3 8o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



well to remark, Gilbert,* Hervey, and Galileo were educated in 

 medical schools abroad. 



Bacon was not only the first to lay down regulce pliilosopliandi, 

 but he insisted upon the far-reaching results of research, not for- 

 getting to point out that " lucifera experimenta, non fructifera 

 quoerenda" f as a caution to the investigator, though he had no 

 doubt as to the revolution to be brought about by the ultimate appli- 

 cation of the results of physical inquiry. 



As earlv as 15 GO the Academia Secretorum ISTaturse was founded 

 at Naples, followed by the Lincei in 1G09, the Royal Society in 

 1645, the Cimento in 1657, and the Paris Academy in 1666. 



From that time the world may be said to have belonged to sci- 

 ence, now no longer based merely on observation but on experiment. 

 But, alas! how slowly has it percolated into our universities. 



The first organized endeavor to teach science in schools was 

 naturally made in Germany (Prussia), where, in 1747 (nearly a cen- 

 tury and a half ago), Realschulen were first started; they were taken 

 over by the Government in 1832, and completely reorganized in 

 1859, this step being demanded by the growth of industry and the 

 spread of the modern spirit. Eleven hours a week were given to 

 natural science in these schools forty years ago. 



Teaching the Teachers. — Until the year 1762 the Jesuits had 

 the education of France almost entirely in their hands, and when, 

 therefore, their expulsion was decreed in that year, it was only a 

 necessary step to create an institution to teach the future teachers 

 of France. Here, then, we had the ficole JSTormale in theory; but 

 it was a long time before this theory was carried into practice, and 

 very probably it would never have been had not Holland d'Erce- 

 ville made it his duty for more than twenty years, by numerous 

 publications, among which is especially to be mentioned his Plan 

 d'Education, printed in 1783, to point out not merely the utility 

 but the absolute necessity for some institution of the kind. As gen- 

 erally happens in such cases, this exertion was not lost, for in 1794 

 it was decreed that an Ecole Normale should be opened at Paris, 

 " ou seront appeles de toutes les parties de la Republique, des cito- 

 yens deja instruits dans les sciences utiles, pour apprendre, sous les 

 professeurs les plus habiles dans tous les genres, l'art d'enseigner." 



To follow these courses in the art of teaching, one potential 

 schoolmaster was to be sent to Paris by every district containing 

 twenty thousand inhabitants. Fourteen or fifteen hundred young 

 men therefore arrived in Paris, and in 1795 the courses of the 

 school were opened first of all in the amphitheater of the Museum 



* William Gilbert, of Colchester, on the Magnet. Mittelag, p. x. 

 f Novum Organum, vol. 1, p. 10. Fowler's edition, p. 255. 



