NOVEMBER 5, 1903] 
NATURE 
No 
_ 
in guiding educational authorities generally. A special 
committee has therefore been appointed to report upon the 
courses of experimental, observational and practical studies 
most suitable for elementary schools, and generally as to 
the steps which it is desirable to take to secure proper 
attention to and encouragement of such studies. All who 
have paid attention to the subject will probably agree that 
some organised effort should now be made to extend the 
teaching of scientific method. 
The dangers of ill-considered schemes of science study 
were referred to by Prof. H. E. Armstrong in presenting 
the report of the committee on the teaching of science in 
elementary schools, and were emphasised by Prof. Marshall 
Ward in the subsequent discussion. The committee points 
out that education authorities, realising the value of nature- 
study as a means of training and a matter of interest, will 
force instruction in this subject in schools in which the 
teachers are quite unable to handle it effectively by reason 
of their want of scientific training and knowledge. It 
cannot be too strongly impressed upon the lay mind that 
unless nature-study is taken up as a subject by which the 
spirit of scientific inquiry is created and fostered, men of 
science have no sympathy with its introduction into schools. 
The report on the teaching of botany in schools should 
do something to direct the nature-study movement along 
scientific lines. There is a tendency to consider that the 
demands of the advocates of nature-study in schools are 
met by supplying reading-books in which a variety of facts 
in natural history are described, and are accepted by the 
pupils on the ipse dixit of the author or the teacher who 
dispenses them. If that is to be the result of the move- 
ment, it would be just as well to read fairy tales or fiction, 
so far as the development of mental faculties is concerned. 
To be of any value as a training in scientific method, nature- 
study must not only create interest, but must also demand 
active work for a definite purpose from the pupils. The 
difficulties in the way of doing this under the present con- 
ditions of teaching in schools are very great, but unless 
this fundamental principle of scientific instruction is acted 
upon, nature-study will prove a snare and a delusion. 
On the importance of studying plants alive and experi- 
mentally, the botany report expresses decided opinion. It 
is pointed out that scientific curiosity is better occupied 
in discovering how plants get their food, respond to stimuli, 
adapt their structures to new circumstances, contend with 
their rivals or enemies, and propagate their race than in 
learning Latin names for the shapes of their leaves or 
classifying species. Individual practical work is, in fact, 
the only way to gain useful scientific experience, for know- 
ledge accumulated by a mere act of memory is feebly 
grasped and soon forgotten. Throughout all stages of in- 
struction, observation and experiment in the laboratory and 
out of doors must be the method of study. Among the 
conditions of profitable object-lessons for children, the com- 
mittee notes the following :—(1) Every pupil should have 
an object to himself, or at least be able to examine the 
object as long and as closely as he pleases. A drawing is 
not to be allowed to rank as an object. (2) Living and 
growing plants should be frequently observed. (3) The 
living plant should not only be studied in flower, but when- 
ever the change of season brings on a new phase of growth. 
Fruits, buds, and seedlings are as important as flowers. 
(4) Experiment can hardly come in too early, and there is 
nothing else quite so stimulating. Even young children 
can appreciate the interest of a simple experiment, and they 
may be allowed to take part in it before they are able to 
conduct it themselves. 
Where botany can be seriously studied, plant-physiology 
is recommended as the basis of work, on the ground of its 
great practical importance and of its special value as discip- 
line when studied systematically. The seedlings of common 
garden plants are recommended as providing the best 
material for early lessons. 
A course of lessons on seedlings can be so arranged as to 
lead the beginner to consider attentively the nutrition of a 
green plant, the adaptation of the plant to external circum- 
stances, and the development of new parts. The course 
should bring in drawing to scale, the graphical represent- 
ation of experimental results, the care of garden beds, the 
care of water cultures, and many other practical arts. It 
ought also to encourage the habit of close observation, the 
habit of methodically comparing structures which in 
NO, 1775, VOL. 69] 
different plants answer the same purpose, the love of ex- 
periment, and the unwillingness (so characteristic of the 
scientific mind) to accept any conclusion except as the re- 
sult of an independent and careful judgment. 
How school gardens can be made of value in connection 
with the teaching of botany is described in one section of 
the committee’s report by Miss L. J. Clarke, whose 
work at the James Allen’s Girls’ School, Dulwich, has 
shown that botany can be made a practicable as well as 
practical school subject. Other sections of the report are 
devoted to school excursions, collecting—which is con- 
demned when carried on for selfish ends and without any 
scientific purpose—initiative of the teacher, and the sim- 
plicity of appliances required for teaching purposes. 
An interim report was presented by the committee on the 
influence of examinations on school curricula and of schools 
on university requirements. The report was drawn up by 
the chairman, Prof. H. E. Armstrong, and consisted of 
expressions of opinion received from heads of schools, uni- 
versity tutors, &c., upon subjects to which their attention 
was invited. While pointing out the many evils which 
attend. examinations, the majority of the persons who 
favoured the committee with replies took the view that in 
some form they are necessary. It is generally recognised 
that there has been a marked tendency to develop and im- 
prove examinations of late*years. Among other results of 
the inquiry the following are noteworthy :—The effect’ of 
specific examinations, both as affecting general training 
and as encouraging undue specialisation, either on the 
humanistic or on the scientific side, was considered to be 
bad in most cases. Opinion was practically unanimous as 
to the need of unifying examinations with the object in 
view, among others, that certain examinations may serve a 
common purpose, e.g. as qualifying examinations for 
entrance upon a course of professional study. 
The need of preventing examinations from becoming 
stereotyped and behind the times, and thus discouraging 
the development of new or improved methods, was another 
subject submitted for opinions, and the replies expressed the 
general desire that examiners should confer with teachers 
in some organised way. 
With regard to the possibility of arranging outside ex- 
aminations so as to test what has really been taught in the 
school, leaving the teachers a freer hand than in the past 
and arranging for their cooperation on the examining board, 
in the setting of the questions, and in considering the 
answers, there appeared to be a strange disinclination to 
insist that the teacher should be trusted. 
The extent to which certain subjects are to be regarded 
as necessary and others as optional evoked diverse ex- 
pressions of opinion, and the general conclusion seemed to 
be that entrance examinations at Oxford and Cambridge 
do not tend to promote a good all-round education. 
The report of the committee on the conditions of health 
essential to the carrying on of the work of instruction in 
schools consists almost entirely of two reports of subcom- 
mittees on (1) the essentials of school buildings; (2) eyesight 
in school children. The report of the subcommittee on the 
former subject forms a condensed résumé of scientific prin- 
ciples of school construction of a very practical character. 
It may be regarded as a contribution toward the realisation 
of the proposal that a short practical treatise should be 
drawn up by the committee. Its conclusions are of a 
general character, and are applicable to all classes of school 
buildings. The subcommittee on eyesight in school children 
has dealt with and reported on (a) the causes of defective 
eyesight in school children, and (b) the conditions requisite 
for preserving eyesight from injury in school life. Besides 
dealing with general principles involved, it makes some 
practical recommendations of much importance. One of 
these is that it should be required that school books should 
be “‘ passed ’’’ in respect to their typographic standard and 
quality by some recognised hygienic authority before being 
adopted in schools. The necessity for a very considerable 
eye-working distance in all the exercises and instruction 
imposed upon young children is a condition which lies at 
the root of school hygiene. 
There was a useful discussion on the teaching of geo- 
graphy at a joint meeting with the geographical section, 
but as a short account of this has already appeared in the 
report of the proceedings of that section, no further refer- 
ence need be made to it here. R. A. G. 
