October 25, 1894] 



NA TURE 



°0J 



on an adequate acqviainlance with their phyjical, chemical, anl 

 vital properties, as the case may be: thit is, it depenl; on 

 :ience. This order of knowled,;e, which is in great pirt 

 ;nored in our school ciurses, is the order of knowledge under- 

 lying the right performance of thoie processes by which civi- 

 lised life is made possible. Undeniable as is this truth, there 

 seems to be no living consciousness of it : its very familiarity 

 Tiakes it unregarded. . , . That which our school courses leave 

 .almost entirely out, we thus find to be that which most nearly 

 concerns the business of life. Our industries would cease, were 

 it not for the inform.ation which men begin to acquire, .as they 

 best may, after their education is said to be finished. And 

 were it not for the information, from age to age accumulated 

 and spread by unofficial means, these industries would never 

 have existed. Had there been no teaching but such as goes on 

 in our public schools, England would now be what it was in 

 feudal times. That increasing acquaintance with the laws of 

 phenomena, which has through successive ages enabled us to 

 subjugate nature to our needs, and in these days gives the 

 common labourer comforts which a few centuries ago kings 

 could not purchase, is scarcely in any degree owed to the 

 appointed means of instrucling our youth. The vital know- 

 ledge — that by which we have grown as a nation to what we 

 are, and which now underlies our whole existence, is a know- 

 ledge that has got itself taught in nooks and corners ; while the 

 ordained agencies for teaching have been mumbling little else 

 but dead formulas." 



Some improvement there has been since Herbert Spencer 

 wrote, but chiefly in technical teaching ; and there is yet no 

 national appreciation of what constitutes true education : fashion 

 and vested interests still largely dominate educational policy. 



Another advocate of the teaching of scientific method to whom 

 I would refer you is Charles Kingsley, the celebrated divine, 

 but also a birn naturalist possessed of the keenest poivers of 

 observation, a novelist of the first rank, and a poet. Read his 

 life, and you will find it full of inspiration and comfort. Study 

 his scientific lectures and essays (vol. xix. of his "Collected 

 Works," Macinillan and Co.), and you will not only learn why 

 "science " is of use, but will have before you a valuable model 

 of method and style. A friend — x member of the Lond >n 

 County Council — to whoai I happened to send some of my 

 papers, noting my frequent references to Kingsley, remarked, 

 ** How very fond you are of his writings I " Intleed I am, for 

 they seem to me to display a truer grasp of the importance of 

 scientific method and of its essential character than do any 

 other works with which I am acquainted. I recommend them 

 because they are pleasant as well as profitable reading, and 

 because our text-books generally are worthless for the purpose 

 I have in view. Any ordinary person of intelligence can read 

 Herbert Spencer's and Kingsley's essays and can appreciate 

 them, especially Kingsley's insistent application of the scientific 

 principle of always proceeding from the known ti) the unknown ; 

 but few can read a text-book of science — moreover, the 

 probable effect of most of these would be to dissuade rather 

 :han persuade. 



Kingsley's great point — and Herbert Spencer's also — is that 

 what people want to learn is not so much what is, still less what has 

 seen, but how to do. And the object you must set before your- 

 ielves will be to turn out boys and girls who, in prop irtion to 

 heir natural gifts — for, as every one knows, you cannot make 

 I silken purse from a sow'sear — have become inipiiring, ob- 

 tervant, reasoning beings, ever thoughtful and exact and pains- 

 aking and therei^ore trustworthy workers. To turn out such 

 !s the whole object of our scheine, whici chielly aims at the 

 levelopment of intelligence and the formation of character, 

 n your schools information must be gmneJ, not imparted. 

 Vfter describing how the intelligent moiher trains her you'ig 

 thild, Herbert .Spencer remarks :— " To tell a child this and 

 o sJioiu it the other, is not to teach it how to observe, but to 

 nake it a mere recipient of another's observations : a proceed- 

 ng which weakens rather than strengthens its powers of sclf- 

 nstruclion — which deprives it of the pleasures resulting frotn 

 uccessful activity — -which presents this all attractive knowledge 

 inder the asuect of formal tuition. . . " V'ou must train the 

 hildren under your care to help themselves in every possible 

 'ay, and give up always feeding them with a spoon. Abolish 

 :arning lessons by rote as far as possible. Devote every mo nent 

 ou possibly can to practical work, an 1 having stated a problem 

 jave it to the children if possible to find a solu ion. Enc >ur- 

 L;e inquisitiveness, but suggest methods by which they may 



NO. 1304, VOL. 50] 



answer their own questions by expeiinient or trial or by appeal 

 to dictionaries or simple works of reference, part of the 

 furniture of the schoolroom, and lead them to make use of the 

 public library even : in after life you will not be at their elbows, 

 but books will always be available, and if they once grow ac- 

 customed to treat these as friends to whom they can appeal for 

 help, you will have done them infinite service and will un- 

 doubtedly infuse many with the desire to continue their studies 

 after leaving school. Under our present system school books 

 are cast aside with infinite relief at the earliest possible moment , 

 and the desire for amusement alone remains. Teach history, geo- 

 graphy and much besides from the daily papers, and so prepare 

 them to read the papers with intelligence and interest, and to pre- 

 fer them to penny dreadfuls and the miserable, often indecent, 

 illustrated rubbish with which weare nowadays so terribly afflicted. 

 At the same time, make it clear to them that the editorial "we " 

 is but an " I," and that assertion does not constitute proof. If 

 such be your teaching, and it have constant reference to things 

 natural, you will also — as Herbert Spencer points out in a very 

 remarkable passage — without fail be giving much religious 

 culture, using the word in its highest acceptation, for, as he 

 says, "it is the refusal to study the surrounding creation that is 

 irreligious." As I have already said, onegreal — indeed thegreat 

 — object of our teaching is the formation of character : and if you 

 teach your pupils to be careful, exact ami observant, and they be- 

 come trustworthy workers, you are giving much training of the 

 highest excellence ; and if they have enjoyed such training, 

 what does it ma'ter what facts they know when they leave 

 school ? 



But [ hear you say that the inspectors will not allow all this. 

 Gentlemen, do no; fear the inspectors — they also are advancing ; 

 they also are learning that literary methods are insufTicient. that 

 desk studie; must nit absorb the entire attention of the 

 scholars ; that greater latitude must be permitted to the 

 teachers, and especially in the direction of devising more suit- 

 able methods. And a new race of inspectors is coming into 

 existence. Mr. Gordon, I know, had diflficulties with the 

 inspectors ; but when they realised that he understood his 

 business and learnt to appreciate his work, they soon became 

 his supporters. 



.•\.nd with appreciative ministers like Mr. .-^cland at the head 

 of affairs, we shall move far more quickly than heretofore, and 

 shall be able soon to entirely throw off the cast-iron bonds of 

 control by examination and payment on results — a refined 

 method of torture affecting both teachers and taught most dis- 

 a-strously. We know that a holiday spent under healthy con- 

 ditions at the seaside or in the country is of the greatest service. 

 We are becoming accustomed to take care that our houses are 

 properly ventilated and drained, and to rest satisfied that when 

 this is the cise their inhabitants may safely be left to them- 

 selves. In like manner, in future, we shall take care that our 

 schools are fully provided with all necessary proper appliances 

 — in which I include teachers — and we shall see that the 

 teachers are working in accordance with a proper system ; but 

 we shall trouble ourselves little about ihe taught, feeling that if 

 they hive been placed under healthy con li ions they cannot fail 

 to have benefited, however little this may he apparent on the 

 surface. In the riays to com-- the work of the teachers will be 

 directly criticised; they, not their pupils, will be examined: 

 bui alw.ays by coopetent and sympathetic inspectors who have 

 become acquainted wiih the work and is difficulties practically, 

 and are nit mere the irists, wh ise miin function will be that of 

 guide, philos .phcr ind frien I — not th U of ini)uisitor. 



In the course that you are about to attend under Mr. Heller — 

 the demonstrator upon whom his fallen the mantle previously 

 worn by Mr. Gordon, and who is equally desirous of promoting 

 and devising rational methods of leaching — you will in the first 

 place devote your attention to exercises in measurement, includ- 

 ing much that is ordinarily taught under mechanics and physics, 

 the prime object of which is to leach accuracy of obsTvation. 

 You will then study aseriesof prolileins, mainly chemical, which 

 have been arranged chielly in order to cultivate reasoning 

 powers and to teach the research method. In fact, what we 

 want to do is, as far as possilile, to put every scholar in the 

 position of the discoverer. The world always has and ever will 

 advance through discovery ; discoveiies, however, are rarely 

 m.ade accidentally — indeed we aH p.ass fro 11 ignorance to know- 

 ledge by discovery, and by discovering howtodo things that we 

 have not dune before we ever increase our powers of usefulness : 

 we all require therefore to be taught how to discover, although 



