SCIENCE-TEACHING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 213 



formity among pupils which is not according to the facts. Wide 

 personal differences of capacity, aptitude, attainment, and opportunity, 

 not only exist among children, but they are the prime data of all effi- 

 cient mental cultivation. In the graded schools, just in proportion to 

 the perfection of the mechanical arrangements, individuality disap- 

 pears. Special original capacity, the main thing, counts for nothing. 

 The mind can not be trained in such circumstances to originate its 

 own judgments. The exercise of original mental power, or independ- 

 ent inquiry, is the very essence of the scientific method, and with this 

 the practice of the public schools is at war. Moreover, a system which 

 deals with the average mind, and does not get at the individual mind, 

 breaks down at the point where all true education really begins, that 

 is, in promoting self-culture. The value of educational systems con- 

 sists simply in what they do to incite the pupil to help himself. Me- 

 chanical school-work can give instruction, but it can not develop 

 faculty, because this depends upon self-exertion. Science, if rightly 

 pursued, is the most valuable school of self-instruction. From the 

 beginning men of science have been self-dependent and self-reliant 

 because self-taught ; and it is a question whether they have been most 

 hindered or helped by the schools. De Candolle, in his valuable book 

 on the conditions which favor the production of scientific men, says 

 that the discoverers, the masters of scientific method, have chiefly ap- 

 peared in small towns where educational resources have been scanty ; 

 and that they have often been most helped by the very poorness of 

 their teaching, which threw them back upon themselves. It was to 

 their advantage that the schools were not so perfect as to extinguish 

 individuality and thus destroy originality. 



Our strictures are here upon the general working of the public- 

 school system ; but we recognize that there are many exceptional 

 teachers who do what they can to deal with science in the true spirit, 

 while multitudes of instructors are chafing under present restrictions 

 and groping after something better. The bad system is, moreover, 

 continued chiefly from the lack of knowledge as to the possibilities of 

 a better. But the better method of teaching science has been proved 

 entirely practicable. The institution where we meet and many other 

 science schools have shown it. A large number of teachers have 

 demonstrated that various branches of science can be taught to the 

 young by the true as well as by the false method. "What is now most 

 urgently needed is to gather from these experiences practical plans of 

 improvement in science-teaching for the benefit of those who desire 

 better guidance than they now have. 



In his address as Rector of the University of Aberdeen, Professor 

 Huxley said, " I would not raise a finger to introduce more book- work 

 into every art curriculum in the country." We concur in this view, as 

 applied to the present science-teaching in our public schools. We 

 would not raise a finger to extend it. 



