THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD WITH CHILDREN. 63 



pounds. Such, study is unquestionably better adapted to the ninth 

 grade than to the sixth or lower grades. The classification of radi- 

 ates, articulates, and vertebrates has never had marked success in 

 high schools, and nothing worth mentioning has been done in that 

 line in grammar schools. 



After all that has been done in formulating courses in ele- 

 mentary science on paper in Boston, not to mention other places, 

 the work has never been in a more unsatisfactory condition than 

 now, since the first course was introduced into the schools a dozen 

 years ago. What has been called the scientific method has failed 

 in the elementary schools, if not in the high schools ; and now 

 another overturn of the course in science work is taking place in 

 Boston. 



How far the traditions and methods of the scientific schools 

 are responsible for the delay in reaching the child's point of de- 

 parture for things scientific can not be set down with exactness ; 

 but their isolation and conservatism certainly have not furnished 

 them with such conditions as could be turned to the advantage of 

 children just starting out into school life. 



In writing, we no longer adhere to pothooks and trammels ; 

 learning the alphabet and spelling a-b abs are not our best means 

 of teaching reading ; mere ciphering with abstract figures in arith- 

 metic has been superseded by more rational processes ; commit- 

 ting to memory paradigms and grammatical rules has failed to 

 enable students to use language fluently and correctly ; neverthe- 

 less, all those things were formerly considered essential elements, 

 and the only proper starting points for scientific teaching in the 

 lines of work indicated. So the starting points of the scientific 

 schools must be discarded for more natural and appropriate ones 

 in the elementary schools. We shall use the children's elements, 

 and discover upon what they work with interest and independ- 

 ence, how they work, what will best call out their activities and 

 enable them to teach themselves, and by what means they can 

 express their ideas best. The basis of instruction in elementary 

 science must be the child's natural method of working upon his 

 own elements, the things that are simple to him. His elements 

 of expression in language are words, not the elements of words ; 

 in drawing outlines, not points and straight and curved lines ; in 

 science, what he knows at first hand through the medium of his 

 own senses superficies, externals, not internals, anatomy, and re- 

 mote elements. A lack of knowledge of this side of science work 

 will make all other sides ineffectual. 



The science of teaching demands full recognition of an ade- 

 quate presentation of the subject to be taught. The normal 

 schools rightly claim that good reproduction naturally follows 

 good presentation ; but unfortunately they too often assume that 



