252 NATURAL SCIENCE. April, 



the public lecturer are the worst example for the trainers of youth. 

 The London Association has some courses specially adapted for 

 teachers : the Cambridge sequences are useful for teachers occasion- 

 ally : the Oxford courses are least useful. Courses adapted to the 

 mixed audiences of the provinces have no direct educational value, 

 and should carry with them no certificates of any value as part of the 

 professional training of teachers. The best training for these must 

 come from those associated with the actual acquisition of new 

 knowledge rather than with the popularising of the results of new- 

 knowledge. The advantage of knowledge to the community is not 

 that it is interesting, but that it is useful : useful in the objective 

 sense, that it is the means by which the forces of nature are bound 

 to the service of man : useful in the subjective sense, that it is the 

 means by which the human mind is deepened and widened. The 

 adult population of the community who have found their places in 

 the ranks of workers have earned a right to be interested and 

 brightened, and the great task of humanising their leisure is the task 

 of the University Extension. But children have to find their useful 

 place in the world, and it is above all things necessary that their 

 teachers should be taught by those who actually have to do with 

 fresh acquisitions and fresh applications of knowledge. 



Summer Meetings and the Training of Teachers. 



On the other hand, University Extension Associations have 

 arranged, in connection with their summer meetings, courses of the 

 highest value for teachers. In the dog-days the great laboratories 

 stand for the most part idle : no teaching is going on, and the 

 devotees of research are taking holiday. At Oxford, at Cambridge, 

 and at Edinburgh, practical courses for teachers, sometimes in con- 

 nection with County Councils, sometimes not, have been arranged. 

 These courses, where most successful, have been limited in 

 sphere. An amount of ground that can be covered in four hours' 

 practical work, preceded by an hour's demonstration-lecture each 

 day for three weeks, gives teachers accustomed to mere book-work 

 an insight altogether new into the meaning of scientific work. The 

 afternoons can be occupied by excursions either purely for pleasure 

 or bearing on geology, natural history, and agriculture. 



We think that much might be done m this respect in London. 

 We have here many laboratories that stand idle for considerable 

 times during summer ; there is no difficulty in getting competent 

 teachers of practical work, and in the elementary schools of London 

 and of the neighbouring districts there are hundreds of masters and 

 mistresses who would rejoice to make use of any opportunities 

 provided them. We commend this suggestion to the London 

 Association and to the Technical Instruction Committee of the 

 London County Council. 



