iv.] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 63 



introduced into all schools. By this, however, I do not 

 mean that every schoolboy should be taught everything 

 in science. That would be a very absurd thing to con- 

 ceive, and a very mischievous thing to attempt. What 

 I mean is, that no boy nor girl should leave school 

 without possessing a grasp of the general character of 

 science, and without having been disciplined, more or 

 less, in the methods of all sciences ; so that, when 

 turned into the world to make their own way, they 

 shall be prepared to face scientific problems, not by 

 knowing at once the conditions of every problem, or 

 by being able at once to solve it ; but by being familiar 

 with the general current of scientific thought, and by 

 being able to apply the methods of science in the 

 proper way, when they have acquainted themselves with 

 the conditions of the special problem. 



That is what I understand by scientific education. 

 To furnish a boy with such an education, it is by no 

 means necessary that he should devote his whole school 

 existence to physical science : in fact, no one would 

 lament so one-sided a proceeding more than I. Nay 

 more, it is not necessary for him to give up more than a 

 moderate share of his time to such studies, if they be 

 properly selected and arranged, and if he be trained in 

 them in a fitting; manner. 



I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as 

 follows. To begin with, let every child be instructed in 

 those general views of the phenomena of Nature for 

 which we have no exact English name. The nearest 

 approximation to a name for what I mean, which Ave 

 possess, is " physical geography." The Germans have a 

 better, " Erdkunde," ("earth knowledge'' or "geology" 

 m its etymological sense,) that is to say, a general know- 

 ledge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it. 

 If any one who has had experience of the ways of young 



