258 
NATURE 

[Aug. 3, 1871 

But if School Science lacks authority to help it, it lacks | 
guidance and enlightenment still more. For it may be | 
taken as an established fact that the head masters are, as | 
a body, absolutely helpless. No one can doubt this who | 
will peruse their published utterances on the subject at the 
Sherborne Meeting in December last. Nor need they be | 
ashamed of the imputation. They owe their position in | 
almost every case to their high classical or mathematical 
reputation. They are so large minded as to appreciate | 
and to wish to foster in their school studies of whose | 
details they know nothing, and should be allowed to feel 
that in opening their doors to Science they may fall back 
with confidence upon supreme and accredited advisers. 

Think of the difficult points which, without previous ex- 
perience of any kind, they are called upon to settle. The 
main subjects of teaching, their relative value, and the 
order in which they should be taught, the age at which 
scientific study should commence, the extent to which it 
may be optiona] or must be compulsory, the merits and 
demerits of bifurcation, the text-books to be used, the 
time to be allowed, the methods of teaching, the frequency 
of examinations, the mode of obtaining teachers, the 
necessary apparatus, the arrangement of museums, labora- 
tories, botanic gardens,—on all these points and on more 
blank and total ignorance holds the minds of many 
masters, while others are puzzling them out with cruel 





BANGALORE, 

. 



TRACK OF SHADOW 
IN TOTAL ECLIPSE 




{PONDICHERRY 
° 
Oo 




NecaPpaTam 







December 12T™ 1871, 

Cape Go 


MAP OF THE PATH OF THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE IN DECEMBER NEXT 
waste of force, destitute of traditions, ignorant of each | 
others’ experience, lacking central guidance. 
For such guidance where are they to look, if not to the 
British Association? It includes men fitted for sucha 
task beyond any others in the country, men individually 
of commanding reputation, representing severally the 
great towns, the Universities, the commercial centres. Is | 
it too much to hope that a board of such men as these | 
might assume, at the request and by the appointment of 
their brethren, the task of counsellers and supporters to the | 
schools in the difficult task which lies before them? | 
They might deliberate on the points which we have 
hoticed, and draw up rules fora scientific course which | 
all schools would adopt, They might send missionaries | 

wow™ 



to schools newly entering upon their task, who should © 
advise upon the many points no published rules could 
cover, They might suggest and accredit text-books, 
might bespeak and cheapen apparatus, might secure from 
Government facilities for obtaining specimens, for stocking 
gardens, for borrowing or renting instruments. Estab- 
lished more and more securely as the representatives and 
controllers of scientific education, they would see their 
power spread from the schools to the Universities, from 
the Universities throughout the country. 
But we forbear. We have stated the difficulties which 
beset scientific education in our schools, we have hinted 
at means which may remove them, Our description is 
only too real, our project may be too chimerical. Be it 
