Aug. 10, 1871] 
NATURE 
285 

“On the Habits of Platypus cylindrus,” and on that 
vexed question “ The Life History of R/Azpiphorus para- 
doxus,” by Dr. Chapman, “ On Rare Birds,” by Mr. James 
W. Lloyd, and “On Herefordshire Lepidoptera,” by several 
contributors. In botany, we have papers ‘“ On the Re- 
production and Growth of the Mistletoe,” by the Rev. R. 
Blight, “On some Curious Algz only apparent in 
times of Drought,” by E. Lees, a number of contribu- 
tions on edible fungi and other mycological sub- 
jects, by Dr. Bull and other ardent Herefordshire 
fungophagists, and a continuation of the notes on 
“Remarkable Trees of Herefordshire.” Geology contri- 
butes papers “On the Coralline Formations of the Oolite 
Rocks, by Dr. Wright ; “On the Remains of a Giant Iso- 
pod, Prearcturus gigas,” and “On Eurypterus Brodiet,? 
by H. Woodward and others. Meteorology is represented 
by useful papers by Mr. H. Southall and Mr. E. J. Isbell. 
The illustrations are unusually abundant, including several 
of the fossils described, and photographs of remarkable 
trees, including one of a new mistletoe oak, which Dr. 
Bull has had the good fortune to find. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[Zhe Editcr does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressea 
by his Correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications.) 
Science Teaching in Schools—-An Offer to the London 
School Board 
Mr. JONEs'’s letter on the above subject in NATURE, July 27, 
has much surprised me, his results being so utterly at variance 
with those obtained during my own experience, which dates from 
1848, and has extended over a considerable area, including Edin- 
burgh, Birmingham, and London. 
I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Morris’s system may he 
carried out successfully, provided suitable teachers are selected. 
There may at first be some difficulty in doing this, the worst 
rock ahead, that upon which I suspect Mr. Jones’s experiment 
has split, being pedantry. Ignorance is curable, but the pedant 
only progresses from bad to worse, and the atmosphere of schools 
and colleges is especially favourable to the propagation of the 
virulent moral pestilence under which he is suffering. 
As a set-off against the discouraging results of Mr. Jones’s ex- 
periments, I may state that between 1848 and 1854 an experiment 
of teaching physical, economical, and moral science to children 
of the poorer classes of all ages between five and six!een, was 
carried out in Edinburgh, under the direct supervision of the 
late Mr. George Combe and Mr. James Simpson. Experimental 
physics, chemistry, general physiology, and economic science, were 
taught by myself, while the subjects of the advanced special 
physiology of the brain and moral philosophy were taught by 
Mr. Combe. Mr. Combe’s class included only the senior pupils 
of ten years and upwards ; my own classes embraced the whole 
school, and the fundamental principle of the instruction was that 
ot teaching the same subjccls to all the children from the youngest up- 
wards, by adapting the mode of instruction to their respective 
ages and capacities. 
Of all the numerous subjects thus taught to these children, the 
one which I found the most difficult and unsatisfactory was that 
of English orthography, while the easiest were those branches of 
physical science which I was able to teach with the aid of direct 
objective illustrations. For example, we had a very good articu- 
lated human skeleton, which was an object of great interest to 
all the children—a sort of pet toy, in fact. I found it much 
easier to teach to young children between four and five years of 
age the names of all the bones in that skeleton, than to teach 
them the names of the letters of the alphabet. The alphabet 
was a work of many weeks, the skeleton of only a few days. 
Thus as regards mere names and the recognition of objects, in 
the first step of intellectual training, viz, the exercise of the 
senses, science was easier than the first of the “ three Rs.” 
In the next step, viz. the action or uses of the bones and the 
letters, the advantage of the skeleton over the alphabet was 
found to be ridiculously great. A very respectable amount of 
knowledge of animal mechanics was attainable in less time and 
with less effort than was necessary to enable the children to say 
with any degree of certainty what oxgh spells, when presented in 
combination with other letters. 




A dissertation on the mode of teaching the elements of the 
sciences to such young children would be out of place in this 
letter ; I can only summarise the result of my experience by say- 
ing that any and every subject that is intelligible toa man of 
fifty years of age, may be taught to a child of five years of age— 
taught, of course inits beginnings, and with suitable illustrations, 
The sceptical reader will perhaps better understand me when 
I remind him that simple addition and simple subt)action are the 
beginnings of the same mathematics as those by which the Senior 
Wrangler gains his worthily esteemed honours, and that the 
highest and most difficult problems of pure algebra are but ad- 
dition and subtraction sums of a more complex character. Thus 
when a teacher throws six marbles on the floor and tells the chil- 
dren to count them, then shows four more in his hand, and after 
these have been counted throws them down with the others, and 
instructs the children to count the sum, and thus proceeds with 
further exercises upon picking up various numbers, and counting 
the remainders, he is teaching mathematics as truly as though 
he were demonstrating the most difficult problems of the differen- 
tial and integral calenlus. It is in this sense that I speak of 
scence teaching to such young children, and in such a manner 
any and every branch of science may be taught simultaneously 
with the alphabet. 
Many very sincere friends of education, resident in Edinburgh 
at the time above stated, were unconvinced of the possibility of 
thus communicating sound scientific knowledge to children, and 
in the course of an address on education delivered by Mr. 
George Combe, he made the following offer, viz.:—That the 
audience then present, consisting chiefly of artisans, should send 
to me on the following day some of their children, between ten 
and twelve years of age, that I should take the first twelve who 
presented themselves, and at once commence a course of ten or 
twelve lessons on physiology, at the end of which course the 
children should be publicly examined on the subject of the 
teaching. 
The experiment was carried out successfully, a large audience 
assembled at the examination, and many were much surprised at 
the result, though there was really no good reason for astonish- 
ment, the attainments of the children being merely a natural and 
necessary result of plain unpretentious teaching of the simple and 
fundamental elements of a subject in which every human being 
is interested. 
If the London School Board think it desirable, I shall have 
much pleasure in repeating the experiment. About twelve chil- 
dren, of nearly equal ages, taken at random, street Arabs if they 
please, may form the class. ‘The materials I shall require area 
skeleton and a set of Marshall’s Physiological Diagrams. After 
ten or a dozen lessons of about one hour each, I will orally ex- 
amine the children in any building or before any audience they 
may select, large or small. 
To test the possibility of teaching another class of subjects, 
that of physiology might be followed by a similar number of 
lessons on that part of economic science which includes the 
natural laws upon which the relations between capital and labour, 
and some other fundamental elements of our social structure, 
depend. The examinations would be so conducted as to afford 
to all who attend them the means of judging whether the chil- 
dren had been crammed or truly taught, whether they would be 
likely to remember or forget the subject of their lessons, and 
how far this preliminary glimpse of the wonderful work they are 
themselves able to perform, might stimulate their intellectual 
appetite and awaken a slumbering sense of their own human 
dignity and responsibility. W. Matrieu WILLIAMS 
The Green, Woodside, near Croydon 
Cramming for Examinations 
I ENCLOSE one or two dond fide extracts from elementary ex- 
amination papers which have during the past few years come 
under the notice of candidates officially. Ido not wish thereby 
to reflect so much on the regulations drawn up by senates and 
committees, as upon the way in which those regulations are 
carried out by examiners. Though cramming is officially de- 
nounced, yet there is scarcely anything which is in greater de- 
mand; and, so long as this is the case, candidates will of 
course insist, in spite of their teachers, upon undergoing the 
operation, 
There are few of the matriculation papers of the London Uni- 
versity but proclaim cramming to be the order of the day. The 
papers in Chemistry cannot certainly be called very difficult ; 
