576 EXPERIMENTS IN TEACHING BOTANY. 



On the other hand, take Chemistry. Nature rarely isolates 

 the material elements, and still more rarely gives us the com- 

 pounds pure ; while we have no intuitive knowledge at all of 

 chemical affinity. Therefore Chemistry has been an experimental 

 science from almost the very beginning, and must be so also in 

 our mode of teaching. 



But in Biology the plants and animals are completely and 

 distinctly isolated, and moreover we have very fair knowledge 

 of the processes oi life. Botany and Zoology therefore have a 

 wide range of observation to exhaust before experiment can be 

 economically begun. Experiment is meant to extend our sphere; 

 and in Science, as in Art, we must well fill our sphere before 

 we can extend it. 



Indeed, in Zoology we are precluded from premature excess 

 of experiment by the happy necessity of gentleness towards 

 sentient creatures. And Zoology gains thereby. Is not Botany 

 similarly circumstanced? Nay more, the case of Botany is 

 stronger because in it observation is far easier, far steadier, and 

 •far more universal. 



In the long run, of course. Biology hopes to develop into 

 full revelation of its relations to the conservation of energy, and 

 as they near this goal all the sciences draw closer together and 

 rely more and more on experiment — but it is a long, long way to 

 that Tipperary. 



It is a scientific maxim that the life of the race is repeated 

 in .the individual; it is therefore an educational maxim that in its 

 main lines a subject must be taught as the human race learnt it. 

 That is, observation must be given its full scope before abstruse 

 experiment begins. 



Indeed, " experiments " in rudimentary teaching are not ex- 

 periments at all. They are simply demonstrations — and usually 

 book-work demonstrations — under distorted conditions. The 

 question is not put even by the teacher, and is not even dreamed 

 of by the pupil : it has been already put and answered in the 

 University laboratory, and recorded by the text-book. The only 

 uncertainty about the whole " experiment " is whether teacher 

 and pupil can make the thing " come right." If, as frequently 

 happens, they cannot, all the pupil learns is want of confidence in 

 scientific truth. 



Many of these experiments are quite unintelligible to pupils 

 not already familiar with Physics and Chemistry, and therefore 

 become merely cut-and-dried bits of memory work — the very 

 worst way of teaching a science. Of course one cannot pursue 

 the study of Bo'tany far without considerable knowledge of 

 Physics and Chemistry, but the bulk of our pupils have begun no 

 science at all, and are not going to pursue Botany far. All we 

 want to do with most of them is to train their powers of observa- 

 tion and give them an educated outlook on some of the processes 

 of Nature. 



There is a pitiful sham abou tquestions beginning " Devise 



