Oct. 23, 1884] 



NA TURE 



623 



their lives. Only a few can rise to eminence ; and it is an un- 

 mitigated misfortune for any lad to be encouraged to trust to his 

 intellectual powers for his daily bread, unless he has a fair 

 chance of becoming eminent ; but all may possess the scientific 

 knowledge which will give dignity to their daily toil ; and the 

 workshop itself may be ennobled. 



Neither does the establishment of higher-grade Board schools, 

 in which scientific instruction is given, meet the necessities of 

 the case. The vexed and complicated questions involved in the 

 general organisation of the very miscellaneous collection of 

 schools now existing in England do not fall within the scope of 

 this paper ; but I find that many members of School Boards 

 believe that all that is required for scientific instruction will be 

 done when higher grade Board schools are opened ; and, by 

 means of examinations and scholarships, admission is brought 

 within reach of a certain number of poor children unable to pay 

 the fee. 



Now, the grading of schools must educationally depend upon 

 the time which the scholars can be expected to devote to educa- 

 tion ; and each grade of schools ought to have a curriculum, 

 determined in its extent and balanced in its parts, according to 

 the number of years which can be spent upon it. The public 

 elementary school should furnish the completest possible educa- 

 tion for those who can remain at school until the age of fourteen 

 or fifteen ; the higher-grade schools, which properly belong to the 

 secondary system, should be adapted to the wants of scholars who 

 can be retained a year or two longer. The higher-grade school 

 cannot therefore supply the place of the public elementary school 

 to the poor man, who is obliged to send his children to work at 

 a comparatively early a,'e ; the number of subjects taught, and 

 the relative number of hours given to them, will not be balanced 

 in a way to suit his requirements. 



My contention is that science ought not to be omitted from 

 the educational training of the poorest of our people. The daily 

 concern of the lives of the poor is with forces and materials 

 upon which science throws the strongest light. Their work is 

 bound up with scientific laws. Want of knowledge often means 

 bad work or want of work ; and even the spread of pestilence, 

 disease, and death. 



The establishment of higher-grade Board schools ought not, 

 therefore, under any circumstances, to be permitted to lower the 

 standard of education in public elementary schools. I speak 

 emphatically on this point, because I believe that the working 

 men of this country will need to take the most watchful heed 

 lest they should be deprived of the education all their children 

 are capable of receiving by the relegation of scientific subjects to 

 schools placed beyond their reach by high fees, mitigated by only 

 a small proportion of free scholarships. 



t? Neither will the opening of technical schools suffice for the 

 scientific instruction of our people. Technical schools cannot 

 do their proper work if their students have had no preliminary 

 training, and are unfamiliar with at least the elementary 

 principles of physics. Lads who have grown into young men 

 without being carried through any systematic and experimental 

 course of scientific instruction will find it almost impossible, 

 after they have left school, to prepare themselves properly for 

 taking advantage of technical colleges, especially when, as 

 among the working classes, their evenings only are at their own 

 disposal. 



In order that science may be effectively taught in public ele- 

 mentary schools, the following conditions must be observed : — 



I. It must be taught experimentally. — Actual demonstration 

 must accompany the lessons at every stage. At no point at 

 which an experiment is possible must it be omitted. The minds 

 of young lads of the type of those attending public elementary 

 schools will be opened and enlarged by experimental demon- 

 strations, btit they will not be reached in any other way. 

 Scholars may be able to pas examinations by getting up text- 

 books ; but unless they are made experimentally familiar with 

 the principles of the science they are studying, their knowledge 

 will hang as a dead weight upon their minds, impeding rather 

 than quickening their intellectual activity. Those who have 

 witnessed, as I have often done, the effect of an experimental 

 lesson in science upon large classes of children, often drawn 

 from the poorest of the poor, will not think this insistence upon 

 a plenitude of experiments exaggerated. The demonstration 

 thoroughly awakens their minds ; their eyes glisten ; there is a 

 long-drawn "Ha" when the result accords with the theory which 

 the teacher has expounded ; and que*tions will soon show that they 

 are not merely wondering at a conjuring trick, but that a new 



world, hidden within the world of machinery with which they 

 are familiar through the daily avocations of their parents, is 

 being revealed to them. 



2. Science must not only be taiuht experimentally, but sys- 

 tematically and continuously. The "getting up" of fome 

 branch of science during three or four months as a " specific 

 subject" for examination is of little use. "Passes" may be 

 won ; but no scientific training will be given. 



From these considerations it directly follows that special 

 science demonstrators must be appointed if our scholars are to 

 receive a scientific training of any worth. It may be asked, 

 cannot the work be done by one of the ordinary masters of the 

 school ? I am bound to reply that in my opinion — an opinion 

 not lightly formed, but based on observations extending over a 

 not inconsiderable area — it is absolutely impossible to obtain any 

 training which can be called scientific, and prove of practical 

 value, for the scholars of our public elementary schools, without 

 the appointment of special science demonstrators. 



In the first place, no man can be a good science demonstrator 

 who does not devote to the work the greater part of his daily 

 life. To perform experiments well is as much an art to be 

 acquired by continuous study and practice as playing the piano. 

 Fertility of resource, quickness of eye and hand, steadiness of 

 mind, keenness of observation, are qualities essential to the 

 demonstrator, which cannot be acquired without culture or 

 retained without constant employment. The master of a school 

 has many subjects to teach and many duties to discharge. He 

 cannot, by any possibility, give any sufficient proportion of his 

 time to the art and practice of scientific demonstration. 



It may be said that an expert cannot be required for scholars 

 of the age of those attending public elementary schools, and 

 that any experiments they can understand can be easily per- 

 formed by any ordinary teacher. Those who have studied any 

 branch of physical science, however, will, I think, agree with 

 me that no science can be well taught except by a man who has 

 had a special scientific training ; and that the simplest experi- 

 ments are best performed and made the most intelligible by those 

 capable of carrying on the more recondite and difficult investi- 

 gations. 



It is a great mistake to imagine that it is a light and easy 

 matter to experiment before a class of scholars, such as those 

 found in our Board schools. They are on the alert for any 

 mistake ; they are ready to raise the most curious and subtle 

 doubts, and to ask the most perplexing questions. The only 

 man capable of dealing with such a class of scholars is a man 

 they are compelled to recognise as a master of the science he is 

 teaching. 



In the second place, even if the head master of a public ele- 

 mentary school were a scientific expert and managed to keep 

 abreast with the advance of the scientific knowledge of his day, 

 he would find it completely out of his power to act as a science 

 demonstrator and to conduct the general work of his school. 

 The preparation necessary for giving a good science lesson can- 

 not be made without a larger expenditure of time than the proper 

 management of his school will leave at his disposal. The me- 

 chanical arrangements for experiments often demand long- 

 continued and anxious watchfulness and care. Every experiment 

 ought to be tried over, before it is performed in the class, to 

 avoid the risk of failure. The proper selection of experiments, 

 as well as their performance, is in itself an art. 



For the teaching of science in public elementary schools, 

 therefore, these things are necessary : (I) sufficient apparatus, 

 and of course a laboratory in which experiments can be pre- 

 pared ; and (2) a staff of special science demonstrators. 



The expense of providing apparatus, building a laboratory, 

 and supporting a science demonstrator at every single school in 

 town and country, would be as enormous as unnecessary. By 

 the general adoption, however, of what is known as the "peri- 

 patetic " method of instruction, all difficulties can be solved ; and 

 science can be effectively taught in every public elementary 

 school. I do not think, indeed, that any other satisfactory 

 method can be devised by which the whole of our elementary 

 schools can be reached and the services of those trained scientific 

 men, whose teaching of the elementary principles of science is 

 alone to be relied upon, be secured for the great mass of our 

 people. The peripatetic method has been adopted in Liverpool 

 and Birmingham, and as I can testify so far as Birmingham is 

 concerned, the results have been as satisfactory as remarkable. 



The chief characteristics of this method are extreaiely 

 simple : — 



