SCIENCE-TEACHING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 207 



er^y has had one eternity in which to dissipate itself. "What one 

 eternity has not sufficed to bring about, will never be consummated. 

 It may be interesting, but it is not essential to the demonstration, to 

 investigate the method by which energy dissipated becomes once more 

 potential. Perhaps the most tenable theory is, that it will be accom- 

 plished by the collision of dead worlds with each other, and the re- 

 sulting mechanical evolution of light and heat. According to this 

 view, attraction is the grand reservoir of the generic energy of the 

 universe, on which all matter may draw when its differentiated force 

 has been dissipated. But, be this as it may, the fruitful union of mat- 

 ter and energy in the infinite past is a stable guarantee that they will 

 never be divorced. 



ON SCIENCE-TEACHING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS* 



THE repeated appointment, by this body, in successive years, of 

 committees to look into the scientific education of the public 

 schools, must be taken as showing that such an inquiry is regarded 

 as both legitimate and important. Yet the duties of such a commit- 

 tee have not been defined by the Association, nor have any of our pred- 

 ecessors opened the way to a consideration of the subject. It was 

 probably expected that we would furnish a digest of information from 

 many quarters, as to what sciences are taught in the public schools, 

 with what facilities, and to what extent ; accompanied by such recom- 

 mendations regarding the increase of scientific studies as the results 

 might suggest. But our course has not proved to be so clear. We 

 have been arrested at the outset by a question of the quality of the 

 science-teaching in these schools which demands the first consideration. 

 There are certain radical deficiencies in current science-teaching, the 

 nature and extent of which must be understood before any measures 

 of practical improvement can be intelligently taken up. We shall here 

 confine ourselves to this preliminary inquiry. 



The investigation has interest from the immense extent and rap- 

 idly increasing influence of the American public schools. There are 

 now nearly a hundred and fifty thousand of these schools, supported 

 at an annual expense of probably seventy or eighty million dollars. 

 Maintained by State authority, they are firmly established in the re- 

 spect and confidence of the community. Under the influence of nor- 

 mal schools, teachers' institutes, systematic superintendence, school 

 boards, regulative legislation, and an extensive literature devoted spe- 



* Preliminary report of the committee, appointed at the Saratoga meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, on " Science-Teaching in the Pub- 

 lic Schools," read at the Boston meeting, in August, 1880, and published in the " Trans- 

 actions " of the Association. 



