SCIENCE-TEACHING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 211 



adapted. They are not made the means of cultivating the observing 

 powers, stimulating inquiry, exercising the judgment in weighing evi- 

 dence, nor of forming original and independent habits of thought. 

 The pupil does not know the subjects he professes to study by actual 

 acquaintance with the facts, and he therefore becomes a mere passive 

 accumulator of second-hand statements. But it is the first require- 

 ment of the scientific method, alike in education and in research, that 

 the mind shall exercise its activity directly upon the subject-matter 

 of study. Otherwise scientific knowledge is an illusion and a cheat. 

 As science is commonly pursued in book descriptions, the learners can 

 not even identify the things they read about. As remarked by Agas- 

 siz, " The pupil studies Nature in the school-room, and when he goes 

 out-of-doors he can not find her." This mode of teaching science, 

 which is by no means confined to the public schools, has been con- 

 demned in the most unsparing manner by all eminent scientific men as 

 a "deception," a "fraud," an "outrage upon the minds of the young," 

 and " an imposture in education." 



Nor has this criticism of bad practices been without its effect. We 

 are met by the statement that much has been done in the public schools 

 to escape the evils of mere book-science. The method of object-les- 

 sons has been extensively introduced into primary schools with the 

 professed purpose of cultivating the powers of observation in child- 

 hood. It is claimed that this is a beginning in science ; and, as it 

 brings the mind into action upon things, is a corrective of the inordi- 

 nate study of words. But object-teaching has not yielded what was 

 expected of it, and is in no true sense a first step in science. Nothing 

 is gained educationally by barely having an object in hand when it is 

 talked about. Myriads of objects are present to the senses of people, 

 but no insight follows. The observing faculties must be tasked if they 

 are to be trained. The pupil is not to have the properties of objects 

 pointed out, but he is to find them out. Science will do its work of 

 educating the observing faculties only as they are quickened and sharp- 

 ened by exercise in discrimination. The scientific aim is to replace 

 vague confused impressions by clear and accurate ideas. Skill in the 

 detection of nice distinctions is only gained by prolonged and careful 

 practice. Object-lessons afford no such cultivation. We do not say 

 that they are useless, but they are not the A B C of science, and do 

 not as a matter of fact open the way to the proper study of the special 

 sciences. This is their test and their condemnation. When the pri- 

 mary pupils have gone over their prescribed course of object-lessons 

 and are passed on to a higher grade, strange to say the "objects " are 

 suddenly dropped as if the objective method had been exhausted. In 

 the technical phrase perceptive education is to be replaced by conceptine 

 education. Instruction in elementary science is now to be carried on 

 by what is known as oral-teaching. This method, as extensively prac- 

 ticed in the grammar grades of the public schools, is everywhere grow- 



