290 
NALORE 
[JANUARY 28, 1904 
critics should have fastened on quite subsidiary matters 
and left his main contention unacknowledged. 
I feel bound to admit that in some respects Prof. 
Armstrong has overstated his case. His advocacy has 
suggested that he desires the pupil to discover every- 
thing for himself and by himself, and so is incurred 
the criticism that it is ridiculous to expect a child to | 
achieve in two or three years that which it has taken 
grown philosophers centuries of labour to achieve. A 
beginner cannot discover much for himself by himself, 
but a judicious teacher may lead him to discover much. 
I think that Prof. Armstrong has exaggerated the im- 
portance of quantitative work, great though that 
importance be. One has only to think of the achieve- 
ments of Scheele in order to realise what a splendid 
thing qualitative work may be when faithfully per- 
formed. Again, the element of useful information 
must not be underestimated; we want to get the pupil 
along, and there is surely much that may be told, if 
it is properly presented and punctuated with experi- 
ments. In doing this there is no need to throw the 
pupil into a state of passive acceptance, still less of 
passive resistance ; a good teacher knows how to avoid 
either. 
Another point on which Prof. Armstrong’s critics 
have fastened is his nomenclature. This is really a 
trifling matter, but such as it is I am on the side of 
the critics. ‘‘ Challk gas ’’ seems unnecessary, even as 
a temporary name for carbon dioxide. Why not fixed 
air, which is both descriptive and historical ? 
ever, as I have said, such things are mere trifles. 
In conclusion, I will express the opinion that it 1s 
not the matter of Prof. Armstrong’s proposals that has 
created opposition, but the manner. There is probably 
no decent member of 
average Englishman than the aggressive educational 
reformer. If a man quietly records in books the out- 
come of his mature reflections and experience—well, 
you can avoid him by not reading his book, but if he 
appears at all your meetings with his new doctrines, 
if he invents new terms that dart promiscuously about 
the atmosphere of the educational world, and if 
eventually he gets known to the newspapers as a man | 
likely to furnish occasion for the headline ‘‘ animated 
debate,’’ it is quite otherwise. If a man is a stylist 
like Matthew Arnold, deft with epigram, breathing a 
cultivated irony, he is forgiven everything for his 
literary excellence. But Prof. Armstrong has not 
chosen the persuasive method of Matthew Arnold. He 
is vigorous almost to violence, red-hot, scathing, 
scornful, uncompromising and incessant. He is no 
respecter of persons or institutions, however eminent, 
however ancient. He is absolutely impartial in his 
iconoclasm, 
These peculiarities may have hindered the acceptance 
of improved methods. In any case, improvement could 
only have come in slowly, for it is laborious, and taxes 
the ingenuity as well as the diligence of the teacher. 
The eagerness of public administrators for speedy 
results, the false economy which gives the teacher no 
time to think, and the crowding of elementary classes, 
not only in the case of science, but all through the 
school course, are great obstacles to thoroughness. 
KO. 1 Oye VOL. 60) 
How- | 
society more repugnant to the | 
How idle it is to preach improved methods to an over- 
worked teacher who has seventy, eighty or a hundred 
children to teach at once! 
When all reasonable concessions have been made to 
his critics, it will, I believe, appear that Prof. Arm- 
strong has rendered an inestimable service to the cause 
of true education. ARTHUR SMITHELLS. 
PRACTICAL ZOOLOGY. 
First Report on Economic Zoology. By Fred. V. 
Theobald, M.A. Pp. xxxiv+i192; 18 figures. 
(London: Printed by Order of the Trustees of the 
British Museum, 1903.) Price 6s. 
HIS volume of reports on problems of economic 
zoology is very welcome. It represents a type 
of publication familiar in America, which has never 
been more than very rare in Britain; it is packed with 
valuable practical advice which must surely justify 
zoology in the eyes of any unconverted utilitarian ; and 
it illustrates the nature and amount of scientific in- 
formation on matters of economic importance which 
the staff of the zoological department of the British 
Museum “‘ is almost daily called upon, and is prepared 
| to furnish to the public service or to individuals.’” 
As is well known, this side of the Museum’s work 
has been brought into particular prominence since 
Prof. Ray Lankester became director. 
The contents are necessarily very heterogeneous, and 
| afford a fine illustration of the multitudinous ways in 
| which man’s practical interests come into contact with 
animal life. We find discussions on cereal pests, root- 
crop pests, fruit pests, garden pests, forest pests, on 
| poison for moles, on tapeworm in sheep, on the origin 
and varieties of domesticated geese, on dipterous 
larvae in human excreta, on Anobiwm tesselatum in 
St. Albans Cathedral, on green matter in Lewes 
Public Baths, on the cigar beetle and the Teredo, on 
the tsetse fly and the Ceylon pearl fisheries, on the 
screw worm in St. Lucia, locusts in the Sudan, mos- 
quitoes at Blackheath, and so on through a variety of 
| subjects that is positively astounding. Mr. Theobald 
deserves warm congratulation on the impressiveness 
of his ** First Repert.”’ 
The variety of subjects which have had to be 
discussed in response to inquiries from the Board 
of Agriculture, the Foreign Office, the Colonial 
Office, and from private individuals makes the 
volume very multifarious, and gives a special apposite- 
ness to Prof. Ray Lankester’s introductory scheme or 
outline of economic zoology. He gives a classified 
survey of the various subdivisions which it is found 
convenient to recognise in the treatment of this sub- 
ject. This classification of animals in their economic 
relation to man, which recalls a little bool by Dr. 
Edwin Lankester, proceeds from the simpler relations 
of primitive man and the animals around him to the 
more complex relations of civilised man with his end- 
less arts and industries and circumscribed conditions. 
| We give the classification in outline :— 
| Group A.—Animals captured or slaughtered by man 
“for food, or for the use by him in other ways, of their 
| skin, bone, fat, or other products. Examples :— 
