526 



NA TURE 



[September 2;, 1S94 



science-teaching in miniature ; as some parents hold 

 that infant costume should be a simple and economical 

 adaptation of the parental garments. And so an elabo- 

 rate system of lecturing, note dictating, "model answer"' 

 grinding, has been evolved, which is not only not educa- 

 tional and a grievous waste of the pupils' energies, but 

 which seriously discredits the claims of science upon the 

 school time, in the eyes of ordinary educated people. 



This has been particularly the case in many middle 

 class schools, though (he recent abolition of the second 

 class pass in the May examination has done much, as 

 the Forty-first Report of the Department shows, towards 

 mending the miscbie.^ In connection with countless 

 higher grade and small grammar schools, classes, con- 

 taining as a rule only elementary pupils, and aiming 

 really only at second class passes, have been organised 

 from year to year. Not only was the science-teaching 

 given in the evening classes, but a considerable portion 

 of the daytime was devoted to model answer drill and 

 to mechanical copying out from the text-book. The 

 minimum of apparatus required by the Department 

 formed a picturesque addition to the schoolroom. This 

 discipline resulted in remunerative grants for second 

 class passes, but it resulted in very little else, except 

 perhaps a certain relaxation of the pupil's handwriting 

 and a certain facility in the misuse of scieniiric phrases. 

 The certificates were framed and glazed, the teacher 

 added a few modest comforts to his home, and there the 

 matter ended. 



The exammations of the .Science and Art Department 

 were scarcely to blame in this matter, although the blame 

 h.TS been generously awarded them. The Science and 

 Art Department is a large and convenient mark, it is 

 perfectly safe to throw at, and to attack it has something 

 of the romantic effect of David against Goliath. But we 

 must remember that its classes were primarily, as they 

 are still in intention, continuation and adult classes, an 

 outcome of the Mechanics' Institute movement, and it 

 was an unforeseen accident, and one the full bearing of 

 which only became apparent in the course of years, that 

 they should so seriously at'fect the teaching of middle- 

 class, and even of the higher standards of elementary, 

 schools. For their proper purpose as a test of lecture 

 teaching, the departmental e.\aminations are generally 

 efficient. Far more blameworthy are examining bodies 

 whose work is specially directed to school needs. The 

 College of Preceptors, for instance, while subsidising lec- 

 turers upon Educational Theory, has done nothing to 

 promote practical work in schools, and many ot its 

 examinations set a premium upon that vicious lecture 

 and text-book cramming which education.tl theory con- 

 demns. ,\ndin public schools over which the Department 

 has no influence, young gentlemen from the older univer- 

 sities, beginning educators without of course the faintest 

 knowledge of educational technique, set up precisely the 

 same imitation of the professorial course. We have in 

 consequence such a standing argument against science 

 teaching as that naive testimony of a prominent head- 

 master, that he found boys who had followed the classical 

 course for some years, and who then took up " science as 

 beginners," speedily outstripped those who, to the exclu- 

 sion of literary work, had been engaged during the same 

 time in what he regarded as scicntilic studies. 



So far the confusion between the two forms of elemen- 

 tary instruction has hampered science-teaching. liut 

 there can be no doubt that the educational reformer is 

 abroad. A large, if somewhat inchoate, body of criticism 

 has grown up, and good resolutions in the matter are 

 epidemic. A really educational scheme of instruction 

 in physics and chemistry now exists, having its base upon 

 the Kindergarten, and developing side by side with 

 elementary work in mathematics. .Mr. Earl's recently 

 published book upon Physical .Measurements is an 

 admirable exposition of what is here mtended by educa- 



NO. I3CO, VOL. 50] 



tional science-teaching. In this, information is entirely 

 subordinated to mental development. His course is 

 devoted to the measurement of space, mass and time, 

 and to the observation and methods of recording various 

 changes involving precise determinations. The first 

 exercise requires the pupil to "'measure the size or dimen- 

 sions in inches of the paper on which you are writing, 

 using for your standard a strip of paper one inch in 

 length, and which you have divided into halves, quarters, 

 and eighths ' : and the book concludes with experiments 

 upon torsion and the rotation of suspended bodies. The 

 course must inevitably constitute a firm foundation of 

 definite conce;)ts, and develop a clear and interrogative 

 habit of mind. It marks the line along which school 

 science teaching must move in the future, if it is to attain 

 that predominance which its advocates claim for it. Yet 

 at the same time it may not be premature to notice that 

 the new movement has its dangers. 



These dangers arise from the confusion between the 

 two distinct forms of science-teaching whose existence 

 is necessitated by the present condition of things. In the 

 past the error has been to treat children like adults ; in 

 the future it may be that adults will be treated like chil- 

 dren. Such exercises as the one we have noticed, are 

 excellent in developing concepts, but scarcely anything 

 could be devised more irksome and exasperating to a 

 mind already provided with a basis of definite ideas. 

 Nothing, for instance, could be belter calculated to dis- 

 courage an intelligent student of eighteen or nineteen, 

 curious about physics, than a day or so spent in manu- 

 facturing an unreliable millemttre scale. The problems 

 of the science are already more or less vaguely in his 

 mind, and there is every reason why these should be 

 made the starting-point. To produce an intellectual 

 parallel to the spiritual re-birth, is as impossible as it 

 would be to refer an unsatisfactory chicken back to the, 

 egg to reconsider its ontogeny. We have now, and shall, 

 have for an indefinite number of years, to provide for the 

 needs of a great number of people whose intellectual 

 development is nearly or quite at an end, whose curiosity 

 about nature is already aroused, and whose practical 

 needs are also pressing for scientific information, and 

 yet who are ignorant of any but the veriest common- 

 places of science. For them the .Science and Ait 

 Department classes were designed and are well adapted. 

 It will be an unfortunate thing if the criticisms of the 

 educational reformer should so far overshoot the mark 

 as to afl'ect their instruction. Yet one might suggest that 

 a downward age limit, similar to that of the London 

 L^niversity Matriculation, might save many a school- 

 master from the temptations of the possibility of grant- 

 earning— a temptation, however, from which the abolition 

 of the second class in the elementary stage has alre.ady 

 to some extent relieved him. H. G. WEI is. 



WITH PROF. HEIM IN THE EASTERN ALPS. 



THE excursion with Prof. A. Heim, of Zurich, which 

 came to a happy end on September 1 5 at Lugano, 

 was one full of interest to students of tectonic geology. 

 It afforded those who were fortunate enough to take part 

 a rare opportunity of seeing in the field some of the classic 

 sections with whicli the name of Heim has been for 

 many years associated, and, better still, of seeing the genial 

 author of the " .Mechanismus der Clebirgsbildung '' himself 

 climbing his native Alps as nimbly as a chamois, and 

 expounding his own work face to face with the hard facts 

 on which his conclusions have been based. The party, 

 numbering at the outset twenty-three, left Zurich on the 

 3rd, after the close of the Geological Congress, and took 

 tram to Appenzel, spending the first night at Weissbad, 

 a village nestling peacefully beneath the rugged peaks 

 of the Sanlis Kange. Ihis magnificent buttress of the 



