1869.] Natural Science in Schools. 379 



nature and extent to be given to such teaching anywhere. Anyone 

 looking at the character of the human mind, and the accumulated 

 knowledge resulting from its activity, must feel that the attempt 

 to educate the human being without supplying some knowledge of 

 the great facts of natural science is a one-sided proceeding. It is 

 clear that, without a definite knowledge of facts, the art of being 

 able to talk and ivrife about them, or to number them, is of com- 

 paratively httle importance. So obviously is this the case, that at 

 first sight it is a matter of wonder that the teaching of the facts of 

 natural science has not been more largely introduced into schools. 

 The difiiculty of introducing natural science into schools is of two 

 kinds. In the first place, our school system has grown up from a 

 period when there was httle or no natural science to teach : com- 

 mencing at a time when all knowledge was locked up in the languages 

 of Greece and Kome, and precise science was confined to mathematics, 

 those branches of culture have been universally introduced into all 

 our high schools. Under these cu'cumstances, the teaching of the 

 classics and mathematics has become a kind of institution around 

 which the feelings of those who have been educated under their 

 influence have clung as around a political system whose existence 

 is regarded as the palladium of the State. Propose to add anything 

 or take away anything from this system, and you are immediately 

 met with the demand to look at the long list of statesmen, warriors, 

 scholars, and divines who have attained distinction under its influence. 

 It is vain to reply that these worthies might have attained more 

 distinction had they known more of natural science, or that probably 

 their distinction was entirely independent of their knowledge of 

 Latin, Greek, and mathematics. It is this feeling which meets us 

 in the Universities and higher schools ; and the unhappy tendency 

 of the middle class to produce a miserable copy of this teaching 

 brings down the sentimental objection to teactung natural science 

 into the lower ranks. The only way in which this opposition can 

 be overcome is by attacking the Universities. It is here that the 

 natural sciences meet with their first rebufi". A very small propor- 

 tion of the vast funds appropriated for education at Oxford and 

 Cambridge are given to those who pursue natural science; and, 

 although public opinion has forced both our Universities to be 

 more favourable to the students of the natural sciences, it is very 

 questionable whether anything short of legislative interference will 

 induce the University authorities to get out of the groove in which 

 they have run for centuries. 



There are, however, schools which are not dependent upon the 

 example of our Universities. There are the National Schools of 

 England and Ireland, the British and Foreign Schools, and Girls' 

 Schools everywhere. In these schools they do not pretend to teach 

 Latin or Greek, why it is difiicult to understand, for if the study of 



VOL. VI. 2 D 



