432 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



and does not know how to set about making one — therefore 

 he cannot appreciate the influence of experimental work and 

 its nature as a means of developing character ; that although 

 a literary man, he has not fathomed the full meaning of the 

 statement made by the grave-digger, when discussing Ophelia's 

 death, that " an act hath three branches : it is to act, to do 

 and to perform " ; that in defining an act, the grave-digger was 

 defining an experiment, which is an act based upon definite 

 argument, performed with a conscious purpose (a motive), 

 carried out strictly with reference to that purpose, the results 

 of which are finally discussed with direct reference to the 

 purpose in mind. The ordinary laboratory " experiment " is 

 usually something done in almost blind obedience to a more 

 or less indefinite instruction given without any very clear 

 motive, design or purpose, little if any attempt being made 

 to apply the results in gaining an answer to the question 

 proposed — the fact that a question has been (that is to say, 

 should have been) asked being, as a rule, left out of account. 

 The entry in the student's note-book is almost invariably 

 restricted to a bare statement of what was done and the result. 



The pernicious system of allowing rough notes to be 

 taken, which are written up afterwards, is the cause of much 

 of the difficulty — notes must be written out fully at the time, 

 as the work proceeds ; in no other way can lying — conscious 

 and unconscious — be prevented ; in no other way can it be 

 made clear what was actually the motive in mind at the time 

 when the work was begun. 



Our object should be to develop the right attitude of 

 mind in our pupils — if we take care of the pence, the pounds 

 will take care of themselves, in the sense that, if we teach 

 method, facts will necessarily be pressed into the service and 

 graven upon the memory in a really effective manner — to a far 

 greater extent than under the pressure of the examination system. 



If the habit be acquired in school of solving problems, 

 later on in life the facility gained in asking questions and 

 seeking answers — the critical habit of mind — must inevitably 

 prove to be applicable to the ordinary affairs of the world. 



To deal now with the question of subject-matter. I have 

 said that we need to despecialise : I would apply this to 

 science teaching as well as to Latin, mathematics, geography 



