2io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Mr. Everett said, " I will thank any person to show why it is expedient 

 and beneficial in the community to make public provision for teach- 

 ing the elements of learning, and not expedient or beneficial to make 

 similar provision to aid the learner's progress toward the mastery of 

 the most difficult branches of science and the choicest refinements of lit- 

 erature." Under the influence of such considerations the rudimentary 

 studies rapidly developed into courses of study embracing a variety 

 of subjects. This led to the systematizing of instruction and the 

 grading of schools, so that in nearly all the towns of the United States 

 the public schools have been divided into primaries for the younger 

 pupils and grammar-schools for older pupils ; while within twenty- 

 five years a third grade has arisen known as the high-schools for the 

 most advanced students. In each division there are sub-grades, and, 

 wherever improvements in public-school education are attempted, the 

 principle of gradation is fundamental. So essential is it considered, 

 that no aid is granted from the Peabody fund except to graded 

 schools. As regards the plan of studies adopted, there was no guiding 

 principle. All sorts of subjects, and these for all sorts of reasons, were 

 taken up, and among them the sciences which are now regular parts 

 of public-school study. Classes are formed in physics, chemistry, 

 mineralogy, geology,, physiology, botany, and zoology. There are 

 text-books upon all these branches, graded to the varying capacities 

 of learners. Teachers prepare in them, and in many cases apparatus 

 is provided, and there are lectures with experiments, specimens, maps, 

 and charts for illustrations. 



The old ideal of a school is a place where knowledge is got from 

 books by the help of teachers, and our public-school system grew up 

 in conformity with this ideal. The early effect of grading was to fix 

 and consolidate imperfect methods. The sciences were assimilated to 

 the old practice, and the science-teaching falls short at just the points 

 where it was inevitable that it should fall short. The methods of 

 school-teaching, and the habits of the teachers, had grown rigid under 

 the regime of book-studies. As a consequence the science-teaching in 

 the public schools is generally carried on by instruction. Through 

 books and teachers the pupil is filled up with information in regard to 

 science. Its facts and principles are explained as far as possible, and 

 then left in the memory with his other school acquisitions. He learns 

 the sciences much as he learns geography and history. Only in a 

 few exceptional schools is he put to any direct mental work upon the 

 subject-matter of science, or taught to think for himself. 



As thus treated the sciences have but little value in education. 

 They fall below other studies as means of mental cultivation. Arith- 

 metic rouses mental reaction. The rational study of language, by 

 analytical and constructive tasks and the mastery of principles, 

 strengthens the mental processes ; but the sciences are not employed 

 to train the faculties in the various ways to which they are severally 



