March 14, 1895J 



NATURE 



46; 



Britain ; but the proof of their marine origin remains to be 

 written. T hey contain no undisputed organic remains. The 

 rocks in which tliey are intercala edarenot proved to be altered 

 sedimentaries. There were numerous animals living in the 

 Salopian area in the Longmyndian epoch, for their trails are 

 quite abundant in some of the slaty seams ; but, if there were 

 no carbonate of lime in the sea, there could, of course, be 

 little material to provide shells for its inhabitant'^. Numerous 

 creatures of many types might have been evolved, whose 

 soft tis^ue would lenve no traces in the rocks. In suc- 

 ceeding ages, as the forces of denudation cleared off the newer 

 Archaean, and cut down into panially decomposed crystallines, 

 abundance of calcic carbonate would be carried d )wn into the 

 sea. C. Callaway. 



Wellington, Shropshire, March I. 



The Artificial Spectrum Top. 



In your issue of March 7, we notice a letter from Dr. Dawson 

 Turner, in which he says he has had a " Bcnha'n's .Spectrum 

 Top" m.ide on gla^s, by an optician, for the lantern, and 

 recommending others to do the same. 



Will you allow us to slate that we have sold all rights in this 

 copyright top to Messrs. Peais, reserving to ourselves only the 

 sole right of maki ig them as lan'.ern slides, in which for.u we 

 have been supplying them for some time. 



Theio;)s can be obtained from Messrs. Pears, and the lantern 

 slides from us ; any ons else supplyin;; either will, of course, be 

 infringing the copyright. Newton as'D Co. 



RESEARCH IN EDUCATION} 



NO branch of research work at the present day offers 

 greater opportunities, whilst none is more urgently 

 in need of original workers, than that which lies open 

 to the teacher in school or college ; and it is surprising 

 how small an amount of sound work is accomplished in 

 it — how little it is realised that there is a science of 

 education to be developed by persistent study, appli- 

 cation and research. An analytical habit of mind seems 

 to be the very last qualification sought for in a teacher — 

 such is the influence acquired by clerical instructors in 

 the course of centuries by the universal extension of 

 methods of teaching originated in the monkish cell and 

 cloisters, and wielded with but slightly diminished force, 

 even to-day, by their lineal descendants, whose voices 

 still preponderate in educational affairs. Conservative 

 and sheep-like — as we cannot fail to be if all our early 

 life be spent in an atmosphere of dogmatism — the slow- 

 ness with which we evolve and apply new ideas is 

 phenomenal. It cannot be that sterility is the outcome 

 of excessive labour in days gone by, and consequent 

 exhaustion of the soil ; still less, that it is owing to 

 absence of demand ; for it is only too clear that the 

 entire change in the conditions of life witnessed within 

 the century renders it necessary that our children should 

 be so educated that they may successfully grapple with 

 the new conditions, and it stands to reason that the 

 preparation which sufficed in the case of their forefathers 

 must be insufficient in theirs. This is now being 

 universally recognised, but all too slowly and imperfectly. 

 Thus the academic oration first on my list, delivered 

 only in September last, at Freiburg, by the Professor of 

 Anatomy, is a vigorous protest against the practice 



\ " Ueber die V'orbildung unserer akademischen Jugend an den human- 

 istischen Gymnasicn." — Programm wodurch zur I'eier dcs Geburlsfcstes 

 Miner kj)nigltchcn Hoheil unseres durchlauchtipstcn Grossherzogs Friedrich 

 im Namen des acidcmischen .Senats die angehorigcti der Albert-I-udwigs 

 Uoiversitat einladct dcr gegenw.^rtige Prorector Dr. Robert Wiedersheim. 

 <Freiburg. 1S94.) 



"The Teacher's Manual of Lessons on Elementary Science." By H. 

 Major, B.A., B.Sc, Inspector of Board Schools, Leicester. (Blackie and 

 Son.) 



'■ Practical Lessons ill Physical Measurement." By Alfred Earl, M..\. 

 Senior Science Master at Tonbridge School. (Macmillanand Co.) ' 



"A Labiratory Manual of Physics and Applied tleclricity." Arranged 

 jnd edited by Edward L. Nichols, Professor of Physics in Cornell 

 University. Vol I. Junior Cnurse in General Physics, by Ernest Merritt and 

 Frederick J. Rogers. Vol. IL Senii r Courses and Outlhics ol Advanced 

 Work, by G. 1. Moler. F. Bedall, H. J. Holckiss. C. P. Matthews, and the 

 Editor. (New York and London : Macmillan and Co.) 



VO. 1324, VOL. 5 l] 



prevailing in the German " Humanistic " Gymnasia of 

 devoting an enormous proportion of the school-time to 

 classical studies, and the consequent neglect of draw- 

 ing, natural science, geography and modern lan- 

 guages, as well as of gymnastic exercises, which is 

 very strange, as he points out, when it is remem- 

 bered that the meaning of gymnasium is a place 

 for athletic pursuits. He especially complains of the 

 way in which exercises in classical style are insisted on 

 and monopolise attention, and strenuously advocates 

 their banishment from the three lowest classes at least. 

 He refers with feeling to the pressure which is brought 

 to bear in school and at home on the child to whom 

 such work does not appeal, and the unhappy state of 

 house and family on "style-days," remarking that every 

 one who, like himself, has had this experience in his own 

 person and that of his children, will sympathise with 

 this view. He tells us that his own bitter experience of 

 thirty-five years ago still follows him in his dreams, and 

 that he can never forget the encouraging words hurled at 

 him by the master of the "Prima" of the Stuttgart 

 Gymnasium when he had done a bad Latin exercise — 

 " You never in your life will come to any good, as sure as 

 my name is Schmid." Is not this too often the attitude 

 of our schoolmasters, and is it not too often forgotten 

 that the human mind, fortunately, will not in all cases 

 respond to one uniform system of treatment? Surely 

 the time must soon come when it will be the main 

 duty of headmaster and headmistress to study their 

 scholars, and assort them in accordance with their apti- 

 tudes ; when no headmaster will set down a boy as of 

 inferior intellect merely because he does not get on well 

 on the classical side, and cannot therefore be made use 

 of with effect as the winner of a scholarship at the 

 university — a course which some of our most noted head- 

 masters appear too often to countenance if report belie 

 them not. Fortunately we are not here so much the victims 

 of educational overpressure as is Germany under the 

 terrible influence of its military system, although there 

 is enough to complain of, especially in the case of girls' 

 schools, owing to the improperly large number of sub- 

 jects included in the timetable ; moreover, examinations, 

 such as the London University Matriculation, are exer- 

 cising a most insidious effect : and now that County 

 Councils all over the country are granting scholarships 

 on the results of examinations, it behoves us to be much 

 on our guard, and to take steps to secure that all such 

 examinations are so conducted that reasonably well- 

 taught and reasonably intelligent scholars can be sub- 

 mitted to them without any interference with the normal 

 school course. Prof. Wiedersheim, referring to the very 

 one-sided training given in the Gymnasia to the future 

 jurist, theologian and philologist, calls attention to the 

 importance to such students of some knowledge of 

 natural science in the following passage, which un- 

 doubtedly deserves our attention, as we suffer in like 

 manner ; " Kein Gebildeter vermag sich heutzutage 

 dem Einflusse, welchen die Naturwissenschaften auf das 

 Geistesleben aller Culturnationen gewonnen haben, 

 mehr zu entziehen. Die ganze moderne Weltans- 

 schauung, unser Leben und Denken, die Forschung auf 

 alien Gebieten — ich erinnere nur an das auch in der 

 vergleichenden Linguistik zur Geltungkommende gene- 

 tische und causale Element — stehen unter der Signatur 

 der inductiven Forschung. Mit diesem Umschwung hat 

 auch das humanistische Gymnasium zu rechnen, sollen 

 nicht Juristen, Philologen und Thcologen in ihrem 

 ganzen Bildungsgang einen Fehler aufweisen, der oft 

 nicht mehr gut zu machen ist." Hut this is nowhere 

 properly recognised. And yet Charles Kingsley long 

 ago dreamt of a day when every candidate for ordina- 

 tion should be required to have passed creditably in at 

 least one branch of physical science — if only to teach 

 him the method 0/ sound scientific thought. Ur. Percival 



