724 PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION J. 



The heuristic metliod requires essentially that the pupil should make 

 his own knowledge as far as possible, and stands for the experimental, 

 as against the didactic method. Its value is therefore undeniable. 

 When first I taught chemistry it was by the orthodox method of lectures 

 delivered in the classroom, combined with the usual course of quali- 

 tative analysis carried on simultaneously in the laboratory. After a 

 time I became dissatisfied. I noticed a lack of cohesion between the 

 unfolding of prescriptions in the lecture-room and the dead routine of 

 cut-and-dry analysis in the laboratory. Then I remembered that 

 chemistry was an experimental science, and should be learned in the 

 laboratory, and I took it as my guiding principle that the pupil should 

 acquire his knowledge in the laboratory, and that the lecture-room, 

 work should be based on this. I came to realise that the memorising 

 of brief and altogether inadequate bookish descriptions of the prepara- 

 tion and properties of hundreds of different substances, of which the 

 pupil knew practically nothing, "represented no actual gain of power to 

 the student. After much trying I evolved a method in which the 

 lecture-room dwindled almost out of sight, and the laboratory occupied 

 its right place as almost the sole factor in the acquirement of a know- 

 ledge of chemistry. It is interesting to know that in recent years the 

 practice has been coming into vogue of designing the scientific depart- 

 ment of a school without any provision for lecture-room. This is the 

 case in the new buildings of Christ's Hospital and Dulwich College. As 

 I regard the matter, in the first stages of experimental science the 

 student works entirely in the laboratory under the teacher's guidance. 

 As he advances, and acquires an ordered knowledge of chemical pheno- 

 mena, systematic theorising may be very gradually introduced. The 

 far greater proportion of the work done must always be experimental. 

 Pure lecturing can only be effective in proportion as the listener is on 

 the same plane as the lecturer with regard to ability and interest in the 

 sub] ect. 



One can hardly conceive anything less adequate to the acquire- 

 ment of the spirit of scientific method than the plan of attending 

 descriptive lectures in the lecture-room, simultaneously with carrying 

 out formal qualitative analysis in the laboratory. Neither is there any 

 co-ordination between the two parts of the work, nor does either in 

 itself constitute the adequate treatment intended. The more common 

 type of chemical textbook introduces the pupil to a description of 

 substances, the great majority compound, classified according to the 

 elements. This system, admirably suited to a work of reference, enables 

 the learner to acquire a knowledge of chemistry to the same extent as 

 a dictionary would enable him to acquire a knowledge of literature. 

 It ignores the established educational axiom of the necessity of proceed- 

 ing from the known to the unknown. Hydrochloric acid should come 

 before hydrogen, and water before oxygen, as the more familiar should 

 always precede the less familiar. The first thing which I put before a 

 student commencing the study of systematic chemistry is hydrochloric 

 acid. It has definite and easily observed properties, and is, apart from 

 chemical constitution, no more complex than hydrogen or chlorine. 



