i 4 o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



while suitable essays would be " Describe a Greek Theatre," or " Alexander's 

 Boyhood." 



Each fortnight's work should aim at providing a framework into which future 

 knowledge may be fitted, rather than a final structure. Intellectual curiosity 

 should be encouraged rather than the mere accumulation of facts. When once 

 the spirit of enquiry is aroused in a boy or girl, the facts will take care of them- 

 selves. The last thing to be desired is that the first glimmering of knowledge 

 should be fixed or final. But the boy or girl cannot learn too early the necessity 

 for relating the facts of history to life, literature, art and science. 



The carrying out of such a scheme would occupy six or seven hours of a 

 school week, including an ordinary English history lesson. It is also presupposes 

 two "home lessons." I do not know what the opinion of schoolmasters and 

 mistresses will be about such a demand ; but I cannot think that parents or 

 guardians will grudge the time taken from Latin grammar and translation, even 

 supposing it is necessary to take any time. If one or two hours are taken it 

 may be pointed out that classical history has a considerable part in the suggested 

 scheme of teaching, and this, in a form by which many a boy and girl will 

 profit who are never likely to read Greek or Latin with fluency. 



It is impossible to over-emphasise the importance of preserving the essays, 

 crude and unhistorical as they may seem in the junior forms. Efforts of this kind 

 gain greatly in significance when twenty or thirty are bound together. This will 

 be seen when the scheme of general history is treated a second and a third time 

 in following years, and the student's task is to rewrite the essay or pen another 

 supplementing the effort of an earlier year. We do not sufficiently foster " the 

 sweet pride of authorship " latent in most children. 



Lastly, the illustration of the essays is no less important. The provision 

 of suitable pictures will be troublesome to many teachers at first, but a very little 

 experience will prove the value of the method. Visualisation is, perhaps, the first 

 requirement in the study of history. A name should always bring to mind a lively 

 impression of a person or place. An historical happening must never be regarded 

 as an abstraction. The study of history is a spiritual adventure. Scholar and 

 teacher alike must embark upon it in the mood of the sea-dogs, launching out 

 into unknown seas, but confident in their power to reach the golden harbour 

 at the last. 



