors in our scientific conclusions and in life conclusions, through failure to discriminate among our facts, quite as fatally as through lack of facts. Indeed, my personal conviction is that more failures are due to lack of discrimination than to lack of observation. The power to weigh evidence is at least as important as the power to collect it.
3. A disposition to deny the student the right to reach conclusions in the laboratory,--or, as we flamboyantly say, to "generalize." Now in reality the only earthly value of _facts_ is to get _truth_,--that is, conclusions or generalizations. To deny this privilege is taxation without representation in respect to personality. The purpose of the laboratory is to enable students to think, to think accurately and with purpose, to reach their own conclusions. The getting of facts by observation is only a minor detail. In reality, the data the student can get from books are much more reliable than his own observations are likely to be. Our laboratory training should add gradually to the accuracy of his observations, but particularly it should enable him to use his own and other persons' facts conjointly, and with proper discrimination, in reaching conclusions. To do other than this tends to abort the reasoning attitude and power, and teaches the pupil to stand passive in the presence of facts and to divorce facts and conclusions. The fear is, of course, that the students will get wrong conclusions and acquire the habit of jumping prematurely to generalizations. But this situation, while critical, is the very glory of the method. What we want to do is to ask them continually,--wherever possible,--_where_ _their facts seem to lead them_. Their conclusions are liable to be quite wrong, to be sure. But our province as teachers is to see that the facts ignorance of which made this conclusion wrong are brought to their attention,--and it is not absolutely material whether they discover these facts themselves or some one else does. What we want to compass is practice in reaching conclusions, and the recognition of the necessity of getting and discriminating facts in doing so, together with a realization that there are probably many other facts which we have not discovered that would modify our conclusions. This keeps the mind open. In other words, the student may thus be brought to realize the meaning of the "working hypothesis" and the method of approximation to truth. It makes no difference if one "jumps to a conclusion," if he jumps in the light of all his known facts and holds his conclusion _tentatively_. It is much better to reach wrong conclusions through inadequate facts than to have the mind come to a standstill in the presence of facts. Instead of being a threat, reaching a wrong conclusion gives us the opportunity to train students in holding their conclusions open-mindedly and subject to revision through new facts. Reaching wrong or partial conclusions and correcting them may be made even more educative than reaching right ones at the outset. This would not be true if the conclusion were being sought for the sake of the science. But it is being sought solely for the sake of the student. The distinction is important. The inability to make it is one of the reasons why research men so often fail as teachers.