shepherd] physical AXD CHEMICAL 333 



in point of subject attainment, but also in order to give them prop- 

 er basis for conclusions. It is not an easy matter for the boy 

 or girl in the grammar grades to abandon a position for which 

 he or she has contended, and peculiarly enough it is those who 

 need the training this work should give who are least dis- 

 posed to abandon an opinion already formed. In fact, it is 

 quite usual for children to conceive that their chief business 

 is to stand by some statement which they have made before their 

 classmates whether or not they can justify themselves for so do- 

 ing. In such cases it is a happy situation to have them face 

 a problem whose solution is not merely verbal and whose 

 standing is not determined by discussion and debate. In all work 

 the children must make good with the material with which they 

 are concerned. This making good means that when the opinion 

 has been formed it must be capable of demonstration and of being 

 approved by experiment. Some times a grammar grade room 

 has spent several months of their school year working with 

 balances in the solution of problems with which they were con- 

 cerned. 



It is quite possible at the end of a carefully planned study 

 to have the children work out the law governing the application of 

 the lever and to state it, although probably not. in fact usually 

 not, as it is stated in the science of physics. Many statements 

 have been made by children who have done the work herein indi- 

 cated which revealed proportions or ratios, simply because the 

 children making the study were at the time concerned with ratio 

 and proix)rtion in mathematics. One need not argue on this oc- 

 casion that it is worth while for everybody to know something 

 of the application of the lever, because it is not only everywhere 

 present but because there come times when all of us can use this 

 law to our advantage. 



Chicago Teachers' College. 



