NOTES 643 



carbon compounds, and very little can be taught about structure in in- 

 organic Chemistry, while in organic Chemistry it cannot well be avoided. 



The cause of the omission is due mainly to the unintelligent nature of 

 examination schedules, in which all other considerations seem to be sacri- 

 ficed to that of the examiner's convenience or his supposed capacity for 

 the work he has undertaken. There is no evidence to show that anything 

 more than the gross structure of these schedules has ever been considered, 

 or that the claims of, say, soap and glycerol have ever been weighed against 

 those of the oxides of nitrogen. 



Biology. — The amount of Biology taught in schools at the present time 

 is not considered to be adequate. In some of the larger schools Botany and 

 Zoology are well taught to a few senior boys who are going to be doctors, 

 but as a rule, the rank and file are not taught even the simplest facts about 

 the lives of plants or animals. It cannot surely be urged in mitigation of 

 this that ignorance is bliss. Prof. Hickson, of Manchester, pointed clearly 

 to the main cause of the omission. The investigators of the Secondary 

 Schools Examination Council state in their report that Natural History 

 and Zoology are unsuitable subjects for a pass with credit in Science. It 

 comes to this then, that any subject, however important and necessary, 

 is to be ruled out if it does not lend itself to experimental treatment and to 

 the crude mechanical process of examination. University professors, who 

 compile these wonderful examination schedules, say, of course, that Biology 

 is more suitable for the University course ; there the matter ends, and the 

 great majority of people go through life totally ignorant of the mechanism 

 of their own bodies. 



Laboratory Management. — Two problems in laboratory management — 

 the training of assistants and the present high cost of apparatus and material 

 — gave rise to an interesting discussion. In some schools it is the practice 

 to engage boys at a small wage straight from the elementary schools. This 

 is not fair to the boys, for, under the circumstances, the work of laboratory 

 assistant becomes a " blind alley " occupation. The training which they 

 get is not generally sufficiently good to ensure further progress in the same 

 profession, and their knowledge is of little practical value in following other 

 occupations. From the school point of view the arrangement is unfortunate, 

 for the boys leave just when they are capable of doing good work. If boys 

 must be employed, it seems only fair that some arrangements should be 

 made to give them a definite training ; even then the Science master is 

 training his assistants not to keep them, but to lose them. It would be 

 more satisfactory to take up the question of the status of the laboratory 

 assistant, to employ men (men who have done a term of service in the Navy 

 make excellent laboratory assistants), to press for a living wage, and to 

 urge the advisability of including the trained laboratory assistant in the 

 pension scheme. 



Cost of Apparatus. — The high cost of apparatus and material has become 

 a very severe handicap to the teaching of Science in schools, and threatens 

 to be even a greater obstacle than the former " neglect of Science." After 

 five years of war and the services of inefficient substitutes for the regular 

 Science master, most school laboratories are sadly in need of new apparatus ; 

 the sum of money allocated for upkeep has not been increased in anything 

 like the same proportion as prices, and, what is more, pupils are coming to 

 the Science classes in increasing numbers. It comes to this, that make- 

 shifts have to be adopted, and the character of the practical work suffers in 

 consequence. 



Preparatory School Science. — If anything worthy of this title existed in 

 the majority of these schools, it would be most helpful to those who have 

 to carry on the work in secondary schools. It cannot be done, however. 

 Science does not pay in the Entrance Scholarship Examination, and has no 



