, d 



9] Introduction. 



little. The little child cannot conceive a love for the 

 common daisy as such, he must be taught to call it crys- 

 anthemum lucanthemum. He must learn an interminable 

 list of botanical names and try to attach them to the 

 proper flowers. In large cities, where flowers are not 

 abundant, would it not be as well to teach the children 

 the names in the city directory and then compel them to 

 attach them to the people upon the streets ? 



In physiology, the children learn a mass of barren unin- 

 teresting facts. I need not specify in detail, but would 

 suggest that, if the object is to memorize facts, after teach- 

 ing the number of bones in the body with their names, 

 we might add the number of rings in the trachea, the 

 number of air-cells in the lungs, the number of hairs on 

 the head and finish with the number of nails in the nearest 

 board fence. 



In zoology, the children must learn to say that the 

 family cat belongs to the animal kingdom; branch, verte- 

 brata; class, mammalia; order, carnivora; genus, felis; 

 and species, domesticus. They must learn this sort of 

 thing in order that they may pass their examinations, the 

 great end of school teaching. 



In chemistry, the pupils must learn to say a few things 

 about H 2 SO 4 , NaCl, Avogadro's hypothesis, Dalton's 

 atomic theory, MendelejefFs table, &c. No wonder they 

 hate the study ! In physics, the methods are quite as bad. 



The schools in which the great mass of the citizens are 

 taught have no means for teaching these subjects experi- 

 mentally. In the few schools where experiments are 

 performed let us inquire about their methods. There is 

 a little "playing with test-tubes and precipitates" in 

 chemistry and perhaps something is attempted in physics,. 

 but the pupils are not successful with many of the experi- 

 ments which they try and they say that the teacher seldom 

 makes his experiments turn out as the book requires; but 

 then he is always ready with some explanation, and his 



