Abstract
THE Classical Association held its annual meeting at Oxford on May 16β17, and Sir William Osier delivered the presidential address on βThe Old Humanity and the New Science.β Sir William began by referring to the history of the Divinity School, in which the meeting was held. It had been frequented, he said, by Linacre, who, in addition to being a pioneer in medical education, had achieved a great reputation as a scholar. It had known the times when the natural sciences were so much neglected that the belief was solemnly maintained that fossils had been buried in the earth to test man's belief in the omnipotence of the Creator. The last century had witnessed extraordinary developments in scientific knowledge of every sort, and the interest taken in discovery on one hand, and social progress on the other, had rather thrown the old humanities into the background. It might be maintained, from the part played by Science during the war, that its chief result had been to add to the sum of human misery; but, all things considered, such utilisation of discovery could not be fairly used as a reproach against Science; the fault lay in the degradation of the human mind which the horrors of the last five years had brought about. Sir William was rather inclined to subscribe to the opinion that the invention of firearms had been one of the main causes which saved the human race from destruction. But to assure the continued well-being of the race a different kind of education was necessary. The solution of the difficulty would be found in the union of Science with the Humanities. Germany, in which scientific education had been systematically developed, nevertheless had paid far greater attention to the study of the classics than any other modern nation.
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Sciences and the Classics . Nature 103, 234β235 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/103234b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/103234b0