When we place science as an essential preliminary and integral part of this course, we must make clear that what is primarily meant by the term here is scientific education of the understanding and not the communication of scientific knowledge. Both are necessary in every curriculum, but whereas the former implies a development of intelligence, the latter is an accumulation of facts. We value the cultural aspects of science, its power to train the mind in correct thinking and proper enquiry, as being more important for the purposes of this quest than its practical aspects, which deal with physical techniques and material behaviours. We esteem the cautious, sceptical, and keenly enquiring method of approach which the scientist uses; the utilitarian results of such a method are not our special concern. The meaning of this difference becomes clearer when it is stated that the colleges have produced many science graduates who possess much scientific knowledge, but little scientific training. They have assimilated a fair amount of scientific knowledge through the use of memory and other faculties, but they have not organized their reason and sharpened their intelligence by the assimilation of scientific principles. The study of philosophy demands a certain mental equipment, a preliminary expansion of the intellectual faculties, before it can become really fruitful and actually effective. The knowledge of a number of facts contained in a number of books is not sufficient to make a scientist; such a knowledge is sterile from the viewpoint of this quest, however valuable it be from the viewpoint of commercial and industrial development.
-- Notebooks Category 7: The Intellect > Chapter 6 : Science > # 22
