NATURAL SCIENCE: 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 



No. 24. Vol. IV. FEBRUARY. 1894. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



Education by Experiment. 



'"PHE young human animal is born into this world with a great 

 i curiosity and a great desire for knowledge. It longs to touch, to 

 taste, to try in every way the properties of things around it. On its Hps 

 is from the first the catch-word of our race, the everlasting " Why ? " 

 What do we do with this inquisitive creature ? We box it up in a 

 room and set it to learn the ABC; we cramp its flexible hands with 

 a pen ; we dull its brain with verses and the multiplication table, both 

 learned by rote ; we tell it not to be tiresome and sternly repress all 

 child-like efforts to see the wheels go round. Thus the great work of 

 education progresses : mountains and rivers are learned in lists, sums 

 are done by rule, geometry is repeated as an effort of memory. Then 

 the boy, and sometimes the girl, must learn physical science. Soon 

 he will know the laws of heat, the composition of the spectrum, the 

 names and atomic weights of the elements, the succession of geo- 

 logical formations, and the classification of the animal and vegetable 

 kingdoms ; but he cannot get a fire to light, is ignorant that a tadpole 

 turns into a frog, and gives himself a stomach-ache with a poisonous 

 fungus. As for poor science, it is called " Stinks," and the teachers 

 of it are naturally despised. The youth is turned out an ignorant prig 

 or a learned trifler, the country goes to the dogs, and even the toys of 

 the next generation are " made in Germany." 



Thus we write to-day ; but three centuries ago Montaigne said 

 the same thing : " Seeing how we are taught, what wonder is it that 

 neither pupils nor masters become more able, although they make 

 themselves more learned. In truth, the care and expense of our 

 fathers serve but to furnish our heads with knowledge ; of judgment 

 and virtue small news is there. . . . The question should be, whose 

 learning is the best, not whose is the greatest." And yet it moves. 

 Our children, if not ourselves, have already the benefit of a far more 



G 



