5 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tersely states the whole aim and purpose of my remarks. Rabelais, 

 Montaigne, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Combe, Spencer, and others have 

 urged the importance of practical teaching, of studying things before 

 words, of proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. But, as yet, 

 such has been the inertia of school authorities and teachers, and such 

 the force of tradition, that we are only now beginning to employ the 

 methods of instruction that have been advocated for years by the 

 most eminent educational reformers. 



In what I have said, I have endeavored to show that workshop 

 instruction may be made a part of a liberal education ; that, as an 

 educational discipline, it serves to train the faculties of observation, 

 to exercise the hand and eye in the estimation of form and size, and 

 the physical properties of common things ; that the skill acquired is 

 useful in every occupation of life, and is especially serviceable to 

 those who are likely to become artisans, by inducing taste and apti- 

 tude for manual work, by tending to shorten the period of apprentice- 

 ship, by enabling the learner to apply to the practice of his trade the 

 correct methods of inquiry which he has learned at school, and by 

 affording the necessary basis for higher technical education. 



Possibly, the latest authoritative expression of opinion on the im- 

 portance of manual training was a resolution, unanimously agreed to at 

 the International Congress on Commercial and Technical Education, 

 recently held at Bordeaux, to the effect that it is desirable that 

 manual work should be rendered obligatory in primary schools of 

 all grades. 



It is satisfactory to know, from a circular* that has recently been 

 sent to school managers, that this important subject is engaging the 

 serious attention of the Royal Commission on Education now sitting, 

 whose labors, it is to be hoped, may result in making our elementary 

 teaching more practical, less mechanical, and better adapted to the 

 future requirements of the working-classes. Contemporary Review. 



* The circular, as published by Lord Brabazon in a letter to the " Times " of October 

 11th, contains the following questions: 



1. Is the course of teaching prescribed by the Code suited to the children of your 

 school ? 



2. What changes, if any, would you desire in the (Education Acts) ? in the Code ? 

 in the administration ? 



3. Would you recommend the introduction into your school of practical instruc- 

 tion ? A. In any of the industries of the district f or in the use of tools for working 

 in wood or iron ? B. (for girls) in the domestic duties of home ? 



Baron Eggers is about to undertake the botanical investigation of the hith- 

 erto unexplored higher mountains of Santo Domingo. He is under commission of 

 Dr. Urban, assisted by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin. Collections 

 will be distributed in limited numbers, at prices bearing relation to the novelty 

 of the species. 



