Dec. 25, 1864] 



NA 1 URE 



i/9 



tion with the Science and Art Department has been of an 

 important character'. The Birmingham School Board 

 employs about Sco teachers, and it now provides educa- 

 tion, by means of training classes, for about 450 (the 

 pupil-teachers and uncertificated assistants). The growth 

 of the science work in this direction will appear from the 

 following table : — 



1884 



It is very important to elementary school teachers to 

 do well in science, since (by a regulation of the Education 

 Department) those who have passed in science have a 

 certain number of marks added to those which they obtain 

 for other subjects at the Queen's Scholarship and Certi- 

 ficate Examinations, through which all these teachers 

 have subsequently to pass. 



Electricity and magnetism has been taught to the pupil- 

 teachers, and physiography to the assistants 



When evening science lectures are given, however, no 

 school-work can be done by ihe demonstrators in the 

 afternoon of the same day, as the time is taken up with 

 the preparation of the experiments, &c, for the evening 

 lectures. 



The Board possesses an excellent optical lantern 

 presented by Messrs. R. and G. Tangye as a token of 

 their appreciation of the science-teaching and with its 

 assistance the science demonstrator gives popular evening 

 science lectures in the various schools, taking subjects 

 such as will be likely to awa' en the interest and increase 

 the intelligence of the children, as " Wild Animals in the 

 Zoo," " The Star-lit Sky," " Two Days in London," " A 

 Voyage to the Moon," &c. Occasionally, on fine evenings, 

 the elder children are shown the moon, planets, double- 

 stars, &c, through a three-inch achromatic telescope 

 (refractor). These expositions tend to attract children to 

 school, and to improve the regularity of the attendance. 



Cum hi line SYSTEM. — The following rough balance- 

 sheet for die year 1883-S4 shows the very small cost at 

 which the work of science-teaching is carried on in 

 Birmingham : — 



Half of Government Grant on specific subjects 

 Grant from Science and Art Department ... 



Expendit 



Salaries 



Interest on cost of buildings and apparatus 

 Renewal of apparatus and cost of materials 



£ 



160 

 150 



£31° 



t to the Board 



^870 

 ^560 per annum. 



As a penny rate yields 6000/., it will be seen that the 

 cost of this system, by which more than 4000 children, 

 distributed over sixty school departments, receive regular 

 and practical science-lessons, amounts to only on< 

 of a penny in the pound, or to 9/. ioj\ per annum foi 

 each school department. It must be remembered also 

 that the full benefit of the system has not yet been reaped, 

 and that the grants will certainly continue to increase. 

 Credit has only been taken for one-half of the grant for 

 the specific subjects. 



i'< »iKs. — Failing to meet with works exactly 

 suitable for the wants of the children, the science-lessons 

 in mechanics and in domestic economy have been written 

 out in full, and are now published by Messrs. T. Nelson 

 and Sons. Similar works on magnetism and electricity 

 and on chemistry are nearly ready for issue. Each work 

 consists of three small volumes corresponding with the 



three years' course prescribed by the Code. These books 

 have already been adopted by the School Board for 

 London, the Irish Intermediate Education Board, and 

 other important educational bodies. 



School Museums. — For use in object-lessons, and as 

 a constant source of pleasure and instruction, a small 

 collection of typical objects stored in a glass-fronted 

 cupboard ought to be placed in every school. Such 

 cupboards are now being supplied to the Birmingham 

 Board schools, and it has naturally fallen to the lot of the 

 science demonstrator and his staff to assist in the 

 mounting, naming, and classification of the objects with 

 which the cupboards are, at little or no expense to the 

 Board, to be filled. 



Conclusion. — Since the commencement of this system 

 of practical instruction in science in Birmingham, many 

 eminent men have visited the schools to see it in opera- 

 tion, and they have been unanimous in their approval. In 

 the "Instructions to Inspectors" issued by the Educa- 

 tion Department, the system receives official sanction and 

 commendation: — " You will often find that these (specific) 

 subjects are most thoroughly taught when a special 

 teacher is engaged by a group of schools to give instruc- 

 tion in such subjects once or twice a week, his teaching 

 being supplemented in the intervals by the teachers of 

 the school." 



The Commissioners for Technical Education visited the 

 Icknield Street Centre a few months ago, heard science- 

 lessons given, and examined fully 1 into the work. In their 

 valuable Report, recently issued, they say : — " We could 

 hardly overstate our appreciation of the value of the 

 plan of giving instruction in natural science by special 

 teachers as carried out in the Board schools of Liverpool 

 and Birmingham, where the employment of a well-qualified 

 science demonstrator insures the sound character of the 

 instruction, whilst the repetition of the lesson by the 

 schoolmaster enables him to improve himself in the 

 methods of science-teaching." 



Within the present year the work has been crowned by 

 the opening of a Technical School for Seventh Standard 

 boys, situated in the centre of the town, and fitted with 

 an admirable laboratory (for forty boys), lecture-theatre, 

 workshop (for forty, with three lathes), room for drawing, 

 class-rooms for the ordinary subjects, and a capital 

 dining-hall, &c. The building has been adapted, fitted 

 (at a cost exceeding 2000/.), and presented rent-free to 

 the Board by Mr. George Dixon. This school will con- 

 stitute the last link of the chain of elementary education 

 supported by the town, and who can doubt that in it will 

 be laid the foundation of many a good work, both for the 

 individual and the community. 



NOTES 



Mr. J. J. Thomson has been elected to rill the 

 Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics in the University 

 of Cambridge in succession to Lord Rayleigh. A numerously 

 signed requisition to Sir Wm. Thomson t 1 bei 'me a candidate 

 w\as declined. 



Cambridge was en file on Monday. Pcterh use, the 

 oldest collegiate institution in the Univ. ,ity, was 1 

 the six-hundredth anniversary of its foundation. It was stated 

 at the dinner that one-third of the present Fellow were Fellows 

 of the Royal Society. 



It is announced that the International Sanitary Conference, 

 which Signor Mancini proposed some time ago, "ill meet at 

 Rome in February or March. Later mi, another Conference, 

 also suggested by Signor Mancini, will meet to consider the 

 possibility of some agreement for the mutual execution by the 

 Signatory Towers of legal judgments. 



