NA TURE 



365 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1876 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 



AT a meeting of the British Association five years ago, 

 the subject of science teaching in our higher 

 schools excited unusual interest. Not only were papers 

 read and followed by enthusiastic discussion, but a com- 

 mittee was privately formed, including more than twenty 

 leaders of the association, all of whom undertook to 

 combine in pressing the claims of science on our head- 

 masters, and in offering counsel as to systems and 

 methods, apparatus, and expenditure. Technical diffi- 

 culties prevented the formal nomination of the committee 

 in that year ; and before the next meeting came round 

 the Science Commission was in full work, and the ground 

 was covered. Five years have passed ; the Commission 

 has reported ; and the British Association, if it deals 

 at all with the problem that lies at the root of our 

 scientific progress, will have to face the fact that only 

 ten endowed schools in England give as much as 

 four hours a week to the study of science ; in other 

 words, that in spite of ten years of talk, the hlat of 

 a Royal Commission, a complete consensus of scientific 

 authority, and the loud demands of less educated but not 

 less keen-sighted public opinion, the organisation and 

 practical working of science in our higher schools has 

 scarcely advanced a step since the Schools Inquiry 

 Commission reported in 1868. 



Are the causes of this strange paralysis discoverable, 

 and are they capable of present remedy ? We believe 

 that they are notorious, and that it is in the power of the 

 British Association at the present moment to overrule 

 them. It is therefore in the hope of rekindling a produc- 

 tive enthusiasm at a critical moment in the history of our 

 science teaching that we appeal with all the earnestness 

 of which we are capable to the leaders of the great 

 parliament, whose session will have opened before this 

 day week. 



The first obstacle to be understood and reckoned with, 

 is the amazing confusion in the minds of unscientific 

 leaders of opinion as to the very nature of education. An 

 ex- Lord Chancellor gives away prizes to a school, declares 

 in stately terms that Greek and Latin must always form 

 the backbone of high intellectual training, and that the 

 sciences can only be tolerated as a sort of ornament or 

 capital to this great central vertebral column. On the 

 following day an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer gives 

 away prizes at another school, assures the boys that 

 modern scientific teaching is their being's end and aim, 

 and envies them by comparison with himself, who at 

 Winchester and Oxford basked only in the " clarum 

 antiqucE lucis jubar." In all such public utterances chaos 

 reigns supreme. Men take side with one or other branch 

 of mental discipline, unconscious of the Nemesis which 

 waits on the divorce of literature from science, or of 

 science from literature, forgetful of the fundamental 

 truths that all minds require general training up to a certain 

 point, and that the period at which special education 

 should supervene is the problem which awaits solution. 



The hostility of the clergy ranks high among the diffi- 

 culties we have to recognise. To the great public schools 

 Vol. XIV.— No. 357 



this is matter of indifference ; but the vigorous head- 

 master of a young and rising county school, who attempts, 

 being himself a clergyman, to make real science com- 

 pulsory in his school, is rattened by the vulgar heresy- 

 hunters, who swarm in every diocese. The hint and 

 shrug in society, the whisper at clerical conferences, the 

 warning to parents attracted by the school against " athe- 

 istic tendencies," keep down his numbers and wear out 

 his energies, till his enterprise becomes a warning instead 

 of an example to his admirers at other schools. In a 

 neighbourhood of rural squires and clergy, untempered 

 by a large town's neighbourhood, and unchecked by any 

 man of education and intelligence holding sovereignty by 

 virtue of superior rank and wealth, a school which treads 

 doggedly in the ancient paths and is flavoured with gentle 

 " High Church tendencies," will certainly succeed even in 

 second-rate hands, while a school which under superior 

 chieftainship asserts the claims of science, and whose 

 theology is therefore suspect, will as certainly long struggle 

 for existence, if it does not finally succumb. 



The head-masters, with no inveterate intention, but by 

 the force of circumstances, are potent allies upon the side 

 of nescience. Their position is peculiar. Enlightened, 

 able, high-minded, and most laborious, to speak of them 

 with disrespect would be to forfeit claim to a hearing. But 

 of their v/hole number not more than two or three know 

 anything at all of science ; they have gained honours and 

 supremacy by proficiency in other subjects ; to teach well 

 these subjects which they know, forms their happiness and 

 satisfies their sense of duty ; and they feel natural dis- 

 may at the proposal to force upon them new and untried 

 work which they have not knowledge to supervise, and 

 which must displace whole departments of classical study. 

 Bifurcation they do not mind, for they hope that the 

 dunces will be drafted into the modern school, and the 

 clever boys retained upon the classical side ; but the mo- 

 mentous recommendation of the Royal Commission that 

 six hours a week of science teaching should be given to 

 every boy in every school has taken away their breath ; 

 it was only once alluded to at the last head-masters' meet- 

 ing, and then with something between a protest and a 

 sneer. They are too clear-sighted not to see that the 

 demand for science teaching is real, and too liberal not 

 readily to accede to it, if some central authority, which 

 they respect, at once puts pressure on them, and tenders 

 such assistance and advice as they can trust. But, until 

 these two things are done, they will pursue a policy of 

 inaction. 



Nor is there any hope that this reluctance of head- 

 masters will be stimulated by exuberant energy on the 

 part of governing bodies. The instances in which these 

 pet creations of the Endowed Schools Commission have 

 appeared before the public hitherto, make it evident that 

 absolute inactivity is the service they are best calculated 

 to render to the cause of education ; but their probable 

 devotion to science may be guessed from an incident 

 reported in our columns some months ago, where a body 

 of trustees, composed of country gentlemen of local mark, 

 having to arrange a competitive examination under a 

 scheme of the Charity Commission, adopted the machinery 

 of the University Leaving Examination, but inserted a 

 distinct proviso that no scientific subject recognised by 

 the University Regulations shotild imder any circum- 



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