2o6 TEACHING OF SCIENCE 



is the victim and slave of his pupils, and has no 

 time or strength to continue his own education. 



This has at least two bad results, and probably 

 more than that number : (i) From want of time 

 for reading the teacher can hardly avoid falling 

 behind in a rapidly progressive subject such as 

 one of the natural sciences, and consequently the 

 University or College that enslaves him is injuring 

 its own property. (2) He has no time to do any 

 original work, and this is even worse for him (and 

 therefore, as before, for the College). He ceases to 

 be on intimate terms with the plants or animals or 

 chemical substances with which he has to deal, and 

 his teaching must necessarily lose that vigour 

 and freshness that comes from first-hand personal 

 knowledge. It is downright cruelty to deny time 

 for research to those who vehemently desire to 

 add something to the fabric of human knowledge. 



The hampered teacher reminds me of a certain 

 migratory bird living with clipped wings in a 

 Zoological Garden: when the migrating season 

 came round the unfortunate prisoner started to 

 walk, and was to be seen pressing its breast against 

 the bars at the north end of its pen. I hope that 

 nowadays all Colleges realise that they must not 

 prison their birds, but give them the means of 

 satisfying their natural instinct for fresh and self- 

 gained knowledge. The students are in one way 

 better off than their masters, since laboratory work 

 is generally new to them and has therefore some of 

 the charm of discovery. 



In what I have said to-night I have confined 

 myself to Natural Science, in which alone I have 



