NA TURE 



121 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1893. 



ELEMENTARY PRACTICAL SCIENCE. 

 Eletne7itary Course of Practical Science. Part I. By 

 Hugh Gordon, M.A. (London : Macmillan and Co. 

 1893.) 



IN the teaching of science, as of any other subject, the 

 importance of method is most apparent in deahng 

 with the elements. Of late years, since laboratory in- 

 struction has been generally introduced into our colleges, 

 the teaching of science to advanced students may be 

 said to be based on correct methods. But so much can- 

 not yet be said for the teaching of the elements of science 

 to young children. If, however, science is to obtain a 

 recognised place in the curriculum of our primary and 

 secondary schools, it is most important that the means 

 adopted for the teaching of science should be educational 

 in character. Very rarely is science so taught to young 

 children and junior pupils in schools as to bring into 

 active exercise the very faculties of the mind which it is 

 supposed to develop. The teaching of science follows 

 too closely the older education, by appealing to the 

 memory, and storing the'niind with facts and information 

 of more or lebs value ; and the methods employed in- 

 volve a mental discipline too similar in kind to that of 

 ordinary mathematics. 



Mr. Hugh Gordon, in Part I. of his " Elementary 

 Course of Practical Science," recently published, has 

 broken comparatively new ground. His little book gives 

 a very satisfactory answer to the question : How can the 

 elements of science be so taught as to become a means 

 of ^^/^r^/zVzg- young children ? In arranging a course of 

 practical instruction in the rudiments of science, two 

 principles have to be observed : first, the instruction must 

 be introductory to science as a whole, and not to any 

 branch of it ; and secondly, the aims of the teaching 

 must be strictly educational. In other words, the in- 

 formation imparted must be such as is equally applicable 

 to physics, chemistry, and biology, and the methods must 

 I be those by which the student, at every stage of his 

 progress, is enabled to learn by himself. Indeed, the 

 real end of science teaching should be kept in view from 

 the commencement of the study, and the pupil should be 

 exercised, through his science lessons, in accurate ob- 

 servation, and in interpreting the results of experiments. 



The book under review is the practical outcome of the 

 experience gained by the author in superintending a 

 course of science teaching in fifteen schools under the 

 London School Board, and is based on a scheme drawn 

 up by Prof. Armstrong for a committee of the British 

 Association. Mr. Gordon has had the advantage of 

 working for some time in the laboratory of Prof. Arm- 

 strong, to whom he very readily acknowledges his 

 indebtedness for many valuable suggestions. The book 

 is an endeavour to show how the most elementary science 

 teaching may be made scientific. The author truly says : 

 " Science had much better be left alone altogether than 

 be taught unscientifically " ; and it is only too evident that 

 science is often so taught as to be of little or no value 

 in the real work of education. Matthew Arnold said 

 somewhere, " that all learning is scientific which is 



NO. 1258, VOL. 49J 



systematically laid out and followed up to its original 

 sources, and that a genuine humanism is scientific." This 

 is true, and it is because the humanistic studies have been 

 for so many years systematically pursued, that both here 

 and in Germany they have proved more serviceable in 

 teaching scientific method than science itself. 



The book before us is a collection of suggestions rather 

 than a text-book or a science primer. It consists of 76 

 small pages, and contains a few exercises to be worked 

 by the pupils, and for the guidance of teachers. Although 

 an instalment only of a complete course, it indicates very 

 fully the methods to be followed and the objects to be 

 aimed at in teaching science to beginners. The key to 

 the system is supplied in the question, addressed to the 

 pupil, and constantly repeated in the text : " What is it 

 you see ? What would you expect to find if the con- 

 ditions were varied .'' " and by the reiterated instruction : 

 " Try it for yourself ; try experiments to see if this is the 

 case ; record your results." In the method of instruc- 

 tion suggested by the author, the pupil is never passive ; 

 he is always doing something, and is consequently in- 

 terested in his work. He is observing, recording, antici- 

 pating results, or experimenting. In dealing with the 

 simplest matters, the methods of inductive inquiry are 

 illustrated and practised. The teacher who follows Mr. 

 Gordon does not instruct ; he guides and assists his 

 pupils in questioning and interpreting Nature. And 

 although the immediate aim of this instruction is educa- 

 tion rather than information — the development and 

 strengthening, by suitable exercises, of certain faculties 

 of the mind, rather than the acquisition of knowledge, 

 the pupil nevertheless gains, in the short course here 

 sketched out, much actual knowledge which cannot fail 

 to prove useful in any kind of practical work. Through 

 the experiments he is made to perform, he learns the 

 metric system, the use of the balance, the mechanical prin- 

 ciple of the lever, methods of determining specific gravi- 

 ties, the action of thermometers and of the barometer, 

 facts concerning the expansion of solids and liquids, and 

 applications to every-day phenomena of the principles of 

 solubility and evaporation. Moreover, the child who has 

 gone through this course will have learnt to be observant 

 and accurate, and will have acquired a certain skill in 

 the use of some of the simpler instruments of science. 

 This is no small result of such a short course of lessons. 



Between Mr. Gordon's method of teaching the elements 

 of science, and the lectures or lessons illustrated by ex- 

 periments which answer for science teaching in so many 

 of our schools, there is the widest difference ; and by 

 showing in detail how this method may be applied, Mr. 

 Gordon has made a very useful contribution to pedagogic 

 literature. There is very little fault to be found in the 

 subjects selected by the author to illustrate his method ; 

 they are nearly all such as are familiar to the pupil in 

 his every-day life. The early and constant use of squared 

 paper is rightly insisted on in most of the exercises. It 

 may be thought that there is too great an advance in the 

 difficulty of some of the exercises towards the end of the 

 book. But possibly this may have been intentional on 

 the part of the author, to encourage the teacher to fill in 

 the breaks in the reasoning, and to prevent the book 

 from being used by teacher or pupils as an ordinary 

 text-book. 



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