Wilson, David B.

English

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David Knight. The Making of Modern Science: Science, Technology, Medicine, and Modernity,
1789–1914.
Author(s): David B. Wilson
Source: Isis, Vol. 102, No. 2 (June 2011), pp. 369-371
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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the deeper properties of the integers, how it
appeared to contemporaries and successors, and
why it provoked the interest that it did have until
now been analyzed only in connection with a
few isolated issues, and such studies have
largely reflected a present-oriented view of what
the important issues were for the actors.
The Shaping of Arithmetic after C. F. Gauss’s
Disquisitiones arithmeticae overcomes this
problem, in no small measure thanks to what
was obviously a very serious editorial effort to
get all the authors on the same page and make
sure that the findings of each writer were incor-
porated into the various essays. The result is a
methodologically sophisticated and insightful
volume that will be a major reference point for
anyone working on related material for the in-
definite future. It’s a big book, with eighteen
authors and almost six hundred pages, and it
mixes the work of well-established scholars
with that of recent Ph.D.’s. Given this size, a
brief review can’t really begin to discuss all the
contributions. Broadly accessible to historians
in some parts, highly technical in others, the
book contributes to our understanding of the
subject and the period with originality and au-
thority.
The tone of the volume is set by two long
essays at the beginning, coauthored by Cathe-
rine Goldstein and Norbert Schappacher, that
do a great deal to situate number theory in the
broader mathematical framework of the nine-
teenth century. This contextualization is
achieved by a convincing argument for the
practice of what the authors term “arithmetic
algebraic analysis.” The algebraic approach to
analysis, dominant in the late eighteenth cen-
tury, retained more power for much of the
nineteenth century than conventional histories
credit; and part of that persistence, as can be
seen from these essays, is due to the continued
relevance of the approach in the increasingly
important theory of numbers. So important was
this that it provided much of the immediate
background for the refounding of analysis on the
basis of arithmetic, cogently discussed here by
Jose´ Ferreiro´s. Indeed, the reordering of the
mathematical hierarchy, with leadership passing
from geometry to arithmetic, was accompanied
by a rethinking of the number concept, traced
here in the essay by Jacqueline Boniface. Bon-
iface argues that the extension of the domain of
arithmetic was largely constitutive of the re-
thinking of mathematical foundations that took
place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, and it is one of the virtues of the
collection that the role of the heritage of Gauss
in this fundamental transition is clearly illumi-
nated and historicized.
Many of the essays comment on the reception
of the Disquisitiones and the concomitant devel-
opment of number theory in specific local con-
texts. The coverage here is broad, if not univer-
sal, with a discussion of aspects of the reception
not only in the “big three” of Germany, France,
and Italy but also in Russia and the United
States. In the case of the French context, which
I know best, Goldstein gives a close mathemat-
ical reading of Charles Hermite’s work to ap-
proach deep questions about the resemblance
between his work and that in Germany; one is
struck by the interest of the questions she raises
and by the way in which the answers are deeply
grounded in the mathematical practice of Her-
mite, approached in their own context rather
than anachronistically. By contrast, Anne-Marie
De´caillot’s essay on number theoretic work
done by members of the Association Franc¸aise
pour l’Avancement des Sciences draws our at-
tention to practices among a group that, for the
most part outside the mathematical mainstream,
sought to domesticate this new area of research
in a specific context. The selection of such a
population for investigation is typical of the
originality of the volume, which repeatedly
draws our attention to fresh or underanalyzed
sources—for example, in the essay by Reinhard
Bölling on a manuscript of E. E. Kummer. Only
in one or two essays does an author fall into a
kind of technical recitation, combining so-called
natural developments with flashes of individual
brilliance, in a narrative form that was charac-
teristic of an earlier generation of work on the
history of mathematics.
This volume deserves a wide audience, both
among the mathematically able and among his-
torians of nineteenth-century science. Mathe-
matics was, for many of that time, at the pinna-
cle of the academic hierarchy, and many of the
issues explored here revise our image of the
field, and of number theory in particular, in
important ways. The many exemplary essays in
the volume also attain a fine level of exposition
in English, something that does not go without
saying in a multinational group of authors.
THOMAS ARCHIBALD
David Knight. The Making of Modern Science:
Science, Technology, Medicine, and Modernity,
1789–1914. xiv  370 pp., illus., index. Cam-
bridge: Polity Press, 2009. $31.95 (paper).
With general readers as well as fellow historians
of science obviously in mind, David Knight has
BOOK REVIEWS—ISIS, 102 : 2 (2011) 369
arranged a large amount of historical scholar-
ship according to several themes. His twelve
chapters take his story from the French-centered
science of the late eighteenth century to a more
international scene at the end of his long nine-
teenth century. Along the way, he considers
numerous aspects of science: its links to tech-
nology and medicine, its geographical context,
its degrees of professionalism, its place in soci-
ety, its educational support, and—not least—its
ideas. Historians should find The Making of
Modern Science an interesting overview, and
nonhistorians will find it an insightful though
challenging introduction to the subject.
After Chapter 1, “Science in and after 1789,”
Knight turns to “Science and Its Languages,”
considering Lavoisier’s chemical nomenclature,
mathematics, models, paintings by John James
Audubon and John Constable, and the language
of design as in the Bridgewater Treatises. “Ap-
plied Science” explores the interplay between
science and technology, discussing dyes, agri-
culture, railways, telegraphs, and so on. Knight
notes the gradual development of engineering
education and the growing influence of scientific
theory on practical inventions. Thermodynamics
and evolutionary theory caused “Intellectual Ex-
citement” (the title of Ch. 4), each unifying
several previously separate areas of science.
In Chapter 5, “Healthy Lives,” Knight takes
on medicine and discusses some of the century’s
leading physicians, members of the first scien-
tific profession. He explains their increasing ed-
ucational standards and how they coped with
problems such as cholera, poisons, germs, and
public health. “Laboratories” mainly concerns
the growth of chemical laboratories but also
ones in physics, most notably the Cavendish
Laboratory at Cambridge University. “Bodies,
Minds, and Spirits” addresses the science of
humans, highlighting questions of racial distinc-
tions, evolutionary origins, and spiritualism.
“The Time of Triumph” continues themes from
Chapter 3, investigating late-century science’s
greater impact on technology.
Chapter 9, “Science and National Identities,”
addresses national competitions similar to the
modern Olympic Games but also considers
different countries’ strengths in different ar-
eas of science, as well as different national
emphases, such as France’s concern for theo-
retical achievements and Britain’s for practi-
cal science. And there was warfare. “Method
and Heresy” explores the century’s search for
science’s proper method. Methodologies com-
peted, of course: Auguste Comte’s positivism,
John Herschel’s true causes, William Whewell’s
fundamental ideas, and then Ernst Mach’s ver-
sion of positivism are some examples. In this
chapter, Knight also examines what he calls
“bad science” (p. 226) and “failed sciences” (p.
229). “Cultural Leadership” records science’s
increasing importance within society—greater
support for its research, greater professional im-
portance in conflicts with clergymen, greater
influence on (for example) art and literature—
setting the stage for his final chapter, “Into the
New Century.”
The inclusion of Santa Claus and Knight’s
grandmother in the text indicates the author’s
interest in general readers. Santa Claus is an
analogy for the relief—rather than sense of cri-
sis—experienced by some at their loss of reli-
gious faith. That loss was “like abandoning be-
lief in Santa Claus and no longer having to go
uneasily through rituals that have become mean-
ingless” (p. 183). Knight’s American grand-
mother’s memories provide evidence about the
closing of the American frontier in 1890. Knight
mentions the “growl” of his own physics teacher
(p. 82) and a talk by Harold Macmillan that he
heard at the Oxford Union. Such examples of his
occasionally chatty style undoubtedly reflect
Knight’s interest in general readers, which is
also evident in his very first sentence: “Of all the
inventions of the nineteenth century, the label
‘scientist’ was one of the most striking” (p. viii).
Historians of science already know about
Whewell’s invention of that word, but others (I
find) usually have no idea—though they are
fascinated by the story.
Despite Knight’s genuine interest in them,
however, these nonhistorians may well find his
book hard going at times. Condensing a huge
subject into a book of reasonable length leaves
some topics insufficiently explained. Paracelsus,
Pythagoras, G. G. Stokes, “the logic of Hume
and Mill” (p. 273), and even phlogiston are a
few of the people and topics too briefly men-
tioned to be generally understood.
As Knight acknowledges in disclosing that he
has “used examples from Britain out of greater
familiarity with that context” (p. xii), his book very
much reflects his own research as well as that of
others. He is best known for his work on
nineteenth-century British chemistry. He here dis-
cusses science much more than either technology
or medicine, and chemistry more than any other
science. Humphry Davy, subject of a biography by
Knight, receives more attention than any other
“scientist.” Davy’s prote´ge´, Michael Faraday, cap-
tures second place. This is not a criticism, but it
does raise the question of what such a book would
look like if written by, say, a specialist on
nineteenth-century French biology or nineteenth-
century German physics or nineteenth-century
370 BOOK REVIEWS—ISIS, 102 : 2 (2011)
American technology. Their books would surely
be quite different from Knight’s. As Knight him-
self says in concluding The Making of Modern
Science: “It is a complex story, and different peo-
ple will seek different threads to guide them
through the labyrinth” (p. 282).
DAVID B. WILSON
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt. Teaching Children
Science: Hands-On Nature Study in North
America, 1890–1930. xv  363 pp., illus.,
apps., bibl., index. Chicago/London: University
of Chicago Press, 2010. $45; £29 (cloth).
In 1908, Columbia Teachers College in New
York City maintained an extensive school gar-
den and greenhouse where prospective teachers
studied basic horticulture in preparation to teach
“nature study.” This garden, shown on page 149
of Sally Gregory Kohlstedt’s well-researched
book, extended for a full city block. Here, as at
many normal schools across the country, student
teachers spent time planting seeds, harvesting veg-
etables, and identifying insects. They learned to
integrate literature and social studies lessons
with scientific topics and to incorporate lessons
on environmental conservation with elementary
science fieldwork. As a result of this kind of
preparation, increasing numbers of schoolchil-
dren engaged in nature study from 1890 to 1930,
examining plant and animal specimens, tramp-
ing through local fields to study geological fea-
tures, and conducting experiments to eradicate
mosquitoes, improve water retention in the soil,
or increase crop production.
As Kohlstedt so thoroughly shows, embedded
in nature study were the seeds of the first na-
tional movement to introduce science into the
public elementary schools. Teaching Children
Science presents an institutional account of the
social context that “brought the idea of nature
study into prominence, some of the key advo-
cates who framed its fundamental principles, the
complicated threads of preparation by teachers
and supervisors who implemented it, and the
multiple ways that the concept continued to re-
sound long after the term had receded from
school usage” (pp. 1–2). Additionally, it ex-
plores the ways that nature study introduced
schoolchildren to civic science in the early
twentieth century.
To date, historians have devoted relatively
little attention to the nature study movement.
Most studies of science education have tended
to focus on the period following the Cold War,
when the federal government supported efforts
to reform precollege science education. Exam-
ples include John L. Rudolph’s Scientists in the
Classroom: The Cold War Reconstruction of
American Science Education (Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2002) and J. Myron Atkin and Paul
Black’s Inside Science Education Reform: A
History of Curricular and Policy Change
(Teachers College Press, 2003). These and other
authors have documented the close relationship
between social developments and political agen-
das and representations of science in schools.
Kohlstedt’s meticulously crafted book demon-
strates this relationship for a much earlier pe-
riod. As the first book to integrate the different
aspects of nature study in a comprehensive his-
tory of the earliest national movement to bring
science into the nation’s K–12 public schools, it
fills a critical gap.
Kohlstedt argues that the combination of
broad cultural enthusiasm for nature, changes in
educational theory, and the involvement of sci-
entists and educational leaders in the develop-
ment of curriculum “catalyzed the surprisingly
rapid introduction of nature study into the public
schools in the 1890s” (p. 34). Nature study pro-
grams that sprang up around the country re-
flected the goals of natural scientists who
wanted education to be based on scientific prin-
ciples, psychologists who were interested in
child development, and politicians and business-
men who wanted productive citizens.
One of the strengths of the book is its atten-
tion to local context and to the ways that par-
ticular communities shaped the development of
nature study within their schools. Kohlstedt
demonstrates that nature study was not imple-
mented uniformly in schools across the country.
For example, in cities like New York and St.
Louis museums loaned boxes of zoological and
botanical specimens and scientific instruments
so that teachers could provide nature study les-
sons in their urban classrooms and school gar-
dens. In rural areas, nature study often empha-
sized the application of scientific inquiry to
problems in agriculture. Kohlstedt argues that
attitudes about race and class status could also
influence nature study programs. In the South,
for instance, nature study programs in schools
funded by northern philanthropists for African-
American students maintained a distinctly voca-
tional emphasis, with little time for scientific
investigation.
Support for nature study declined after World
War I, as scientists and educators sought to
bring a more systematic form of elementary
science education into the nation’s public
schools. As Kohlstedt points out, nature study
had appealed to turn-of-the-century educators
and a public who believed that science and cul-
BOOK REVIEWS—ISIS, 102 : 2 (2011) 371


The Making of Modern Science: Science, Technology, Medicine, and Modernity, 1789-1914

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