ELEMENTARY SCIENCE. 837 



imply, tliat findino- a plum made him a good boy. It may 

 be remarked Ijy the way that Jaek's mivstake was perhaps 

 more excusable than tiiat of some teachers, who, confounding 

 goodness with cleverness or luck in guessing, reward the 

 giver of a correct answer by exclaiming " That's a good 

 boy ! " But these remarks are somewhat beyond the purpose 

 of this paper, which is not supjjosed to treat of literature, 

 ethics, or general school management. 



As children advance beyond infancy, and their experience 

 widens while their mental powers develop, their knowledge 

 should gradually assume more and more fulness and oi-ganic 

 form ; though not until they reach the higher classes, that is 

 to say, not before the age of eleven or twelve on an average, 

 can they be reasonably expected to go any great length in 

 the study of those branches of science in which calculation or 

 mathematical reasoning is required. However, during this 

 middle period of primary school life clear views and a large 

 stock of interesting and useful knowledge in most of the 

 exact sciences can be acquired, as well as in those that depend 

 mostly on observation and comparison. To this end it is 

 essential (1) that in every school one or more of the teachers 

 shall have been well trained in scientific methods, not merely 

 cranmied with facts and explanations gathered from text- 

 books in order to pass an examination ; and (2) that ev^ery 

 school shall be well provided with material to illustrate the 

 lessons. 



If so far children have been properly trained in arithmetic 

 and elementary geometry with a little algebra, it may be 

 expected, if they do not leave school too early, that by the 

 age of fourteen or thereabout they will have laid a sure 

 foundation for future self-culture in a scientific direction ; 

 while such subjects as history, literature, &:c. have not been 

 neglected. 



With young people who have gone systematically through 

 a good primary school course of science, technical school 

 teachers will have only their proper work to do — that of 

 training them in the apphcation of scientific knowledge to 

 the useful arts and industries of life, instead of having to 

 begin, as they frequently have to begin at present, with the 

 very ABC of that knowledge. I may here mention an 

 extrera* case which came under my notice, when there were 

 no technical schools in Hobart, and young men had to seek 

 technical instruction from private teachers. A young sea- 

 faring man, wishing to ipaster the processes of trigone- 



