NATURAL SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 663 



Beginning to teach with no preconceived notions as to the 

 practical results obtainable, but with a love for the science of 

 Nature, and a strong desire to make our boys and girls love it 

 also, I soon found out that science lessons were not only helpful 

 in the way of awakening interest, but also invaluable in the way 

 of disciplining the mind. Little children came to me with un- 

 trained eyes, hands, and brains ; this I expected, and therefore 

 was not surprised ; but boys and girls from fifteen to twenty years 

 of age came in a worse condition, and this was unexpected. Not 

 only were their eyes and hands untrained, but their brains were 

 in a pathological condition which rendered independent thinking 

 impossible. The number of my ]3upils increasing, and their ages 

 ranging, as I have said, from five to twenty years, I had an excel- 

 lent opportunity for comparing the quality of work done by older 

 and younger pupils, also by pupils whose perceptive faculties had 

 been trained in early life, and those who had not received this 

 training. The inferences I was forced to draw from these com- 

 parisons set me to thinking seriously. The inaccuracy of the 

 observational and manual work done by older pupils, the indefi- 

 niteness of expression, the lack of system, and the inability to do 

 comparative and inferential work, were so many revelations of the 

 true aims of science teaching. The absolute necessity for accuracy 

 in every study and every department of work made accuracy the 

 first object to be attained in every science lesson ; the vagueness 

 of the oral and written statement made clear, concise expression 

 the second object. The want of method emphasized the need of a 

 simple, orderly grouping of the observations, while the painful 

 and fruitless attempts to make comparisons and draw inferences 

 showed the necessity of cultivating the power of generalizing from 

 specific facts. 



The objects of elementary science work in this way became 

 clear to me. As time passed, I was convinced that the first two 

 aims might be realized with children of primary-school age ; the 

 last two, in greater or less degree, with scholars of grammar and 

 high school age, provided they had received the lyreparatory train- 

 ing of the primary school. In attempting to realize these aims I 

 strove to apply constantly the scientific or " natural method " of 

 teaching, and, though applying it far from perfectly, I could see 

 that in more skillful hands than my own its successful application 

 would result in that which was most desirable, the development of 

 the child. 



Gradually the opinion grew and strengthened, till it has now 

 become a conviction, that those children who have been trained 

 by the " natural method," from five to thirteen years of age, do 

 better work at thirteen than those who have not received this 

 training do from fifteen to twenty years of age. Their work is 



