iv.] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 67 



not be solicitous to fill him with information, but you 

 must be careful that what lie learns he knows of his own 

 knowledge. Don't be satisfied with telling him that a 

 masmet attracts iron. Let him sec that it docs : let him 

 feel the pull of the one upon the other for himself. And, 

 ('specially, tell him that it is his duty to doubt until he 

 is compelled, by the absolute authority of Nature, to 

 believe that which is written in books. Pursue this 

 discipline carefully and conscientiously, and you may 

 make sure that, however scanty may be the measure of 

 information which you have poured into the boy's mind, 

 you have created an intellectual habit of priceless value 

 in practical life. 



One is constantly asked, \7hen should this scientific 

 education be commenced ? I should say with the dawn 

 of intelligence. As I have already said, a child seeks 

 for information about matters of physical science as 

 soon as it begins to talk. The first teaching it wants 

 is an object-lesson of one sort or another ; and as soon 

 as it is fit for systematic instruction of any kind, it is fit 

 for a modicum of science. 



People talk of the difficulty of teaching young 

 children such matters, and in the same breath insist 

 upon their learning their Catechism, which contains 

 propositions far harder to comprehend than anything 

 in the educational course I have proposed. Again: I 

 am incessantly told that we, who advocate the intro- 

 duction of science into schools, make no allowance for 

 the stupidity of the average boy or girl; but, in my 

 belief, that stupidity, in nine cases out of ten, "fit, non 

 nascitur" and is developed by a long process of parental 

 and pedagogic repression of the natural intellectual ap- 

 petites, accompanied by a persistent attempt to create 

 artificial ones for food which is not only tasteless, but 

 essentially indigestible. 



