220 Fourth Conference 



to the botany and entomology of an agricultural 

 course than a short discipline in Nature-study. 



It is not uncommon to give model lessons to 

 classes of teachers, i.e. lessons which can afterwards 

 be repeated in school. I do not like this method. 

 We ought not to encourage the servile repetition of 

 old lessons; our teaching should be closely adapted 

 to the wants and capacities of the class actually 

 before us, and we get into a false position by 

 attempting to teach grown-up people as if they 

 were children. 



I find it best not to anticipate personal observation 

 by explanations of any kind. In my own courses 

 the laboratory work always comes first, and the class- 

 room merely gives an opportunity of correcting and 

 driving home the work of the laboratory. We have 

 found that laboratory work, without lectures or 

 separate class-work of any kind, is one good form of 

 instruction for adult students. 



Every subject may be treated as an inquiry, and 

 there is no method of teaching so enlivening and 

 practical as that which is based upon questions 

 answered by observation and experiment. The 

 teacher must, of course, be himself an inquirer, which 

 does not necessarily mean that he prepares researches 

 for publication. Some people tell me that the method 

 of teaching by inquiry is too hard and too slow. I 

 do not find it so in practice. The first steps cost 

 much time and pains, but after a few weeks or 

 months the progress of the class is so rapid as to 

 compensate handsomely for the slowness of the pre- 

 paration. Real knowledge has to be paid for, but it 

 is worth all that it costs. 



