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Volume CXXXIII, Number 11 |
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Natural history studied, defended in last chapter of Packard's story
KATHRYN OSTROFSKY
COLUMNIST
All semester, this column has recounted the 1860 arctic expedition made by Bowdoin Professor Paul Chadbourne and a group of college students, three of whom, including Alpheus Spring Packard, Jr., were from Bowdoin. The purpose of this voyage was to collect scientific data and specimens to study climate change, and sub-arctic flora and fauna.
Next semester, it will be a narrative of an 1891 expedition to Labrador made by Bowdoin Professor Leslie Lee and a group of Bowdoin students for the purpose of collecting specimens, and measuring and mapping the uncharted wilderness. But professors and students go out into the field to conduct scientific research all the time-Bowdoin even has its own island specifically for that purpose. Why are these summer field trips worth writing about? Their significance lies in the time period in which they happened.
Although the study of natural history and the sciences has been around for hundreds of years, the discipline had not gained enough respect to be widely taught in American schools in the nineteenth century. Professor Chadbourne, chemistry and natural history professor, and leader of the Greenland expedition, wrote an entire book, Lectures on Natural History, to convince people, such as the Board of Overseers, or the parents of Bowdoin students, that science was a worthwhile pursuit for young men. A side note for those interested in actually seeing and holding in their hands pieces of Bowdoin's history: in Hatch Science Library, you can find two copies of this book-one owned by the Peucinian Society, and the other bearing the inscription "A.S. Packard's, from the author."
Paul Chadbourne wrote that "it is a characteristic of the American people, to test every thing by its money value alone." At this point in American history, there was not much money to be made in science, so he had to make the case that "this department of study is by no means to be estimated by its direct return of dollars and cents." Unfortunately, scientific research frequently ran into roadblocks. "Many," Chadbourne said, "have sneered at the idea of voting money for 'bugs and hornpouts [a freshwater catfish],'" because "these departments do not attract attention so readily, because their connection with wealth is not so direct and obvious as the discovery and working of minerals."
He argued that the study of natural science disciplined the mind helped society's other pursuits. He linked it to religion, saying that "what it was not beneath the dignity of God to create, is not beneath the dignity of man to study." He even argued that it economized time in education: "For when other books must be closed the book of nature is open; and its subjects of thought meet the eye in our strolls of pleasure, in our hurried walks, and as we rest by the wayside."
The pursuit of natural history "calls men to the field, and teaches them to treat of real things, and not of mere names." But why the summer field excursions? Chadbourne's philosophy on education in general sheds light onto the importance of hands-on experience.
He lamented that "information is mistaken for education," and "simply to impart information, is a small part of the teacher's work. This is not to be neglected; but training the mind, so that it shall move on, a living, expanding power through life, is education."
The author of the Williams Quarterly article narrating the Chadbourne expedition expressed his views on the importance specifically of the college scientific research expedition. "Every department of education becomes more valuable when put into practice," he said, because "it is only by practice that anything can be fully mastered."
"College expeditions," he admitted, "cannot be expected to do much in enlarging the bounds of science. Their work is on the characters of the members, giving them a taste of real work-the pleasant and disagreeable phases of the Naturalist's life."
He specifically acknowledged the impact the Greenland expedition had on him. "It is worth something," he stated, "to be tossed day after day on the ocean-to see the whales sport among the waves, the icebergs resting on submarine mountains, or to gaze down into a coral grove or the waving forests of the Greenland waters. One such look to a man who has a mind, and a mind prepared for it, is worth more than the best course of lectures ever delivered in a College hall."
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