254 



-NATURE 



[November 6, 1919 



I was a pupil in 1856. It was kept by a kindly 

 old clergyman, who would, in the occasional 

 absence of the lecturer, quack a bit himself and 

 sometimes show experiments, not always well 

 chosen. I remember seeing- the cruel operation 

 of putting a mouse under the receiver of the air- 

 pump and extracting the air. And though Stock- 

 hardt's " Experimental Chemistry " was the text- 

 book, the boys made no experiments for them- 

 selves, but were required to commit to memory 

 passages from the book, such as " iodine has a 

 violet vapour." There were no school laboratories 

 in those days, even in the great public schools, 

 neither was natural science so much as mentioned 

 in the great majority of the schools in the country. 



There can be no doubt that the Great Exhibi- 

 tion in 1851 set many people thinking, for in 1853 

 the Department of Science and Art was created 

 with the object of assisting in the establishment 

 of local science schools and classes. Many of the 

 first created schools failed, and in 1859 the only 

 classes in actual operation under the Department 

 were at Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, and 

 Wigan. 



The difficulty at that time arose chiefly 

 from the scarcity of competent teachers willing to 

 undertake the work, and a system was therefore 

 inaugurated by which persons who passed the 

 examinations held by the Department were con- 

 sidered qualified to teach and to earn payment on 

 results. The system, with modifications, grew to 

 gigantic proportions, and, whatever may have 

 been said in later years in the way of criticism 

 by those who object to all kinds of examinations, 

 there can be no doubt that the existence of these 

 classes served to spread an elementary knowledge 

 of physical and natural science very widely 

 through the country, and especially among the 

 industrial classes, who would otherwise never have 

 found their way into any place of higher instruc- 

 tion. 



With regard to the introduction of systematic 

 teaching of science into public schools and others 

 of similar rank, there is the evidence of the 

 Rev. W. Tuckwell, headmaster of Taunton 

 School, who, in a paper contributed to the British 

 Association at Exeter in 1869, stated that science 

 had been taught at Taunton "for the last five 

 years " and at the rate of not less than three hours 

 a week. This was, however, a marked exception, 

 for from the first report of the Duke of Devon- 

 shire's Commission it appears that in 1864 science 

 did not exist in the programme of the largest and 

 most famous schools. Very soon after this, how- 

 ever, systematic teaching, associated with prac- I 

 tical work, began at Clifton, Rugby, and the 

 Manchester Grammar School, and this example 

 was soon followed elsewhere. Nevertheless, the 

 Commissioners reported that in 1875, of 128 

 endowed schools examined, not one half had even 

 attempted to introduce it, while only thirteen had 

 a laboratory, and only ten gave so much as four 

 hours a week. It was uphill work. Obstruction 

 was rampant, not only among the headmasters, 

 but also in the old universities to which the schools 

 NO. 2610, VOL. 104] 



passed on their boys. The distribution of scholar- 

 ships at that time was most unfair, and mischief 

 was done by the procedure of the Oxford and 

 Cambridge Schools Examination Board, which 

 sent down examiners, sometimes ill-qualified for 

 their office, who set unsuitable questions from 

 the text-books with very little reference to the 

 teaching. 



At the present day all the great schools are 

 provided with spacious laboratories and an equip- 

 ment generally superior to that which was to be 

 found in many British universities fifty years ago. 

 Moreover, there is now a large body of highly 

 efficient and enthusiastic teachers, not only in the 

 schools for boys, but also in the high schools for 

 girls, which have sprung up since that day. The 

 science masters have formed an association which 

 includes representatives of all the great public 

 schools and many others — in all, upwards of three 

 hundred members. The science mistresses have a 

 separate association of their own, and as the prob- 

 lems they have before them are very nearly the 

 same as those which interest the masters, it seems 

 a pity that the two associations are not amalgam- 

 ated. The existence of these associations and the 

 position of influence to which the Association of 

 Science Masters has attained show the changed 

 position of physical and natural science as a 

 school subject. There are, however, schools still 

 where the headmaster stands in the way of the 

 development of science teaching ; there is the 

 persistent, ignorant demand on the part of the 

 public for those subjects only which are supposed 

 to lead immediately to remunerative business ; 

 there is the almost total ignorance in Whitehall, 

 in Parliament, and in the Ministry of the common- 

 places of physical science ; there are the in- 

 different methods still employed in classic:J 

 teaching whereby an enormous waste of time 

 is incurred : all these are circumstances which 

 operate • perennially against that kind of 

 recognition of physical science in education 

 which is essential to national progress, and 

 must continue to be the subject of conflict 

 until a state of balance between the advocates of 

 the old and of the new has been established. 



From the schools we may now turn to see what 

 has been accomplished at the universities. In the 

 early sixties of the nineteenth century the position 

 of science at Oxford is indicated by the fact that 

 Dr. C. G. B. Daubeny occupied down to 1867 the 

 chair of chemistry simultaneously with that of 

 botany. An undergraduate who chose to "go in 

 for stinks " could attain a degree, but it was B..^. 

 Daubeny's successor, Sir Benjamin Brodie, was a 

 distinguished chemist, and in his evidence before 

 the Roval Commission in 1873 he plainly stated his 

 view that Oxford did nothing to extend scientific 

 knowledge — that is to say, that research was not 

 encouraged. At Cambridge things were in much 

 the same position. There were some distinguished 

 scientific professors, of whom Stokes was one of 

 the most eminent, but there was no university 

 laboratory, though one had been opened at 

 St. John's College. At this time and for 



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