EDITOR'S TABLE, 



551 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



SCIENCE IN EDUCATION. 



MUCH as has been written on this 

 subject there seems still to be 

 room for further insistence on the truth 

 that the one living element in every sys- 

 tem or scheme of education is science. 

 By this we do not mean indeed, are 

 very far from meaning that what is 

 called physical science is the one useful 

 subject of instruction ; we mean that ex- 

 cept in so far as education is animated 

 by the spirit of science it is dead, and, 

 for all purposes of mental development, 

 useless. An excellent address on Sci- 

 entific Method in Board Schools was 

 lately delivered in London, England, by 

 Prof. H. E. Armstrong, F. R. S. We 

 shall take an early opportunity of trans- 

 ferring it to our columns, trusting that 

 it may be widely read, as it presents 

 the gist of the matter in compara- 

 tively few words. Prof. Armstrong 

 bears testimony to the extreme slowness 

 with which the educational world in 

 England has moved in regard to giving 

 science teaching the place to which it 

 is entitled in school curriculums ; but, 

 on the other hand, he is able to speak 

 encouragingly astc^he results that have 

 flowed from the intelligent and zeal- 

 ous efforts of a single teacher of scien- 

 tific method, and he is evidently of the 

 opinion that a better day is dawning for 

 science teaching generally in the sec- 

 ondary schools of the United Kingdom. 

 He refers in terms of high praise to 

 Herbert Spencer's classic work on edu- 

 cation. His words are worth repeating 

 here : " It is a book which every parent 

 of intelligence desiring to educate his 

 children properly should read ; certainly 

 every teacher should have studied it 

 thoroughly, and no one should be al- 

 lowed to become a member of a school 

 board who, on examination, was found 

 not to have mastered its contents." 



The point, however, which we wish 

 to make to day is not that a certain 

 amount of natural science should form 

 an element in all education, for that is 

 becoming more widely recognized and 

 more fully accepted from year to year ; 

 but that all instruction should be per- 

 vaded by the scientific spirit, and that 

 the teaching of what is called " science " 

 is of value not only for the knowledge 

 conveyed, but still more as furnishing, in 

 projjer hands, a type of what all teach- 

 ing should be. If science itself is not 

 taught scientifically, it is like salt that 

 has lost its savor, utterly worthless; it 

 beconaes in such a case a mere burden 

 on the educational system instead of its 

 prime motor. In the address to which 

 we have above referred. Prof. Arm- 

 strong deplores the bookish and un- 

 fruitful methods still widely in use in 

 England, and unless we are mistaken 

 the evil is quite as rife in this country. 

 The fact is that even among teachers of 

 science the true scientific spirit is by no 

 means common. To have learned a cer- 

 tain range of scientific facts, and gained 

 some comprehension of the methods by 

 which those facts have been ascertained 

 and by which further advances in scien- 

 tific discovery must be made is not suffi- 

 cient; it is necessary that the teacher's 

 mind should be liberalized and quick- 

 ened by the conception that in every 

 branch of knowledge, in every pursuit, 

 in every industry, in every line of 

 thought and effort, the fundamental 

 distinction of scientific and unscientific 

 holds just as firmly as in the case of 

 the best-explored departments of natural 

 science. Are merely conventional views 

 to be discarded in chemistry and phys- 

 ics? Certainly, the teacher of science 

 will reply. How, then, about history, 

 literature, and politics ? It would seem 

 as if a "certainly " would be in place 



