
NATURE 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1871 


THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE IN 
SCHOOLS 
HILE the leaders of Science are in session, and 
every topic of scientific interest can be brought 
before them with unusual force and most favourable pub- 
licity, we desire to urge the claims of one particular 
subject as lying at the foundation of all real scientific 
progress in this country. It is impossible that Science 
can take root amongst us, that it can inform the national 
mind or raise the national reputation, while it is excluded 
from the vast majority of our schools, and while the few 
schools which have ventured to introduce it are left to 
struggle unassisted against almost overwhelming difficul- 
ties. There are those who congratulate us on the advances 
made within the last two years, who point with pride to 
the Eton telescope and the Rugby laboratory, to the 
Botanical Garden of Clifton and the Scientific Society of 
Harrow. No doubt the evidence thus cited is most grati- 
fying ; no doubt the thanks of the community are due to 
the men whose individual wisdom and energy have made 
so admirable a beginning ; but if their success is to pro- 
duce in us only self-complacency, and to hide the enormous 
deficiencies which it ought to make more glaring and 
conspicuous, their efforts have been worse than vain. 
Let us ask the following questions. Of our countless 
Secondary Schools how many teach or profess to teach 
Natural Science in any shape whatever? Are there 
twenty schools in England which teach it systematically 
on a scale at all extensive, with special master and neces- 
sary apparatus? Is there one which accords to it such 
a place in comparison with other subjects of school 
teaching as is due to its inherent educational value, its 
practical use in after life, and the extent to which it is 
attracting and unfolding the chief intellects of the day? 
Lastly, are the schools which teach it honestly working 
on a well-considered plan, agreed amongst themselves as 
to the economies of methods, subjects, tests; or are 
their systems contradictory and chaotic, are they ignorant 
of each others’ experience, are their efforts tentative and 
independent, their results often nugatory, their progress 
necessarily slow? 
There is but one answer to these questions. Science 
teaching in our schools is as yet potential merely. It rests 
with those whom we are addressing to make it actual. 
Observers most conversant with the difficulties which have 
hitherto kept Science out of schools or paralysed it when 
nominally admitted, feel most strongly that combined and 
intelligent action on its behalf, undertaken by men of 
commanding influence and reputation, is the one thing 
needful to ensure for it existence, vitality, and permanence. 
So long as the necessity of teaching it to boys was denied, 
the action of authority would have been premature. It 
was necessary that public opinion should be formed, and 
that experience and argument should work the slow pro- 
cess of conversion. But its claims are now, in theory, 
established. The most bigoted no longer venture to 
question its utility ; the champions of the old exclusive 
-and one-sided culture are silenced, if not convinced ; the 
VOL, IV. 
257 

| general public has pronounced warmly in its favour ; the 
masters and managers of schools are prepared in almost 
all cases, freely or grudgingly, to admit it. And if this be 
so; if the principles of opposition are surrendered, and 
objection rests only upon details ; if, further, the deterrent 
details thus interposing are notorious, and are of a kind 
which authority, or enlightenment, or guidance, placed in 
sufficient hands and wielded with sufficient energy, can 
obviate, surely we may call upon the men whom the suf- 
frage of the scientific world has saluted as its leaders to 
originate such a plan and to carry out such measures as 
may supplement the victory of reason over prejudice by 
assisting willing votaries and kindling half-roused enthu- 
siasm. 
There are cases in which the support of external 
authority is needful for the introduction of Science into 
schools, Probably few of the readers of NATURE are aware 
how bitter an opposition is offered to Science teaching by 
the clergy in many parts of England. The schoolmaster, 
who, being himself a clergyman, ventures to insist on 
Science as a necessity in his school curriculum, finds him- 
self the object of a conspiracy as adroit as it is unscrupu- 
lous. No matter how able and energetic he may be; no 
matter how unmistakeably he may care for the moral and 
religious training of his boys ; there is an accursed thing 
in the midst of him ; the word goes forth to ostracise him ; 
the dextrous calumny is dropped in fitting places, his 
neighbours send their sons elsewhere, and his schemes 
are broken up. This, which has happened more than 
once, must happen many times, unless such hapless 
pioneers of Science can be made to feel that they are 
backed by men of character, by men whose names are 
known, to whom they can appeal, who will interfere on 
their behalf with weight to convince or to overawe their 
persecutors. 
In quite another way again authority is needed. Public 
competitive examinations, for the universities or elsewhere, 
must always exercise a paramount influence upon the 
schools, and must stamp in great measure the value of the 
subjects taught. It may well be doubted whether in the exa- 
minations for India and for Woolwich scientific excellence 
is appraised sufficiently high. It is quite certain that the 
influence of the universities both on the higher and lower 
schools is what it ought not to be in this respect. The 
local examinations, excellent in many points, vicious in 
some few, are most vicious in their operation upon Science, 
The unwise limitation of the subjects taken up, with the 
certainty that classical and mathematical papers gain 
many more marks than chemistry or mechanics, prevent 
the boys in a widely taught school from taking Science in 
at all, and help to deter masters from a subject which will 
not count in the examination. And unless they are 
closely watched, the “‘ matriculation ” or “leaving” exami- 
nations now contemplated both by Oxford and by Cam- 
bridge will be more disastrous still. Between the univer- 
sities clinging to old subjects as desperately as they dis- 
trust the new, and the schoolmasters defeating by nearly 
ten to one the proposal to give boys the choice between a 
“linguistic” and a “ scientific ” matriculation, an obstacle 
more serious than any which now exists will be built up 
in the path of Science teaching, if its natural supporters 
stand aloof from the progress of a mischief which it now 
lies within their power to avert. 


