March 14, 1895] 



NA TURE 



465 



functory way, as a rule, with the object of qualifying the 

 student to do technical analyses, and the importance of 

 measurements in establishing first principles is never 

 taught practically, but is merely talked about : the result 

 is that only the few who study the subject professionally, 

 really grasp the meaningof the fundamental quantitative 

 conceptions of our science. It is not surprising that 

 under such a system, being helped over every stile, and 

 having no training in research methods, our students are 

 so very rarely properly educated. And altogether false 

 ideas have arisen also as regards the value of true 

 research work, this having been allowed in far too many 

 cases to degenerate into mere preparation-making, or 

 mere measurement work. There are many among us who 

 have recognised these shortcomings in our method, but 

 tradition exerts its all-powerful influence, and little short 

 of a revolution is required to reintroduce a truly scientific 

 procedure into our schools and examinations — to lead 

 teachers to recognise that the only proper method is to 

 make students researchers from the very outset. These 

 remarks are but prompted by the desire to acknowledge 

 that if I throw stones, 1 am fully aware that I dwell in a 

 glasshouse ; and especially to make it clear what is the 

 point of view from which I regard the problem before 

 the teacher of any branch of natural science. 



The teaching of physics practically is of quite recent 

 introduction. When I was a student at ,he Royal 

 School of Mines, there were only lectures on physics ; 

 and when, about fourteen years ago, my colleague Prof. 

 Ayrton and I visited all the chief continental schools, we 

 found the practical courses in a very embryonic state. 

 Now, although we have nowhere a laboratory which will 

 compare in size or completeness of fittings with the 

 palace erected at Ziirich, practical physics is taught in all 

 science schools and colleges, and the London University 

 requires even candidates at the Intermediate Science 

 and Preliminary Scientific (IVl.H.) examinations to pass 

 a practical test. Many of the courses are very com- 

 plete. I shall not easily forget the pleasure which I ex- 

 perienced on the occasion of a recent visit to Prof. 

 Quincke's laboratory at Heidelberg from seeing there 

 the marvellously simple, but jet exact, apparatus used 

 in the practical course ; the insight into the inner mean- 

 ings of things afforded by his arrangements struck me as 

 most perfect, and led me to wish that it were possible to 

 teach my own subject so as to give the course an equally 

 high educational value. There are also nowadays 

 many admirable books from which the student may 

 gather instructions how to make experiments in the 

 various branches of physics — there can be no doubt, in 

 fact, that the practical text-books in this subject are 

 generally of a very high quality. But I venture to think 

 that they need modification in some not unimportant 

 particulars. Whilst in advance of the practical books at 

 the disposal of the chemist, inasmuch as they stand in 

 direct relation to the instruction in theory, being 

 intended, as a rule, as Prof. Nichols happily states in 

 the introduction to his first volume — to illustrate and 

 therefore impress more thoroughly on the mind the 

 principles and laws which have previously been taught 

 by textbooks or lectures, yet for this very reason the 

 attitude in which they place the student is a wrong one. 

 A "law" is dogmatically stated, and the student is told 

 how to verify it experimentally, so that the young 

 worker, instead of being led to inquire, is perpetually 

 told in advance what are the facts, and is instructed to 

 repeat the experiments merely in order \.o prove certain 

 things. Consequently, in physics as in chemistry, 

 students are far too little encouraged to find out things 

 and to help themselves — instead of becoming imbued 

 from the outset with the spirit of inquiry, they are led to 

 expect and require assistance at every step. While 

 galvanometer needles wag, they calmly put their hands 

 into their pockets, and it becomes very difficult to induce 



NO. 1324. VOL. 51] 



them ever to adopt any other mental attitude. Whilst 

 therefore our teaching is enormously improved by bring- 

 ing students into personal contact with the facts to an 

 extent altogether undreamt of even in my student days, 

 by the very wealth of appliances now at their disposal, 

 they are fast becoming spoilt — perfect sybarites, and the 

 self-helpfulness engendered by the rude and scanty 

 apparatus of days gone by is strangely infrequent. The 

 system apparently fails to engender or develop origin- 

 ality and powers of observation, however much it may 

 tend to train even well-informed and exact workers ; but 

 I imagine that little more than a change in the form of 

 the instruction is required, in order to make it impossible 

 to say of any one, " that he knows about all sorts of 

 things, but he can't do them," the only text, it seems to 

 me, worth preaching from at present. The principle it 

 embodies is the one of all others upon which the whole 

 practice of education must be built up, whatever the 

 subjects taught ; but it is undoubtedly one which has not 

 been kept persistently under notice, as it should have 

 been by teachers generally. 



The habit of mind complained of, so characteristic of 

 all but a few gifted individuals among our students, is 

 probably largely engendered by the training they have 

 received during the early years at school ; and it is in- 

 cumbent on all teachers working in the field of educa- 

 tional research to do their utmost to develop methods 

 which will counteract the evil eft'ects of mere lesson 

 learning and desk work, as these cannot be altogether 

 dispensed with. 



As illustrating — how not to teach elementary science, 

 the " Manual " first on my list must be assigned to a high 

 place ; no doubt the intention is good, the information 

 may be interesting and useful in its way, although often 

 very bald if not inaccurate, but such a book has no right 

 to figure as a " Manual of elementary science." It com- 

 prises instructions for object lessons, on every possible 

 topic, to children in the six standards of elementary 

 schools, in the form of very short chapters either of 

 " special information for the teacher " or " introductory 

 specimen lessons," and of " notes of lessons'' in which, 

 in parallel columns, the kind of question to be asked is 

 set out under "method," and the information to be im- 

 parted under "matter." As in all books of this class, far 

 too much is attempted. In the hands of a really capable 

 teacher — who would not need such a book, however, — 

 object lessons may be made of the highest value, but 

 even in such hands the tendency always is mainly to 

 impart information ; the kind of lessons that would be 

 given by the uninstructed teacher gaining inspiration 

 from Mr. Major's manual, is easier imagined than de- 

 scribed, and their educational effect could not fail to be 

 harmful. We are better without such "science," and 

 had better stick to the plain bread and butter fare of 

 '" prescientific " days, if we cannot teach in such a way as 

 to inculcate the practice of scientific method ; in fact, we 

 do not want "science" teaching of any kind introduced 

 into elementary or, indeed, any schools unless it take the 

 form of work done by the children themselves: in no 

 other wiy can the end we have in view — that of training 

 them to do, not merely to know — be achieved, and any 

 other kind of teaching must be a pretence and but an 

 encouragement of priggishness. 



As regards the course of the future, there is no doubt 

 that much may be done in very early days to lead 

 children to take note of everything about them, to 

 describe what they see, and to collect and describe 

 common materials of every kind. Some slight prepara- 

 tion for the study of botany may also be laid at this 

 stage. But (he science lessons proper begin when the 

 children know enough arithmetic to measure and weigh. 

 All who have studied the problem practically are probably 

 agreed that simple measurement lessons must form the 

 foundation, and there cannot be a doubt that it is both 



