26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tions should under any circumstances be taken up by the candidates, 

 either as an alternative or a positive branch of work. 



Will the universities help or impede the spread of school science- 

 teaching ? The universities adhere at present to their fatal principle 

 that only one-sided knowledge shall find favor within their walls. A 

 boy who knows nothing but classics, nothing but mathematics, noth- 

 ing but science, may easily win a scholarship ; a boy who knows all 

 three must seek distinction elsewhere ; and this rule shapes inevita- 

 bly the teaching of the schools. The science scholarships at Oxford, 

 of which we hear so much, fall mainly to three distinguished schools : 

 two so large and wealthy that they can overpower most competitors 

 by their expenditure on staff and apparatus ; the third planted in 

 Oxford, with access to the university museum and laboratory, and 

 with a pick of teachers'from the men of whom examiners are made ; 

 and these schools insure success in science by abandoning other sub- 

 jects almost or altogether in the case of the candidates they send up. 

 No school which should carry out the recommendations of the com- 

 missioners by giving six hours a week to science, and the rest of its 

 time to literature and mathematics ; no school which should realize 

 its function as bound to develop young minds by strengthening in 

 fair proportion all their faculties of imagination, reason, memory, and 

 observation could offer boys for any sort of scholarship under the 

 present university system with the faintest chance of success. 



What these institutions are powerless to avert or helpless to bring 

 about is, we repeat, within the scope of the British Association to 

 effect. All institutions, political or educational, will bow to a strong- 

 ly-formed committee of scientific men, formally commissioned by the 

 Association and speaking with authority, delegated as well as per- 

 sonal, on scientific subjects. Let such a committee be revived as 

 died on paper in 1871, including the acknowledged leaders of pure 

 science, and weighted with the names of such educationalists as have 

 shown themselves zealous for science-teaching. Let their functions 

 be 1. To communicate with the head-masters and governing bod- 

 ies, calling attention to the recommendations of the Duke of Devon- 

 shire's commission, asking how far and how soon each school is pre- 

 pared to carry these out, and tendering advice, should it be desired, 

 on any details as to selection and sequence of subjects, teachers, text- 

 books, outlay. 2. Let them appeal to the universities, to which many 

 of them belong, as to the bearing of science scholarships and fellow- 

 ships upon school-teaching, and the extent to which such influence 

 may be modified or ameliorated in that rearrangement of college 

 funds which next session will probably be commenced. 3. Let them 

 be instructed to watch the action of Government in any proposal 

 made either in pursuance of Lord Salisbury's bill, or as giving effect 

 to the Duke of Devonshire's commission, and let them be known to 

 hold a brief for school science in reference to all such legislation. A 



