2 84 



NA TURE 



[January 19, 1905 



this gas is distinctly lower than over the land. This would 

 appear to be most easily accounted for on the assumption 

 that the pressure of carbon dioxide in the sea is constantly 

 lower than that in the air, and that, therefore, the air must 

 be steadily deriving supplies of the gas from some source, 

 by means of which this difference of pressure is maintained. 



A. Harden. 



CONFERENCE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL SCIENCE 

 MASTERS. 



'T'HE annual meeting of the Public School Science 

 Masters' Association was held for the second time at 

 Westminster School on January 14. by kind permission 

 of Dr. Gow, who had undertaken the duties of president 

 and occupied the chair. A letter was read by the honorary 

 secretary, Mr. W. A. Shenstone, from Sir Michael Foster 

 explaining why he had not been able to act as president. 

 The meeting then occupied itself with business matters, 

 and Sir Oliver Lodge was unanimously elected president 

 for the ensuing year. 



In the short address with which Dr. Gow opened the 

 conference, he expressed the opinion that every boy should 

 be taught natural science, and this pronouncement, coming 

 as it does from a classical headmaster, is of very great 

 importance at the present moment, as Prof. Armstrong 

 was not slow to point out. It was no doubt elicited by 

 the subject of the first paper, namely, the importance of 

 including both Latin and science in a scheme of general 

 education. This was read by Mr. Douglas Berridge, of 

 Malvern College. In the paper the necessity of a 

 general education was discussed, and the report of the 

 committee upon the education of army officers was taken 

 as a guide. In this it is laid down that English, mathe- 

 matics, one modern language, Latin, and science are 

 essential to a sound general education ; but what is very 

 strange, the framers of the report proceed to propose 

 that all future officers of our Army should be debarred 

 from obtaining what was considered necessary by the 

 proposal that Latin and science should be optional and 

 alternative subjects. In addition to the injury which a 

 one-sided education inflicts upon the individual, Mr. 

 Berridge pointed out a greater and more far-reaching 

 danger to our nation as a whole. He urged that the 

 present trend of education, as represented by London Uni- 

 versity (in its matriculation and school leaving examin- 

 ation), by Oxford and Cambridge (in their school leaving 

 examinations), and by the Civil Service Commissioners 

 and the Army entrance examinations, is sharply to divide 

 Englishmen into two classes, the one trained on literary 

 lines, leavened only by a modicum of mathematics, the 

 other on scientific lines, leavened only by a smattering of 

 French. Could it be, Mr. Berridge asked, to the advantage 

 of any nation that its future rulers and organisers should 

 thus be grouped into two opposing camps, of which, while 

 they mutually despise one another, neither is able to under- 

 stand the very method of reasoning adopted by the other? 

 Mr. Berridge was able to support his contention by figures, 

 for on application to all our public schools he had found 

 that for the Army and matriculation examinations 456 per 

 cent, of the boys now learn Latin and 544 per cent, 

 learn science. 



The discussion showed that while the need of a literary 

 as well as a scientific training was thoroughly recog- 

 nised, many speakers did not agree with Mr. Berridge 

 that Latin was the best means of acquiring the former. 

 It is true that Father Cortie (Stonyhurst) found that the 

 best classical boys were most successful in science, but 

 Prof. Armstrong said that no honest attempt had ever 

 been made in this country to afford a literary training 

 through any other language, and though Latin had proved 

 very efficient in a few instances, in the vast majority of 

 cases it was not. He maintained, also, that Latin trans- 

 lation did not give style. Finally, Prof. Armstrong 

 characterised the making of science alternative to Latin 

 in Army examinations as illogical and preposterous. Dr. 

 Gow said that he never regarded Latin as a literary train- 

 ing, but as a scientific one, and referred to his opening 



remarks, in which he had characterised the words as 

 typical and exceptional genera and species, and parsing 

 as scientific classification. 



The paper dealing with recent proposals for school 

 leaving certificates, by Mr. C. I. Gardiner, of Chelten- 

 ham, dealt with what has been done on the Continent, and 

 afterwards with the regulations at present suggested to 

 the Board of Education by its consultative committee. 

 The paper welcomed, as did many of the speakers after- 

 wards, what is not very happily expressed as State inter- 

 ference. Many of the Board of Education's proposals were 

 characterised by Mr. Gardiner as too vague, upon very 

 good grounds. In the discussion, surprise was expressed 

 that Mr. Gardiner had not mentioned what has been done 

 recently in Ireland. It was recommended, also, that the 

 Board of Education should get to know the schools before 

 it suggested too much, and that its interference should 

 be taken in small doses. Mr. W. A. Shenstone fancied he 

 saw the edge of red tape in some of the proposals, while 

 Father Cortie thought there was a danger that education 

 might become stereotyped, so that special traits of certain 

 schools would not be given free play. He hoped that 

 inspectors with fads or insufficient knowledge would 

 not interfere as they had done in elementary schools, and 

 would not say, for instance, " your ' labs ' are not so 

 good as those in the primary schools (which are built 

 with the ratepayers' money), you must erect new ones.'' 



The third paper dealt with the use and misuse of 

 terms in science teaching. It was contributed by Mr. 

 T. L. Humberstone, of Toynbee Hall, who took exception 

 to the loose way in which words, law, theory, hypothesis, 

 and so on were used. He pointed out what the real 

 meanings of the words were, and objected strongly to 

 the idea that the experiments in practical mathematics 

 " proved " the laws that they were intended to illustrate. 

 Prof. Tilden agreed with Mr. Humberstone in regard to 

 the misuse of terms, and said that professional scientific 

 men were just as much to blame as schoolmasters. He 

 thought that if boys were taught a little logic before they 

 left school many mistakes would be prevented. He was 

 amazed at the statement incidentally made by Mr. 

 Humberstone as to there being too much laboratory work 

 done in schools, and he pointed out that every discovery 

 of the organic chemists was additional evidence in 

 favour of the atomic theory which Mr. Humberstone 

 thought was tottering. Mr. Fletcher, of the Board of 

 Education, said that there was a widespread misappre- 

 hension as to the place of practical work in geometry. 

 It was not possible to prove anything by the experiments 

 used, but it was most important to get approximations 

 which could be idealised into conceptions. They were 

 necessary to create a state of mind and to commend 

 postulates to common sense. Mr. Sanderson thought that 

 some of the practical work set to boys was superfluous, 

 and might well be replaced by good experiments shown 

 by the master. Mr. Humberstone, in answer to a ques- 

 tion from Mr. .Shenstone, said that he thought ten or 

 twelve hours a week was longer than was required for 

 laboratory work, and he further said, with regard to 

 superfluous work, that when a boy had learned how to 

 obtain one gas properly it was not necessary for him to 

 produce all the others. 



The last paper was by Mr. F. B. Stead, of Clifton, and 

 was on the possibility of teaching scientific method to 

 boys whose education is almost entirely literary, and who 

 have no time for a regular course in chemistry and 

 physics. It was suggested that older boys in the Vth 

 form should be given some definite piece of work to be 

 carried out in detail, in order that they might under- 

 stand (i) the method of experiment and observation by 

 which facts are ascertained ; (2) the process of reasoning 

 from particular instances to general laws ; and (3) the use 

 of explanatory theories and their verification. 



Prof. Armstrong considered the paper to be one of very 

 great value, and suggested that the term " experimental " 

 should be used instead of " scientific," bearing in mind 

 what Dr. Gow had said in connection with Latin as 

 scientific training. He also asked what place there would 

 be in the near future for boys who only had had a literary 

 education. Wilfred Mark Webp. 



NO. 18.38, VOL. 71] 



