THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION 511 



in his browsing, and induced to take up something more than selections, 

 and he may easily be induced to get off selections by heart if his teacher 

 does not show his contempt by speaking of such exercises as Rep. 

 [repetition]. 



Let the teacher take a leaf out of our methods of teaching chemis- 

 try and physics. It has been shown that twenty-five boys doing work in 

 the laboratory during a lesson of an hour and a half or two hours can be 

 managed by one teacher. Experimental lectures in a lecture room have 

 now been greatly discarded ; such lessons as I speak of take place in the 

 laboratory, but reliance is placed particularly upon the personal atten- 

 tion of the teacher being given to each group of students in charge of 

 an investigation, the group not being usually greater than four in num- 

 ber, and often being less than two. These students are sometimes 

 merely verifying or testing a statement made by the teacher or found in 

 a book, but they are often finding out things for themselves. One idea 

 underlying the work is that there ought to be more and more illustra- 

 tions of simple fundamental principles. It is long before these simple 

 things really become part of a boy's mental machinery; things like the 

 mere definition of force, for example. It is, of course, quite different 

 work for the teacher from anything that he used to have to do; for one 

 thing, being much more exhausting. He can not shirk his duties and 

 sit down waiting for students to come to him. When teaching degen- 

 erates into mere maintenance of discipline, everything being regarded 

 as right if the pupils are quiet and seem to be diligent, it is necessary 

 to make a radical change, usually a dismissal of the teacher. It used to 

 be that a science master gave an experimental lecture, and afterwards he 

 had a very easy time, letting the students follow a set routine in the 

 laboratory, but this will no longer do; such attendance at lectures and 

 laboratory work means poor mental training. 



Now, I would work out a system for English, English composition, 

 English poetry and prose, geography, history and other English sub- 

 jects, on the lines that we have found so successful in natural science. 

 An enormous change has been effected during the last fifteen years in 

 the teaching of mathematics. The older methods always failed with 

 the average boy or man. The new system, which is sometimes called 

 practical mathematics, is based on the idea that students shall work ex- 

 perimentally, just as they do in their natural science. It is found that 

 their eyes and faces are bright, they work hard, and they evidently enjoy 

 their work. We have merely introduced common sense into the teach- 

 ing; we have approached the student's mind from other points of view 

 than the old academic one, from the only side on which he has ever been 

 taught anything — the side of observation and trial. He weighs and 

 measures. He does experimental geometry and mensuration, and is as- 

 sisted by abstract reasoning just to the extent which interests him; he 

 makes plans of the school buildings and maps of the district; algebra 



