298 THE EDUCATIONAL CLAIMS OF BOTANY. 



of evidence, and to guard against that carelessness of assump- 

 tion and that credulous confidence in the loose statements 

 of others, which is one of the gross mental deficiencies we 

 everywhere encounter. This is one of the rights of the under- 

 standing too little respected in the school-room. Instead of 

 being called into independent activity, children's minds are 

 rather repressed by authority. In the whole system of word- 

 teaching the statements have to be taken on trust. " This is the 

 rule," and "that the usage," and the say-so of book and teacher 

 is final. Granted that much, at any rate, in education is to be 

 accepted on authority, it is all the more necessary that there 

 Should be, in some departments, such an assiduous cultivation 

 of personal observation and independent judgment as may 

 serve to guard against errors from this source. 



It may be said that arithmetic forms an exception to what 

 is here stated respecting the prevalence of authority in schools, 

 as its operations are capable of independent proof. This is 

 true, but the exception is of such a nature that it cannot serve 

 as a correction; for it reasons not from observed facts, but from 

 assumed numerical data. Mathematics, says Prof. Huxley, " is 

 that study which knows nothing of observation, nothing of 

 induction, nothing of experiment, nothing of causation." 



The foregoing strictures, I am aware, have a variable appli- 

 cability to different schools. Many teachers are alive to these 

 evils, and strive in various ways to mitigate them ; but the 

 statement, nevertheless, holds sadly true in its general applica- 

 tion. There is a radical deficiency of existing educational 

 methods which cannot be supplied by the mere make-shift in- 

 genuity of instructors, but requires some systematic and effec- 

 tual measure of relief. 



VI. WHAT IS NOW MOST NEEDED. 



To supply this unquestionable deficiency, we should de- 

 mand the introduction into primary education, in addition to 

 reading, writing, and arithmetic, of A FOURTH FUNDAMENTAL 



BKANCH OF STUDY, WHICH SHALL AFFORD A SYSTEMATIC TRAIN- 

 ING OF THE OBSERVING POWERS. We are entitled to require 

 that, when the child enters school, it shall not take leave of the 



