EDITOR'S TABLE. 



843 



%&i\ax T s $aM*. 



ANOTHER BISHOP ON SCIENCE 

 TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



"W 



E were not a little surprised to 

 read in Nature some time ago 

 an article from which it appeared that 

 Bishop Temple, of London, had, in 

 an address delivered before the Dio- 

 cesau Conference, expressed his en- 

 tire opposition to the teaching of sci- 

 ence in elementary schools. So far 

 as these schools were concerned he 

 would he glad, he said, " if all these 

 scientific subjects were got rid of en- 

 tirely." Now Dr. Temple, as Nature 

 observes, is an experienced educator. 

 He was Head Master of Rugby at 

 the time when he wrote his celebrat- 

 ed paper on The Education of the 

 World in Essays and Reviews ; and 

 he has also been an inspector of 

 schools and principal of a training 

 college. He may therefore be sup- 

 posed to know a good deal about 

 education; and we can only regret 

 that we are not in possession of a 

 fuller statement of his views than 

 we find in the columns of our con- 

 temporary, as it is difficult to believe 

 that he could have expressed such 

 opinions as those quoted without 

 qualification. Nature, replying to 

 the bishop, proceeds to show how 

 important technical knowledge is to 

 the commercial prosperity of nations. 

 This does not fully meet the case, 

 however : technical knowledge may 

 be, and is doubtless, of the highest 

 importance to a nation's commercial 

 prosperity; and yet from an educa- 

 tional point of view it might (con- 

 ceivably) not be advisable to intro- 

 duce science into elementary schools. 

 The question is not as to teaching sci- 

 ence, but as to when to begin to teach 

 it and how to teach it in the earliest 

 stages. 



If Bishop Temple, who has al- 

 ways been regarded as a very en- 

 lightened man, means no more than 

 that science should not be so taught 

 to young children as to tyrannize 

 over their thoughts and cramp their 

 imaginations, we could agree with 

 him. If, on the other hand, he means 

 that there is no way of introducing the 

 teaching of science with advantage 

 into the education of the young, we 

 can only consider him seriously mis- 

 taken, and regret that he should have 

 given the weight of his authority to 

 a very hurtful idea. Many of our 

 readers are doubtless aware that 

 some eminent scientific authorities 

 have been profoundly dissatisfied 

 with the methods and results of sci- 

 ence teaching in the elementary 

 schools both of this country and of 

 England. In spite of their predilec- 

 tion for scientific studies they have 

 been forced to acknowledge that, 

 somehow or other, science as actual- 

 ly taught seemed in a great many 

 cases to possess little or no educative 

 value. The late Prof. Huxley was 

 very strong on this point, maintain- 

 ing that the fault lay in the excess- 

 ive use made of text-books and the 

 overloading of the mind with facts 

 which it could not properly assimi- 

 late. Bishop Temple may have wit- 

 nessed a similar phenomenon; but, 

 if so, the inference to draw is not 

 that there is no place for science in 

 elementary education, but that its 

 true place has not always been un- 

 derstood, or that those who have as- 

 sumed to teach it have not possessed 

 the skill and insight necessary to 

 bring it into vital relation with the 

 minds under their charge. 



As we take it, the business of sci- 

 ence in early education is not to go 



