518 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



life chemistry, for example, as to whether they live on a clayey 

 or on a sandy soil, if on either ; as to fermentation or what 

 the object may be of preventing the bacterial invasion of an 

 egg or leg of mutton; or anything about the problems of 

 oxygenation in so far as these affect their own health or the 

 keeping of a fish alive in a tank, so long will juvenile experts 

 on ionisation and electrons remain ignorant of these things. But 

 there remains that large majority of boys who will never study 

 science systematically. In most schools boys in some portion 

 of the Lower or Middle School devote compulsorily certain 

 hours to science. Consequently every boy is given the 

 opportunity of revealing his inaptitude or discovering his apti- 

 tude as a student of science. The specialists who will pursue 

 the further study of the subjects are recruited from these 

 divisions, whilst for the rest this constitutes their one 

 educational opportunity of receiving any scientific training 

 or information. 



Equally whether he be intellectually just an average boy or 

 potentially a prime minister, archbishop or headmaster, the 

 average member of these divisions will never get another oppor- 

 tunity of performing experiments in a laboratory, though if his 

 interest ever become aroused he may achieve more knowledge 

 by his own independent reading. Any benefit science can 

 confer on him educationally has to be won at the best in some 

 three hours per week during ten weeks as a minimum or sixty 

 weeks as a probable maximum, i.e. in 30 to 180 hours of his 

 lifetime. 



There is a marked tendency to use these divisions at present 

 simply as a training ground for those boys who later on will 

 pursue the systematic study of science. Thus in physics much 

 time is devoted to accurate weighing and certain other measure- 

 ments as the foundation of physics. In chemistry these divisions 

 are kept either at weighing or at experiments devised to give 

 training in some kind of chemical manipulation or elementary 

 methods — things which are of little use as knowledge in them- 

 selves but only as tools in a subject which most of the boys 

 will never attempt. Board of Education experts not only 

 commend but even recommend this practice of clearing the 

 way for systematic work of a more advanced nature. 



Thus the average boy never becomes aware that though 

 physics involves the accurate measurement of quantities, it does 



