394 THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 



teaching of the young. They have not gained by long and 

 painful experience that faculty of gauging inattention and 

 forgetfulness without which nothing can be sufficiently taught to 

 the majority. Even where they win a temporary attention they 

 will find that the memory as easily loses its impressions as it 

 seems to receive them. Their methods are moreover abstract 

 and scientific, not homely, practical, and elementary. The 

 teaching of Natural Science in short, like that of reading, writing, 

 and arithmetic, ought to be in the hands of the common school- 

 master, as the person best trained in the communication of 

 elementary knowledge. But he is for the most part either quite 

 ignorant of the subject, or has only book knowledge, which 

 though interesting to the individual, is useless for the teacher's 

 purpose. The remedy must be gradual, but may be much 

 expedited by the establishment of a definite method, with suitable 

 hand-books for teachers, by which they may improve their own 

 powers without detriment to their pupils. Mere lecturing is 

 utterly useless, and learning by heart from manuals no more 

 profitable, though much more laborious. Up to the age of ten, 

 the pupil should only be instructed by pictures and stories in the 

 external forms, names, habits, and geographical distribution of 

 animals and plants, in the manner now commonly adopted 

 There should be no tasking of the memory, and no attempt at 

 scientific teaching. All that can be reasonably desired is that 

 the children of the primary school should have, at ten, as general 

 an acquaintance with " birds and beasts and fishes " as all of us 

 obtained in the nursery by the aid of toys, picture-books, and 

 pets. Objective scientific teaching should then commence and 

 continue, under the limitations to be hereafter mentioned, to the 

 age of fourteen, when elementary education may be considered 

 to be complete, and higher cultivation to begin. It is for these 

 four years only that adequate primers are required. There is an 

 abundance of books fit for the lower, and many suitable for the 

 higher course, but none, so far as I am aware, for the important 

 period now under consideration. The essential basis is that the 

 earning should be from the thing itself, and not from a book 



