Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, April 1899

In this new field, Professor Kedzie says, Professor Miles was even more popular than before with students, and created an enthusiasm for operations and labors of the farm which had been regarded before as a disagreeable drudgery. The students "were never happier than when detailed for a day's work with Dr. Miles in laying out some difficult ditch or surveying some field. One reason why he was so popular was that he was not afraid of soiling his hands. His favorite uniform for field work was a pair of brown overalls. The late Judge Tenney came to a gang of students at work on a troublesome ditch and inquired where he could find Dr. Miles. 'That man in overalls down in the quicksands of the ditch is Dr. Miles'; the professor of practical agriculture was in touch with the soil."

Prof. Byron D. Halsted, of the New Jersey Agricultural College Experiment Station, who was an agricultural pupil of Dr. Miles in Lansing, characterizes him as having been a full man who knew his subjects deeply and fondly. "In those days I am safe in writing that he represented the forefront of advanced agriculture in America. He was in close touch with such men as Lawes and Gilbert, Rothamstead, England, the famous field-crop experimenters of the world, and as for his knowledge of breeds of live stock and their origin, Miles's Stock-Breeding is a classic work. Dr. Miles, in short, was a close student, a born investigator, hating an error, but using it as a stepping-stone toward truth. He did American farming a lasting service, and his deeds live after him."

While loved by his students, most of whom have been successful and many have gained eminence as agricultural professors or workers in experiment stations, and while receiving sympathy and support from President Abbott, Dr. Miles was not appreciated by the politicians, or by all of the Board of Agriculture, or even by the public at large. Unkind and captious criticisms were made of his work, and it was found fault with on economical grounds, as if its prime purpose had been to make money. He therefore resigned his position in 1875, and accepted the professorship of agriculture in the Illinois State University. Thence he removed to the Houghton Farm of Lawson Valentine, near Mountainville, N. Y., where he occupied himself with scientific experimental investigation. He was afterward professor of agriculture in the Massachusetts Agricultural College, at Amherst. In announcing this appointment to the students, Dr. Chadbourne, then president of the institution, and himself a most successful teacher, stated that he considered Dr. Miles as the ablest man in the United States for that position. In 1886, shortly after Dr. Chadbourne's death, Dr. Miles returned to his old home in Lansing, Michigan, where he spent the rest of his life in study, research, and the writing of books and articles for scientific publications.

During these later years of his life he took up again with what had been his favorite pursuit in earlier days, but with which he had not occupied himself for thirty years – the study of mollusks – with the enthusiasm of a young man, Mr. Walker says, who being interested in the same study, was in constant correspondence with him at this time; "and as far as his strength permitted labored with all the acumen and attention to details which were so characteristic of him. I was particularly struck with his familiarity with the present drift of scientific investigation and thought, and his thorough appreciation of modern methods of work. He was greatly interested in the work I was carrying on with reference to the geographical distribution of the mollusca, and, as would naturally be supposed from his own work in heredity in connection with our domestic animals, took great pleasure in discussing the relations of the species as they are now found and their possible lines of descent. He was a careful and accurate observer of Nature, and if he had not drifted into other lines of work would undoubtedly have made his mark as a great naturalist. As it is, his name will always have an honored place in the scientific history of Michigan."

When Professor Miles began to teach in the Michigan Agricultural College, the "new education" was new indeed, and the textbook method still held sway. But the improved methods were gradually taking the place of the old ones, and Professor Miles was one of the first to co-operate in them, and he did it with effect. He used text-books, "but his living word," President Clute says, "supplemented the book; and the animal from the farm under his knife and ours, the shells which he led us to find under the rotten logs and along the rivers and lakes, the insects he taught us to collect and classify, the minerals and fossils he had collected on the geological survey of Michigan, all were used to instruct and inspire his students, to cultivate in them the scientific spirit and method."

Among the more important books by Professor Miles are Stock-Breeding, which had a wide circulation and has been much used as a class-book; Experiments with Indian Corn, giving the results of some important work which he did at Houghton Farm; Silos and Ensilage, which helped much in diffusing knowledge of the silo in the times when it had to fight for recognition; and Land Drainage. Of his papers, he published in the Popular Science Monthly articles on Scientific Farming at Rothamstead; Ensilage and Fermentation; Lines of Progress in Agriculture; Progress in Agricultural Science; and How Plants and Animals Grow. To the American Association for the Advancement of Science he contributed papers on Energy as a Factor in Rural Economy; Heredity of Acquired Characters (also to the American Naturalist); Surface Tension of Water and Evaporation; Energy as a Factor in Nutrition; and Limits of Biological Experiments (also to the American Naturalist). Other articles in the American Naturalist were on Animal Mechanics and the Relative Efficiency of Animals as Machines. In the Proceedings of the American Educational Association is an address by him on Instruction in Manual Arts in Connection with Scientific Studies. The records of the U and I Club, of Lansing, of which he was a valued member for ten years, contain papers on a variety of scientific subjects which were read before it, and were highly appreciated. This list does not contain all of Professor Miles's contributions to the literature of science, for throughout his life he was a frequent contributor to the agricultural and scientific press, and a frequent speaker before associations and institutes, "where his lectures were able and practical."

No special record is made of the work of Professor Miles in the American Agriculturist, but the correspondence of Professor Thurber with him furnishes ample proof that he was one of the most trusted advisers in the editorial conduct of that journal. The familiar tone of Professor Thurber's letters, and the undoubting assurance with which he asked for information and aid on various subjects, well demonstrate how well the editor knew whom he could rely upon in an emergency.

In all his work the great desire of Professor Miles was to find and present the truth. His merits were recognized by many scientific societies. He was made a corresponding member of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences in 1862; a corresponding member of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia in January, 1863; a correspondent of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1864; a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1880, and a Fellow of the same body in 1890; and held memberships or other relations with other societies; and he received the degree of D. V. S. from Columbia Veterinary College, New York, in March, 1880.

His students and friends speak in terms of high admiration of the genial qualities of Professor Miles as a companion. The resolutions of the U and I Club of Lansing describe him as an easy and graceful talker, a cheerful dispenser of his learning to others. "To spend an hour in his 'den,' and watch his delicate experiments with 'films,'" says President Clute, "and see the light in his eyes as he talked of them, was a delight." "He was particularly fond of boys," says another, "and never seemed happier than when in the company of boys or young men who were trying to study and to inform themselves, and if he could in any way assist them he was only too glad to do so"; and he liked pets and children. Incidents are related showing that he had a wonderful accuracy in noting and recollecting the minutest details that came under his observation – a power that he was able to bring to bear instantly when its exercise was called for.

Dr. Miles kept up his habits of reading and study to the last days of his life; but all public work was made difficult to him in later years by an increasing deafness. He was tireless in investigation, patient, and always cheerful and looking for the bright side; and when one inquired of him concerning his health, his usual answer was that he was "all right," or, if he could not say that, that he would be "all right to-morrow."

No sketch of Dr. Miles is complete without a word of tribute to his high personal character, his life pure and noble in every relationship, his unswerving devotion to truth, and the unfaltering loyalty to his friends, which make his memory a benediction and an inspiration to all who knew him well.

He was married in 1851 to Miss Mary E. Dodge, who remained his devoted companion until his death, which occurred February 15, 1898.

Editor's Table

SCIENCE AND CULTURE

We do not know from whom the philosopher Locke quotes the saying, "Non vitæ sed scholæ discimus," but he translates it well, "We learn not to live, but to dispute." The adage has reference to the old systems of education which had for their aim neither the discovery of truth nor the perfecting of the human faculties in any broad sense, but the fitting of the individual to take his place in a world of conventional ideas and discuss conventional topics upon conventional lines. In other words, the preparation was for school, not for life, the whole subsequent career of the individual being regarded simply as a prolongation of the intellectual influences and discipline of the school. That system, which was ecclesiastical in its origin, has now, save for strictly ecclesiastical purposes, passed away. We consider life as the end of school and not school as the end of life.

It may be questioned, however, whether we have as yet thoroughly adapted our educational methods to this change of standpoint. Do we as yet take a sufficiently broad view of life? If we conceive life narrowly as essentially a business struggle, and adapt our procedure to that conception, the results will show very little relation to the larger and truer conception according to which life means development of faculty, activity of function, and a harmonious adjustment of relations between man and man. If, again, we make too much of knowledge that has only a conventional value, having little or no bearing on the understanding of things or the accomplishment of useful work, we are so far falling into the old error of "learning for school." The address by Sir Archibald Geikie, which we published last month, gives a useful caution against undervaluing "the older learning." The older learning can certainly be made an effective instrument for the cultivation of taste, of sympathy, and of intellectual accuracy along certain lines. It tends further, we believe, to promote a certain intellectual self-respect, which is a valuable quality. In the study of language and literature the human mind surveys, as it were, its own peculiar possessions, and thus acquires a sense of proprietorship which a study of the external world can hardly give. Still, it is well to cultivate a consciousness of the essentially limited and arbitrary nature of such knowledge. It is important, we may admit, to have a good text of such an author as Chaucer; but the minutiæ into which critics of his text enter can not be said to possess any broad human interest. Whether he wrote this word or that word, adopted this spelling or that, can not be a question on which much depends; and could one know the exact truth on a thousand such points, he would not really be much the wiser. Among Chaucer scholars he could speak with a good deal of confidence; but the knowledge of these details would not really help to round out any useful system of knowledge, nor could any single fact possess the illuminating power which sometimes belongs to some single and, at first sight, unimportant fact in the realm of natural knowledge.

This is not said with any intention of disparaging the culture that comes of literary study. It is a culture that tends to brighten human intercourse and to sweeten a man's own thoughts. It is a culture eminently favorable to flexibility of mind and quick insight into human character. So far it is a culture "for life"; but too often it tends to become a culture "for school" – that is to say, when things are learned simply to meet conventional demands and conform to the fashion of the time.

A true and sufficient culture can never, as we conceive, be founded on literature and language alone. No mind can be truly liberalized without imbibing and assimilating the fundamental principles of science. There is darkness in the mind that believes that anything can come out of nothing and which has never obtained a glimpse of the exactness with which Nature solves her equations. In the region of mechanics alone there are a thousand beautiful and varied illustrations of the unfailing constancy of natural laws. It is a liberal education to trace the operation of one law under numberless disguises, and thus arrive at an ineradicable conviction that the same law must be reckoned with always and everywhere. The persistence of force, the laws of the composition and resolution of forces, the laws of falling bodies and projectiles, the conservation of energy, the laws of heat, to mention only a few heads of elementary scientific study, are capable, if properly unfolded and illustrated, of producing in any mind open to large thoughts a sense of harmony and a trust in the underlying reason of things, which are constitutive elements of the very highest culture. Only, care must be taken to approach these studies in a right spirit. There is a way of regarding the laws of Nature which tends to vulgarize rather than refine the mind. If we approach Nature merely as something to be exploited, we get no culture from the study of it; but if we approach it as the great men of old did, and feel that in learning its laws we are grasping the thoughts which went to the building of the universe, and, by so doing, are affirming our own high calling as intelligent beings, then every moment given to the study of Nature means intellectual, moral, and spiritual gain. When we look into literature there is much to charm, much to delight and satisfy; and doubtless, in relation to what any one man can accomplish, the field is infinite; but still we know we are looking into the limited. On the other hand, when we are face to face with Nature, we know we are looking into the infinite, and that, however many veils we may take away, there is still "veil after veil behind."

It is needless to say that there are thousands of minds in the world possessed of good native power, but laboring under serious disability for the want of that culture which science alone can bestow. Some of these are sick with morbid longings for unattainable knowledge, and openly or secretly rebellious at the limitations of a Nature whose powers they have never even begun to explore. To such persons anything like an adequate insight into the harmony amid diversity of Nature's laws would come with all the force of a revelation, and would, we may well believe, clear their minds of the feverish fancies which have made them so restless and dissatisfied; but, alas! it is rarely that such enlightenment comes to those who have not in youth imbibed a portion of the scientific spirit. In this class are to be found the victims of spiritualism, of the Keeley motor, and even of that grotesque satire, the success of which we remember almost with fear and trembling, the "sympsychograph." Still, to all such we would say:

"Come forth into the light of things;Let Nature be your teacher."

The "Nature" which we require to teach us for the peace and tranquillity of our souls is the Nature of everyday phenomena, the Nature that forms the clouds and rounds the raindrops, that springs in the grass and pulses in the tides, that glances in the sunbeam and breathes in the flower, that works witchery in the crystal and breaks into glory in the sunset. The mind that knows what can be known of these things has feasted full of wonder and beauty, and makes no greedy demand for higher grace or mightier miracle.

Then again there are those who for want of a little elementary scientific knowledge, and particularly for want of an assured conviction that Nature gives nothing for nothing, are continually attempting the impossible in the way of projected inventions. They catch at a phrase and think it must represent a fact; they fall victims to a verbal mythology of their own manufacture. If there was much hope of their learning anything of value through disappointment, they might be left to the teaching of experience, costly as the lessons of that master are. But they do not learn: their hopes are blasted, their fortunes, if they had any, are wrecked, but their infatuations survive. Where is the inventor of a perpetual motion who ever ceased to have confidence in his peculiar contrivance? The thing may be as motionless as a tombstone, save when urged by external force into a momentary lumbering activity; but all the same, it only needs, its misguided author thinks, a little doctoring, a trifling change here or there, to make it tear round like mad. And so with other inventors of the impossible: they take counsel not with Nature, but with their own wholly incorrect notions of what the operations of Nature are. The least power of truly analyzing a natural phenomenon, and separating the factors that produce it, would show them the falsity of their ideas; but that power they do not possess.

We can not, then, plead too strongly for the teaching of science, not with a view to results in money, but with a view to the improvement of the mind and heart of the learner, or, in other words, as a source of culture. Literature introduces us to the world of human thought and action, to the kingdom of man; and science shows us how the thought and powers of man can be indefinitely enlarged by an ever increasing acquaintance with the laws of the universe. Literature alone leaves the mind without any firm grasp of the reality of things, and science alone tends to produce a hard, prosaic, and sometimes antisocial temper. Each helps to bring out the best possible results of the other; and it is only by their joint action that human faculties and human character can ever be brought to their perfection.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

It is singular what a propensity some writers have to misunderstand and misrepresent the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer, even upon points in regard to which he has made every possible effort to avoid occasion for misapprehension. The term "survival of the fittest" is one which Mr. Spencer himself introduced as being, perhaps, a little less open to misunderstanding than the Darwinian expression "natural selection." The latter seemed to imply purposive action, and Mr. Spencer thought that this implication would be less prominent if the phrase were changed to "survival of the fittest." From the very first, however, he recognized that the difference between the two terms in this respect was, if we may so express it, purely quantitative; and he took care to make it clear that by "the fittest" he did not in the least intend to signify any form of ideal or subjective fitness, but simply a superior degree of adaptation, as a matter of actual fact, to environing conditions. The conditions at any given moment are as they are, and the "fitness" of any particular organism is such a correspondence with those conditions as permits and favors its perpetuation. The conditions do not create fitness; they merely eliminate unfitness; nor does Mr. Spencer conceive any agency as producing ab extra the fitness which enables an organism or a number of organisms to survive. He differs, however, from what is perhaps the dominant school of biology to-day, in holding that the higher forms of organic life are, as he expresses it, "directly equilibrated" with their surroundings through the inheritance of physical features resulting from effort and habit.

To whatever cause it may be attributed, few writers whose intellectual activity has extended over so long a term of years as Mr. Spencer's have been so consistent in their utterances at different stages as he. The "Synthetic Philosophy" is the realization of a scheme of thought no less wonderful in its coherence and solidity than in its compass, the author having planted himself from the first at a point of view which gave him a clear command of his entire field. To say that no other system of thought equally comprehensive and equally coherent exists in the world to-day would be to make a statement which few competent and dispassionate authorities would deny. Notwithstanding this, there are writers not a few, particularly of the class "who write with ease," who, as we said at the outset, have a propensity for misunderstanding Mr. Spencer, and who consequently accuse him of inconsistencies and self-contradictions for which nothing that he has ever said affords any warrant. One of these gentlemen is the Duke of Argyll, who has lately offered the world another superfluous book under the title of Organic Evolution Cross-examined. The duke particularly concerns himself with Mr. Spencer's teaching in regard to the "survival of the fittest," and Mr. Spencer, in the columns of Nature, replies to him in a brief but sufficient manner. It is safe to say that Mr. Spencer's philosophy will show Cyclopean remains generations after the name of his ducal critic shall have passed forever into the mists of oblivion; and the "survival of the fittest" will thus be illustrated in a sense in which Mr. Spencer himself never used the words.

Scientific Literature

SPECIAL BOOKS

The study of the methods through which the topographical features and rock forms of particular districts have been worked out, as presented in numerous popular monographs, is a fascinating one; and we can hardly doubt that many persons who would never otherwise have thought of it have been made interested in geology by some of these masterly picturesque descriptions of regions with which they were superficially familiar. Other treatises on the origin of surface features, dealing with the subject more fundamentally, but likewise of limited scope, are not wanting. Yet, as Prof. James Geikie well says, there is no English work to which readers not skilled in geology can turn for a general account of the whole subject. Professor Geikie has therefore prepared his elaborate book on Earth Sculpture14 to supply this want, to furnish an introductory treatise for those persons who may be desirous of acquiring some broad knowledge of the results arrived at by geologists as to the development of land forms generally. A vast number of geological questions are involved in the exhaustive treatment of the subject. All the forces with which geologists become acquainted in the study of the earth, and their operation, come into consideration. The effects of these forces assume aspects that vary according to the nature of the material on which they operate, and they are again modified according to the peculiar combinations of forces at work. The subject is therefore not the easy one it may be supposed at first sight to be, and the reader who peruses Professor Geikie's work with the intention of mastering it will find he has some studying to do. Yet Professor Geikie is clear, and it is only because he has gone deeper than the others that he may be harder. The first point he insists upon is that in the fashioning of the earth's surface no hard-and-fast line separates past and present. The work has been going on for a long time, and is still in progress, under a law of evolution as true for the crust of the globe as for the plants and animals. In setting out upon our inquiry we must in the first place know something about rocks and the mode of their arrangement, of the structure or architecture of the earth's crust. This leads to the distinction between the igneous and the subaqueous, the volcanic, plutonic, and metamorphic, and the derivative rocks on which epigene agencies have performed their shaping work. These rocks have been modified in various ways, and the surface appearance of the earth has been affected by forces operating from the interior, and by external factors, the work of which is called denudation. The agents of denudation are described – air, water, heat, frost, chemical action, plants, and animals – often so closely associated in their operations that their individual shares in the final result can hardly be determined. The various influences of these factors as exerted upon different forms of geological structure and different sorts of rocks are then taken up and described as applied to land forms in regions of horizontal, or gently inclined, and of highly folded and disturbed strata, and in regions affected by normal faults or vertical displacements. Land forms due directly or indirectly to igneous action and the influence of rock character on the determination of land forms are subjects of special chapters. Glacial action is one of the most important factors in modifying the forms of northern lands, and is treated with considerable fullness. Æolian action – of the air and wind – has peculiar and important effects in arid regions, and underground water in limestone districts, and these receive attention. Then come basins – those due to crustal deformation, crater lakes, river lakes, glacial basins, and others, and coast lines. Finally, a classification is given of these land forms as plains or plateaus of accumulation and of erosion, original or tectonic and subsequent or relict hills and mountains, original or tectonic and subsequent or erosion valleys, basins, and coast lines, and the conclusions are reached that we do not know, except as a matter of probability, whether we have still visible any original wrinkles of the earth's crust; and that some of the estimates of the time it has taken to produce the changes of which we witness the results have been very much exaggerated.