Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 6. Charles S. Peirce

manner to win the encomiums of the greatest European authorities. In 1875, he happened to be invited to attend the meetings of the delegates of the different governmental Surveys of Europe which was held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, and Mr. Peirce was asked to say what he thought of the method used at that time throughout Europe for determining the force of gravity. He condemned it, and said it gave results enormously in error. Pendulums were used, and these pendulums swung from brass tripods, and Mr. Peirce stated that he had found by actual measurement that these tripods swayed under the pendulums, by an amount so minute that no ordinary microscope would detect it, but yet that owing to a complicated mechanical effect, the time of oscillation was lengthened in consequence quite considerably. The European delegates were so surprised at this statement, that they had very little to say, but adjourned to meet in Brussels the following year. At this Brussels meeting (at which Mr. Peirce was not present) reports were received from two or three of the Surveys, those of Austria and Switzerland among the number, where the matters in question had been most studied. These different Surveys reported that they had undertaken special investigations of the facts alleged by Mr. Peirce, and that they found that “our American colleague” was quite mistaken. These reports did not reach Mr. Peirce until the following year, barely in time for him to reach a third meeting of the European Surveys, which was called to meet in Stuttgart in order to reach a final decision in regard to this important question. He at once applied for orders to attend that meeting, but owing to the influence of Mr. Randall the Washington authorities declared they did not care what the European Surveys said or did, and refused to issue the orders. Several of the most influential New York newspapers, however, protested against this view, and the result was that the orders were finally issued. Mr. Peirce hurried over with all speed, and entered the meeting in the midst of a heated discussion of the question. The venerable president General Baeyer of Berlin, who had been endeavoring to defend Mr. Peirce’s views, fell upon his neck and kissed him. Mr. Peirce addressed the meeting and showed that the experiments instituted by the Surveys of Austria, Switzerland, etc., were not well-calculated to bring out the phenomenon in question. He then exhibited his own experiments, and then showed by an elaborate mathematical discussion that they led demonstratively to the conclusion that he had announced. At the end of his address, those who had opposed his views one after another arose and declared themselves convinced, and his proposition was adopted by a unanimous vote. Since then the methods used in Europe for the determination of gravity have been reversed. The king next day invited Mr. Peirce to dinner. Mr. Peirce’s main study, however, for the last quarter of a century, has been the methods of reasoning in science. He has lectured upon the subject before the Lowell Institute in Boston, for two years in Harvard University, for five years in the Johns Hopkins University, etc. As long as the Coast Survey continued as a scientific institution, Mr. Peirce was unwilling to accept any permanent engagement which would cut off his connection with that. Now that it has been apparently broken up, he prefers to set up a school of reasoning rather than connect himself with any college, because he disapproves the methods of instruction in the colleges and has a small opinion of their results. Mr. Peirce’s writings have mostly been confined to scientific memoirs, which have appeared in the scientific and philosophical journals of this country, of England, of France, and of Germany, as well as in the memoirs of learned societies in all those countries. Professor Schroeder, the highest authority on logic in Germany, today, in the advertisement to his last work, says: “It has been necessary to bring out an entirely new work, instead of a mere new edition of my former one, on account of the very remarkable (hoechst bedeutende) progress which the science has made in the interval, mainly through the works of the American Charles S. Peirce and those of his pupils.” You can also supply yourself with anecdotes respecting Mr. Peirce, to show his skill in reasoning.

      FACTS ABOUT THE INSTRUCTION. The letters are generally about the length of a page of Harper’s Magazine. This is the shortest. There are 750 words on a page of Harper’s. There are 1100 on a page like this. The shortest letter is nearly a page like this. The letters not infrequently run up to three pages. Mr. Peirce uses the fewest words consistent with perfect clearness, and with fully saying all that is essential, and he trains his pupils to the same habit. One class of exercises consists in exercises in endurance. These are exceptional in their nature; they require the pupil to give up his whole time to them, or else to do them by himself, in the course of his business, with only general instructions and help from Mr. Peirce. The following gives information in some detail concerning the nature of the exercises. PART I. The first thing is to exercise the pupil in not being deceived by the jingle of words, but always imagining the facts set forth, by a simple method which will guard him against ever being taken in by such juggles as are usually served up as examples in the books on Logic. The next examples that are taken up are in drawing up formal definitions. The method of going to work in framing such definitions, which are rather useful for various purposes, is fully explained, and the pupil exercised on it. After this, the pupil is taken through a series of exercises calculated to show, that while formal definitions do something toward rendering thought clear and distinct, they nevertheless leave the main part of the business incomplete, and the method of attaining scientific clearness of thought is exhibited, and the pupil is thoroughly practised in it. The pupil is next introduced to exercises in the arrangement of ideas. He is given, for example, a list of a thousand words, of somewhat kindred nature, and is required to arrange them according to their meanings, so clearly that any one can be found with the least possible effort of mind by another person. He is required to make a table of contents for a book, with an analysis of all it contains. PART II. The pupil is in this part first taught how to apply diagrams and algebra to the solutions of puzzling questions of logic formed by Mr. Peirce on the basis of Boole’s algebra of logic. This includes the logic of relations. The method of aiding the mind by drawing or imagining curves is next taught. Then the art of making numerical scales to aid the judgment about all sorts of observations which seem not to have anything to do with quantity. Also, the art of giving precision to our thoughts by the introduction of the conception of quantity, where at first sight it does not seem to be at all applicable. Next the use that can be made of various conceptions which have hitherto only been employed in mathematics is fully illustrated and the pupil familiarized with them. The doctrine of chances is next taken up and taught mainly by examples, which are made as practical as possible. The theory of errors of observations is explained and its use taught. The principles of insurance are illustrated. PART III. This part teaches how to deal with matters of fact. The pupil has now to make his own observations, because in this kind of reasoning observation and reasoning are inextricably entwined. The first lessons are in judging of a lot of things by a sample, which the pupil selects for himself. Considerable study is paid to the art of picking out a characteristic sample. Next come exercises in the method of detecting regularities in phenomena, and coincidences of all sorts. Quasi-periodic phenomena. Then, exercises in interpolation and extrapolation, and the precautions necessary in this dangerous kind of reasoning. Exercises in explaining facts by making hypotheses, and the whole art of this kind of reasoning. Reading cipher dispatches; solving various kinds of puzzles. The art of guessing. Exercises in asking questions. Exercises in the art of using a library. Exercises in reasoning by analogy, and the precautions necessary.

      GENERAL ADVANTAGES OF THE INSTRUCTION. The art of reasoning is the very essence of education. It is the main thing a man goes to college to learn. But the Colleges fail to teach it, as they fail in most of their teaching. There is nothing they fail in so miserably as in this. Mr. Peirce does teach it. He has never had a failure, after the first quarter had shown the pupil was in earnest. Even when he was under the trammels of the university system, he had great success. The entire course, which will occupy two or three years, costs $180. But the pupil is not obliged to interrupt his business in order to take it. On the contrary, Mr. Peirce considers that it is most advantageous for the pupil to have a business, which shall keep his mind bent to practical things, so as to take a serious and practical view of this instruction. Logic as it has been taught is trifling. The very word trivial owes its origin to this circumstance, because logic was the principal study of the trivium or threefold road (grammar, logic, rhetoric) which formed the staple of instruction in the Roman and medieval schools. But the new logic taught by Mr. Peirce is eminently practical;