250 NATURAL SCIENCE. April. 



teaching of science at the London schools. The new university will! 

 have, as one of its most difficult tasks, the concentration of teaching, 

 in a smaller number of institutions without prejudice to the indepen- 

 dence and friendly rivalry of the various hospitals. We suggest that 

 the solution will be found on lines similar to the combined lecture 

 courses in successful operation among groups of colleges at Oxford 

 and Cambridge. 



Science Teaching at Secondary Schools — The New 

 Commission. 

 Those who are accustomed to teach at medical schools, or at 

 colleges and universities, must be struck with the lamentable 

 ignorance and want of method of the ordinary pupils from secondary 

 schools. At some of the larger public schools science teaching is 

 admirably conducted, and those at least who give themselves up tO' 

 the modern and scientific sides are well prepared for advanced science 

 teaching or for the technical training of the medical schools ; but in 

 scientific training the majority of endowed and intermediate schools 

 are no whit better than, as Sir Philip Magnus pointed out in 1876, 

 they were at the time of the Commission of that year. Some students 

 have a scrappy acquaintance with elementary facts, but they are 

 ignorant of the methods of studying nature, and they are totally 

 untrained in observation and incapable of describing on paper the 

 simplest object set before them. In this respect, as in many others, 

 endowed and secondar}^ schools stand in marked contrast to the 

 public elementary schools of this country. Anyone who has the 

 slightest acquaintance with pupils from the two classes must have 

 been impressed by this. Now that the movement in favour of 

 technical instruction has become an actual force, the distinction 

 between the education of the lower classes and the education of the- 

 upper and middle classes will become still more greatly in favour of 

 the lower classes. Most of the County Councils of England are now- 

 offering higher scholarships for various purposes which will enable 

 a greater number of elementary scholars to reach the higher scientific 

 professions ; and, unless great improvements are made rapidly in. 

 secondary and endowed schools, not only will the path of the most 

 promising children from the largest section of the community pass by 

 these institutions, but, in the competition of life, pupils of the higher 

 schools will be beaten hopelessly. Boys from elementary schools will 

 pass by scholarships direct to technical institutions, and from these 

 by higher scholarships to the universities, medical schools, and 

 engineering institutes. Going by these routes, they will not be 

 subjected to that tone and leisurely culture which is the boast of 

 endowed schools ; but none the less will they succeed in the battle 

 of life, and the total result to the community will be, taking for 

 granted the pretensions of the endowed schools, an absence of culture 

 and refinement from many of the most useful and successful members. 



