3 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which have played so important a j^art in the history of the world 

 as have these lowly-organized creatures." The coral animal is their 

 most conspicuous rival in this claim. 



-4-^ 



ASTEONOMY m HIGH-SCHOOLS. 



By MISS ELIZA A. BOWEN. 



I HAVE for some years been much interested in trying to introduce 

 improved scientific teaching into girls' schools ; and I propose to 

 tell the result of some experiences in teaching astronomy. 



Of course, the astronomy taught has been of the most elementary 

 character. But it is therefore exactly the foundation which it is im- 

 portant to lay well. My object has been to gain for my pupils from 

 this study, not merely knowledge, but all the mental discipline it could 

 afford. In order to accomplish this, I have made it an invariable prin- 

 ciple to make them do all the observing, all the thinking, possible. 

 They have watched the heavenly bodies to discover their appearance 

 and motions, and then I led them on to discuss the causes. It has been 

 genuine inductive study, so far as it has gone. My own work seemed 

 very simple ; but it occasioned me a great deal of observation, thought, 

 and study. I have simply kept them on the track. 



It may at first seem a little absurd to talk of a set of school-girls 

 treading, with any degree of mental independence, the path which 

 Kepler and Tycho Brahe found it so difficult to walk in. Of course, it 

 would be utter nonsense to say that they could exercise anything like 

 the mental activity of those great men. But there are various degrees 

 of the mind's activity, and it is possible to arouse, even in school-girls, 

 a very wholesome and improving. amount of it. 



When I first began, I merely intended to make some girls of sev- 

 enteen years old, who were soon to study Lockyer's " Astronomy," do 

 some preparatory observing. I soon saw that it would have been 

 desirable to beidn earlier : and, in the room in which I talked to 

 these young ladies, there were seated at desks some young girls of 

 Thirteen and fourteen years old, who listened to my talk and directions 

 with great interest, and, as I soon found, were observing and thinking 

 with as much energy as their older companions. It became out of the 

 i|iiestion to refuse instruction to those who showed themselves so capa- 

 ble of learning. All the work of which I am about to tell was well 

 performed by girls of fourteen years old. 



The method I tried can best be understood by one or two illustra- 

 tions. I Mill first say, briefly, thai they found for themselves the chief 

 stars in nearly every important constellation by drawings I made on 

 the blackboard or on bits of paper (aided by my hectograph). As 



