SCIENCE IN EDUCATION 



one year." Later on, Evelyn made a similar complaint. 

 " At most schools/' he wrote, " there is a casting away of 

 six or seven years in the learning of words only, and that, 

 too, very imperfectly." 



Quite recently the number of years usually given to 

 Latin and Greek in the public schools has been shown by 

 a striking experiment to be greatly excessive. 



Last March the Minister of Education gave an account 

 in the Prussian Chamber of the so-called " reform schools," 

 in which the study of the classics is begun for Latin at 

 twelve, and for Greek not until the age of fourteen, with 

 the encouraging result that, of 125 pupils who presented 

 themselves for the leaving examination, only four failed 

 to pass, and, of these four, three succeeded three months 

 later. Experience showed that, as the result of beginning 

 Latin and Greek at a later age, the interest of the pupils 

 in their work was much keener, and their progress much 

 more rapid. 



Improved methods of teaching the classical languages 

 which would permit of the beginning of the study of 

 them at a later age, would leave ample time for an early 

 training in experimental science, so welcome to the young 

 inquiring mind, which must soon come to be recognised as 

 an essential part of all education. 



In future no Grammar or Higher School should be con- 

 sidered as properly provided for, unless furnished with the 

 necessary apparatus for teaching experimentally the funda- 

 mental principles of mechanics, physics, and biology. The 



