1869.] Natural Science in Schools. 381 



less benefit than if the whole of oiu' scholars were compelled to 

 study the natui-al sciences. This is also the experience of Germany, 

 where the extensive study of natural science does not deprive her of 

 classical students who may challenge the rest of the world for 

 accurate criticism and profound scholarship. 



Another reason for introducing natural science into our schools 

 is seen in the feet that some boys have an innate aptitude for 

 acquiring the facts of natural science, whilst they dislike or are 

 entirely unfitted for classics and even mathematics. In this way 

 the employment of scientific facts generally throughout the schools 

 of the kingdom would assuredly be the means of raising up men 

 who would devote themselves to this subject, and enrich the world 

 with new discoveries and new applications of scientific principles. 



We may say, however, that whatever may be the bent of a 

 lad's genius towards classics and mathematics, a knowledge of the 

 principles of scientific inquiry would go far to correct the acknow- 

 ledged defects of such education. The observation of individual 

 facts, the arranging them in laws, and reasoning from the known 

 to the unknown, involved in the inductive and deductive processes 

 employed by the natural philosopher, could not fail to pro^^de a 

 disci j)line of benefit to the scholar as well as the mathematician. 



Another advantage of the cultivation of these sciences is, that it 

 places the individual who studies them more closely in contact with 

 the thought and experience of the age in which he lives. All the 

 great activity of hfe depends much more on the progress of the 

 natiu-al sciences than the culture either of classical or mathematical 

 knowledge ; and a man in almost every position of life is placed more 

 or less at a practical disadvantage who is not acquainted with the 

 principles of scientific discoveries. "Who is there with a knowledge 

 of natural science that has not been grieved to hear an eloquent 

 discourse marred by ignorance of the laws that govern the simplest 

 natural phenomena ! Who that has been examined before a Com- 

 mittee of the Houses of Lords or Commons, has not wondered at 

 the ignorance displayed by our legislators of the commonest facts 

 known to the scientific man ! Again, how many of our scientific 

 witnesses bring away from our courts of criminal justice impressions 

 of the thoroughly false estimate that advocates, jury, and judges 

 take of the simplest natural facts brought before them ! 



Another reason why the principles of natiu-al science ought to 

 be universally taught, is the fact that the daily health and life of 

 mankind depend upon their obedience to the laws that govern the 

 external world in which they are placed. The human body is so 

 constructed that no one can understand the nature of the laws by 

 which it exists without deriving benefit therefrom. A slight know- 

 ledge of the nature of the atmosphere in which we live, of the 

 properties of heat, of the composition of materials about us, may 



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