2o6 



NATURE 



{July 15, 1875 



practical acquaintance with the reactions which they have 

 so often written down, and which in future they will 

 regard with an altogether new interest and delight. 

 Others more advanced are conducting analyses, or per- 

 haps making "combustions "—if in the advanced group, 

 studying organic chemistry. All are intensely busy, and 

 work with a fixed purpose before them. The same quiet 

 activity is noticeable in the different subjects going on in 

 the other rooms. Entering last the physical laboratory 

 on the ground floor, we find the teachers constructing 

 apparatus which, though simple and often rough, is well 

 adapted for teaching purposes. The raw material is 

 provided them, printed instructions are given to each 

 one, and under the direction of Prof. Guthrie, and the 

 gentlemen associated with him, the most useful physical 

 instruments are built up. These instruments are then 

 employed in repeating the experiments seen in the 

 morning lecture, or in making physical measurements 

 wherever it is possible to do so. The homely apparatus, 

 it is true, has not the polish of the instrument-maker, but 

 in delicacy and efficiency is, generally speaking, far better 

 than the teachers could purchase out of the small grants 

 allowed to them tor that purpose. With a wise liberality 

 the Department permits each teacher to take home with 

 him, without any charge, all the apparatus he himself has 

 made : and one can easily imagine the pleasure with which 

 these simple and useful instruments are afterwards looked 

 upon and used by those who have made them. Nor is this 

 all! ; the impulse to sound and practical science teaching is 

 given, and at the same time the hands have been discipHned 

 to useful skill, and the senses trained to accurate observa- 

 tion. After such preparation good use is made by the 

 teachers of the more refined physical instruments which 

 are set before them, but which are beyond their time or 

 power to construct for themselves. It is most instructive 

 to watch one of these men as he makes his first essay, and 

 to trace the growth of his education in manipulative skill 

 and in practical knowledge of his subject. We propose in 

 our next number to go more fully into detail in this matter, 

 and to describe some of the simple physical apparatus 

 made by the teachers. 



But the good work done by the Department does not 

 rest here. In addition to giving practical instruction to 

 teachers in short summer courses, free admission to ex- 

 tended courses of lectures and practical instruction in 

 Chemistry, Physics, Mechanics, and Biology at South 

 Kensington was granted to a limited number of teachers 

 and students who intended to become science teachers. 

 The selected candidates received a traveUing allowance, 

 and a maintenance allowance of 25J. a week while in 

 London. The courses in Chemistry and Biology com- 

 menced in October of last year and ended in the early 

 spring, when the courses in Physics and Mechanics began, 

 and these closed at the beginning of this summer. From 

 ten to sixteen teachers in training attended these different 

 classes, and worked daily from 10 to 5 at the subjects they 

 had chosen, in the evening writing up their notes and memo- 

 randa. Botany was not included in the foregoing series, 

 but it was not forgotten. In January last the Lords of 

 the Committee of Council on Education gave directions 

 for a practical course on this subject. The course was 



* This refers to last year ; the teachers' summer course on BioUgy has 

 been omitted this session. 



given by Prof. Thiselton Dyer, and commenced on the 

 4th of March last, extending over eight weeks. It was 

 attended by twenty-three science teachers and persons 

 intending to become science teachers ; these received 

 precisely the same advantages as the teachers in training 

 in the other subjects. 



The value of such courses as these can hardly be over- 

 estimated, and we trust that no niggardly policy will lead 

 the Government to restrict the great and good work they 

 have begun. We hope there is no cause for apprehension 

 in the apparent neglect of Biology in the summer course 

 given this year, and what seems to us a little diminution 

 of the strength of the staff in another subject. The 

 improvement in the quality of the education given by the 

 science teachers is already making itself felt. The reports 

 of the May examiners for recent years show that " while 

 the general average has been maintained throughout, the 

 instruction had in some subjects decidedly improved." 

 But it will necessarily take a few years to lift up so large 

 a constituency. Surely and slowly it is being done, and 

 the masses of the country are gaining a sound elementary 

 knowledge of science. Whilst the magnificent laboratories 

 of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and Dublin 

 are nearly empty, Owens College and the classes under 

 the Department are crowded with active and earnest 

 workers. 



The several large educational societies of England have 

 availed themselves for some years past of the benefits 

 offered by the Science and Art Department, with the 

 object of turning the students out of their Training Col- 

 leges as thoroughly fitted as possible for their future 

 scholastic career ; and the continuance of this system for 

 the future is now further assured by the necessity of their 

 being provided with Government certificates in science in 

 order to secure employment under the London School 

 Board, or indeed at any of the first-class Elementary 

 Schools throughout the country. 



An impartial view of the facts we have placed 

 before our readers will show that what the Universities 

 might have done from above, others are doing from 

 beneath. Science, instead of forming the delightful pur- 

 suit of the leisure classes, and thence distilling downwards 

 to the workers, is, on the contrary, first becoming an 

 integral part of the education of the toilers of the country. 

 England, in fact, is being scientifically educated from 

 below. 



DARWIN ON CARNIVOROUS PLANTS 



I. 



Insectivorous Plants. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S., 



&c. With Illustrations. (London : J. Murray, 1875.) 



TO have predicted, after the publication of Mr. 

 Darwin's works on the Fertilisation of Orchids and 

 the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants, that the 

 same writer would hereafter produce a still more valuable 

 contribution to botanical literature, characterised to an 

 even greater extent by laborious industry and critical 

 powers of observation, and solving or suggesting yet more 

 important physiological problems, would have seemed the 

 height of rashness. And yet, had such a prediction been 

 made, it would have been amply justified by the present 



