282 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cism as to the educational value of science in comparisou with other 

 subjects. A large portion of the appendix is devoted to the consider- 

 ation of these difficulties ; to sifting the allegations on wliich they 

 rest, and to balancing against them the experience of those teachers 

 who have faced and successfully met them. Showing in detail the 

 comparatively trifling cost at which indispensable apjDaratus can be 

 obtained, the commissioners nevertheless admit the rarity, in the 

 present state of English culture, either of independent science-teachers 

 suited to the larger schools, or of men, such as poorer schools desid- 

 erate, combining literary with scientific knowledge. This, however, 

 is an evil of the past rather than of the future, since not the least 

 among the advantages expected from a reformed system of school- 

 teaching is the creation of a race of able teachers, general as well as 

 sjDecial. The relative value of science as an implement of mental 

 training is next discussed. Its peculiar excellence is briefly vindi- 

 cated, as cultivating, in a way attainable by no other means, the habits 

 of observation and experiment, of classification, arrangement, method, 

 judgment ; and its suitability to the capacities of the very youngest 

 boys is testified to by Faraday, Hooker, Rolleston, Carpenter, and Sir 

 W. Thomson. Lastly, it is shown that, if this be so, the argument 

 from want of time is no argument at all ; that the hours are already 

 wasted which condemn the half of a boy's faculties to stagnation, and 

 render education one-sided and incomplete; and that the claims of 

 different branches of instruction may be easily adjusted by economy 

 of time, improvement in methods, and excision of superfluous studies. 



On a review of all these objections and of the answers ofi'ered to 

 them, and taking into account the dicta of former commissioners and 

 the practice of other countries, the report advises that literature, 

 mathematics, and science, should be the accepted subjects of education 

 up to the time at which boys leave school, and should all three be 

 made comjjulsoiy in any school-leaving-examination or university 

 matriculation ; but that after entering the university students should 

 be left to choose for themselves among these lines of study, and 

 need pass no subseqixcnt examination in subjects other than the one 

 which they select. As regards the teaching of science, they recom- 

 mend that it should commence with the beginning of the school 

 career ; that not less than six hours a week should be devoted to it, 

 and that in all school examinations as much as one-sixth of the marks 

 should be allotted to it. 



These recommendations possess the two great excellences of au- 

 thoritativeness and clearness. They are supported by a host of expe- 

 rienced witnesses, as well as by the erniTient names whose signatures 

 follow them. Their ideal of school education is simplicity itself. The 

 supremacy of classics is to be dethroned ; the artifices of stratifica- 

 tion and bifurcation are to be discarded ; literature, mathematics, and 

 science are to share a boy's intellect between them from the very first, 



