SCIENTIFIC METHOD LY BOARD SCHOOLS. 619 



forts which a few centuries ago kings could not purchase, is 

 scarcely in any degree owed to the appointed means of instruct- 

 ing our youth. The vital knowledge that by which we have 

 grown as a nation to what we are, and which now underlies our 

 whole existence is a knowledge that has got itself taught in nooks 

 and corners ; while the ordained agencies for teaching have been 

 mumbling little else but dead formulas." 



Some improvement there has been since Herbert Spencer wrote, 

 but chiefly in technical teaching : and there is yet no national ap- 

 preciation of what constitutes true education : fashion and vested 

 interests still largely dominate educational policy. 



Another advocate of the teaching of scientific method to whom 

 I would refer you is Charles Kingsley, the celebrated divine, but 

 also a born naturalist possessed of the keenest powers of observa- 

 tion, a novelist of the first rank, and a poet. Read his life, and 

 you will find it full of inspiration and comfort. Study his scien- 

 tific lectures and essays (Volume XIX of his Collected Works, 

 Macmillan & Company) and you will not only learn why " sci- 

 ence" is of use, but will have before you a valuable model of 

 method and style. A friend a member of the London County 

 Council to whom I happened to send some of my papers, noting 

 my frequent references to Kingsley, remarked, " How very fond 

 you are of his writings ! " Indeed I am, for they seem to me to 

 display a truer grasp of the importance of scientific method and 

 of its essential character than do any other works with which I 

 am acquainted. I recommend them because they are pleasant as 

 well as profitable reading, and because our text-books generally are 

 worthless for the purpose I have in view. Any ordinary person of 

 intelligence can read Herbert Spencer's and Kingsley's essays and 

 can appreciate them, especially Kingsley's insistent application of 

 the scientific principle of always proceeding from the known to 

 the unknown; but few can read a text-book of science more- 

 over, the probable effect of most of these would be to dissuade 

 rather than persuade. 



Kingsley's great point, and Herbert Spencer's also, is that 

 what people want to learn is not so much what is, still less what 

 has been, but how to do. And the object you must set before 

 yourselves will be to turn out boys and girls who, in proportion 

 to their natural gifts for, as every one knows, you can not make 

 a silken purse from a sow's ear have become inquiring, observ- 

 ant, reasoning beings, ever thoughtful and exact and painstak- 

 ing, and therefore trustworthy workers. To turn out such is the 

 whole object of our scheme, which chiefly aims at the develop- 

 ment of intelligence and the formation of character. In your 

 schools information must be gained, not imparted. After de- 

 scribing how the intelligent mother trains her young child. Her- 



