XV111 INTRODUCTION. 



and as an item in the general curriculum of Board Schools for 

 even junior scholars, than was generally obtainable thirty years 

 ago in most Public Schools and Colleges even of the first class ;. 

 although it must be admitted that the system of instruction in 

 useful knowledge by the employment of experiment and inductive 

 reasoning thereon as a means of mental training, has not yet 

 superseded the older methods (which regarded the knowledge of 

 the dead languages as the sine qud non of mental development) to 

 as great an extent in this country as in some others, where the 

 value of sound instruction in science as an element of ordinary 

 education was generally recognised a quarter of a century ago 

 quite as fully as is now the case in Great Britain. Still, in a 

 great number of our Schools and Colleges the purely scholastic 

 mode of training has been of late years largely supplemented by 

 the institution of a " modern side," where science is recognised as 

 competing successfully with ancient literature as a necessary 

 element in education and as a means of mental training ; and signs 

 are not wanting that this modification of our general educational 

 system is likely ere long to be greatly extended. Thus, for 

 example, the British Association for the Advancement of Science 

 recently appointed a Committee for the purpose of inquiring into 

 and reporting upon the present methods of teaching Chemistry 

 and Physical Science; and in the report of this Committee 

 (autumn of 1889), it is stated that "it cannot be too strongly 

 insisted that elementary Physical Science should be taught from 

 the first as a branch of mental education, and not mainly as useful 

 knowledge. It is a subject which, when taught with this object 

 in view, is capable of developing mental qualities that are not 

 aroused, and indeed are frequently deadened, by the exclusive 

 study of languages, history, and mathematics. In order that the 

 study of Physical Science may effect this mental education, it is 

 necessary that it should be employed to illustrate the scientific 

 method of investigating nature, by means of observation, experi- 

 ment, and reasoning with the aid of hypothesis ; the learners should 

 be put in the attitude of discoverers, and should themselves be made 

 to perform many of the experiments. The lessons ought to have 



