^84 On the Teaching of [July, 



is thoroughly eradicated from the minds of our teachers, little or no 

 progress will be made in the teaching of natural sciences. 



But suppose we have only two or three hours a week to give to 

 this kind of teaching, the question comes. What is the best use 

 that can be made of them? Provided a competent teacher can 

 be found, we have little doubt as to what subjects would be found 

 most useful and advantageous. When the object is to give the 

 mind a training in the principles of inductive science, there is no 

 branch of knowledge more fit for this purpose than chemistry. 

 The facts which it comprises are most varied, whilst their combi- 

 nation and arrangement admit of almost mathematical accuracy. 

 The processes of observation and reasoning are called forth, whilst 

 the experiments which must necessarily be performed excite the 

 interest of the pupil to the highest degree. The facts when 

 acquired are of the utmost practical utility. They he at the 

 foundation of most of the practical arts of life, and are the founda- 

 tion of the higher sciences of vegetable and animal physiology. 

 At the same time, care must be taken to place this science on its 

 right footing. The pupils themselves should be made to perform 

 the experiments. To teach chemistry by mere lectures with ex- 

 periments is a defective method. To teach it by books without 

 experiments is worse than useless. 



There is another subject so daily useful, so important, that 

 although not to be placed by the side of chemistry as a training 

 science, it nevertheless demands the earhest attention, and that is 

 human physiology. The information conveyed in this branch of 

 knowledge is so individually valuable, that we think it might be 

 successfully shown that no advantage obtamed by any other kind 

 of knowledge is so directly beneficial to mankind. It may no 

 doubt be objected that physiology presents some of the most difficult 

 problems that can be mastered by the human mind, and that as it 

 is the last science that we have recommended to be taught in 

 schools, under no circumstances ought it to be the first. It is no 

 doubt true that it is better, where time can be given to the inor- 

 ganic sciences, that they should precede physiology ; but when it 

 becomes a question about which of the sciences it is most beneficial 

 to know something, then we have no hesitation in placing human phy- 

 siology first. Nor is this science so difficult to teach as its complex 

 problems would lead philosophers to think. Every pupil has in his 

 own body the means of performing experiments, and can watch the 

 functions which it is the province of physiology to teach. It is not 

 proposed to teach physiology on account of its satisfactorily develop- 

 ing mental processes, but on account of its principal facts being 

 necessary to bo known in order to preserve health and save hfe. 

 The great bulk of even educated people have little idea of the 

 immense destruction of life that takes place every year through our 



