February 22, 1894J 



NATURE 



401 



technical education which, in every branch of professional and 

 commercial life, was being recognised as indispensable. 



In the New Education, the most important subject of 

 instruction was .'■cience. It was the development of science, 

 and its application to the varied work of life, that had changed 

 to a great extent, and would change still more in the near 

 future, the entire character of our school teaching. In an ad- 

 dress given in 1876, Sir Philip remarked upon the inadequate 

 attention given to the teaching of science in our endowed schools. 

 Out of one hundred and twenty-eight schools which furnished 

 replies to the Commissioners at that time, there were only sixty- 

 three schools in which any kind of science was taught, and of 

 these only thirty devoted any regular time to scientific study. 

 Since then a great change had taken place ; but the change was 

 more markeii in the elementary than in the secondary schools. 

 And the right of science to be included in the school curriculum 

 had only recently been generally recognised. 



The advance was very satisfactory ; but the important ques- 

 tion was whether, with the increase in the number of schools in 

 which science was taught, there had been any corresponding 

 improvement in the method ol science teaching? 



The progress in this direction had not been as marked as 

 one might have wished. The correct methods of science teach- 

 ing were only very gradually being understood. It was largely 

 owing to the usefulness of the information which the study of 

 science involved, that the value of the study as a means of edu- 

 cation had been lost sight of. It should be remembered that 

 " acquirement of every kind has two values — value as knowledge 

 and value as discipline " ; and, in early education, the latter 

 was by far the more important. With the first feeling of in- 

 toxication which the breathing of the atmosphere of science 

 excited, there was a sir mg reaction against the teaching of sub- 

 jects apparently useless, as mere instruments for mental gym- 

 nastics. There was a loud cry for useful information ; and the 

 scientific lecture, with its platform experiments, served both to 

 awaken the interest of the pupil and to afford such informa- 

 tion. But, gradually, better views prevailed, and it was recog- 

 nised, although very slowly, that information was not the first 

 object of science teaching, and that, valuable as was the in- 

 formation which science conveyed, such information was of 

 little use unless the process of informing served to train and 

 discipline and educate the faculties. Accuracy in thought and 

 expression, the power of arranging and co-ordinating facis, and 

 of acquiiing, retaining, and reproducing in logical order, new 

 ideas, and the habit of deliberation in arriving at conclusions, 

 were educational ends of far more real value than any amount of 

 mere knowledge which the student of science might gain. The 

 recognition of this educational truth had rudely shaken methods 

 of teaching, and even of examining in scientific subjects. 



Herbert Spencer, in his well-known essays on Education, 

 had said: — "It would be utterly contrary to the beautiful 

 economy of nature if one kind of culture were needed for the 

 gaining of information, and another kind were needed for mental 

 gymnastics. Everywhere throughout creation we find facul- 

 ties developed through the performance of those functions which 

 it is their office to perform ; not through the performance of 

 artificial exercises devised to fit them for those functions. . . . 

 The education of most value for guidance must at the same time 

 be the education of most value for discipline." The method of 

 teaching science must therefore be carefully considered, so that 

 the training of the faculties might be steadily kept in view as 

 the aim and object of the instruction, rather than the mere 

 acquisition of Knowledge. This change of method involved the 

 substitution, from the very commencement, of practical work 

 on the part of the pupil for the ordinary lecture or lesson. 



At the outset, the practical exercises should be of the very 

 simplest kind. The pupil must take nothing for granted. It 

 was clear, thf-refore, that he must commence with simple exer- 

 cises in measui ement. In physics they were always dealing with 

 quantities, and could not understand what is meant by a quan- 

 tity except by measuring it. The first measurements to be made 

 were those of length. In making such measurement, certain 

 standards had to be considered, and different systems (the Eng- 

 lish and the metric systems) should be compared. These com- 

 parisons involved easy exercises in arithmetic, which might be 

 practised in connection with such concrete examples. Various 

 objects should be actually measured, and the length calculated 

 by rnultiplication or division of other measurements. But the 

 pupil should be made thoroughly famdiar with his standard of 

 measurement before passing away from this exercise. This 

 should be followed by measurement of areas, the consideration 



NO. 1269, VOL. 49] 



of which was fruitful in useful exercises. In country schools the 

 actual measurement of the areas of fields, by simple methods of 

 surveying, might be usefully attempted ; in town schools there 

 was generally a playground which would afford opportunities 

 for similar exercises. Then the methods and results of all such 

 measurements should be carefully and neatly transferred to 

 paper, and the pupil should be thus incidentally exercised in 

 elementary drawing. The measurement of volume would 

 follow, with more varied and more difficult problems. 



Immediately connected with the measurement of volume was 

 that of mass. There, of course, a difficulty arose, owing to the 

 close connection between mass and7veig/il, and the difficulty of 

 distinguishing between them. But the explanation of this diffi- 

 culty might be postponed, and the pupil could be allowed to use 

 ordinary weights as measures of mass. At this stage he was in- 

 troduced to a balance, and, with a view of inducing habits of 

 accuracy, he should at once use a fairly good balance. The ex- 

 ercises were very numerous which the pupil could practise with 

 a good pair of scales. From this point the order of any elemen- 

 tary series of lessons could be varied at the discretion of the 

 teacher. The balance suggested experiments, to be done by the 

 pupil, on the use of the lever, whence the principle of the lever 

 could be obtained. From the common balance to the Roman 

 balance, and to other modes of weighing, the steps were very 

 gradual. The relative volumes of bodies of the same material 

 could then be ascertained by the balance, and former exercises in 

 measurement be verified and repeated. The pupil should not 

 only do the actual work himself, but should write out clearly a 

 description of what he had done, thus learning to connect 

 action, thought, and words. From these exercises the pupil 

 might pass to the consideration of the difference in homogeneous 

 bodies of the same volume and of different weight, and so on, 

 by very easy stages, to methods of ascertaining relative weights 

 of different substances. Exercises in finding specific gravities 

 of solids, powders, and liquids, gave opportunity for very valu- 

 able instruction, and prepared the way for the use of instruments 

 of precision, and for knowldege of interesting properties of dif- 

 ferent kinds of bodies. The value of these lessons consisted in 

 the accuracy of measurement, and in the clearness and correct 

 ness of the written record, as regards the statement of facts, the 

 sequence of reasoning, the numerical calculations, and the use 

 of words and phrases. 



It was, of course, essential that these written exercises should 

 be carefully corrected, as are exercises in Latin or Greek com- 

 position. The aim of the instructor, in compiling such an in- 

 troductory course as that suggested, should be to include those 

 subjects, an acquaintance with which was required to enter upon 

 the systematic study of any one branch of science, and which 

 were practically common to all branches. The character of an 

 introductory course might be intluenced by the consideration of 

 the special science which, in any particular school or district, 

 would be likely to be studied, or indeed by the special taste of 

 the instructor. A knowledge of the use of simple measuring 

 instruments, including the thermometer, the barometer, the 

 hygrometer, having been acquired, the pupil might pass by 

 carefully suggested experiments to the determination of simple 

 physical laws, and to the discovery of the composition of common 

 substances, such as air, water, salt, lime, &c. ; and it was 

 needless to say that such exercises would open up wide views 

 of the elementary facts and laws of different branches of science, 

 and would prepare the way for the specialised teaching which 

 more properly belongs to technical education. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Oxford. — Prof. August Weismann will deliver the Romanes 

 Lecture in the Sheldonian Theatre, on Wednesday, May 2. 



Prof. H. H. Turner has selected "The International Photo- 

 graphic Chart of the Heavens " for the subject of his inaugural 

 lecture as Savilian professor of astronomy, to be delivered 

 to-morrow. 



Cambridge. — The Vice-Chancellor has appointed Mr. J. W. 

 Clark, Registrary and formerly Superintendent of the Museum 

 of Zoology, to the office of Reader on Sir Robert Rede's 

 foundation lor the present year, in succession to Prof. Foster. 



The Special Board for Medicine report that in consequence 

 of the great increase in the number of candidates for the M.B. 

 degree (in 1893 there were 224 to be examined), it is necessary 

 to increase the staff of Examiners to four in Medicine and four 

 in Surgery. 



