66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fair prospect of discovering the true scientific method in teaching 

 children. 



I have seen an elementary school of some six hundred pupils, 

 in which teachers and pupils follow closely the scientific spirit, if 

 not the very letter, so far as it should be followed by children 

 varying from five to fifteen years of age. All do the same kind 

 of work, which is allowed to vary in quantity and quality in ac- 

 cordance with the natural ability, individuality, and originality 

 of each pupil. Local material almost exclusively is examined in- 

 dividually, each pupil thinking and passing judgment for him- 

 self, and expressing his ideas accordingly in writing and drawing. 

 The disposition to attack, to take hold, to investigate, and to make 

 careful records of his own ideas and discoveries is cultivated stu- 

 diously by keeping the pupil in the foreground and the teacher 

 in the background. The prominent instructor, questioner, talker, 

 gives place to the quiet director, inconspicuous but working with 

 the effectiveness that characterizes the silent forces of Nature. 

 The work is entirely independent of the normal school and the 

 scientific school, but it is suitable, plastic, and power-giving. 



A brief mention of some of the materials used in the work and 

 a description of how they are used may serve to show whether 

 the work is worth doing. 



Each pupil is supplied with a specimen (all the specimens be- 

 ing of the same kind), such as can be found in the neighborhood 

 a leaf, a vegetable root, a nut, an insect, a rock, a flower, etc. 

 which he examines carefully, draws, and describes in writing, ac- 

 cording to a very simple plan consisting of four or five words 

 written on the blackboard. The words indicate the order of the 

 work and the paragraphs of the description. The pupil is let 

 entirely alone until he has done all he can do. 



To draw his specimen he looks at it one way and gets one good 

 presentation and impression; to describe it he examines it in a 

 different way and gets another good presentation and impression 

 a process that holds him to his work without his being told 

 what to look at, what to draw, and what to describe. He helps 

 himself, and soon forms and fixes the habits of application and 

 self-reliance. His work shows his teacher exactly where he is in 

 drawing and descriptive work. Constantly judging of propor- 

 tions, especially those of irregular objects, he soon learns to grasp 

 the proportions of various forms quickly and to represent them 

 with such facility and accuracy as to surprise teachers who have 

 carried out only the regulation course in drawing. Many pupils 

 can draw natural objects much more satisfactorily than they can 

 describe them in words, and that, too, without formal instruction. 



The ordinary courses of instruction in drawing, treating al- 

 most exclusively of artificial and symmetrical forms, have not 



