May 19, 1870] 
NATURE 
49 
still not extinct, the forty-two working hours per week 
were given almost exclusively to classics. In any really 
good school these hours have now to hold at least an 
equal average of classical learning, beside English 
and French, sometimes German, as well as mathe- 
matics, geography, history, &c. The problem of doing 
much in the same time as used to be spent in doing 
little, is, to a great extent, solved by mere improvement 
of method. The old classical teaching was so clumsy 
and repulsive, that its results, so far as it suits the new 
system to strive for them, may be obtained in one quarter 
to one half of the time formerly allowed. In addition to 
this, there are some products of the old system which the 
new must almost perforce abandon. Latin verses de- 
manded a minimum of ten hours per week out of a total 
of forty-two working hours. Now, it cannot be too clearly 
impressed on the minds of persons interested in education, 
that the time required for giving a well-grounded acquaint- 
ance with elementary science is four hours per week. 
Second, it is often thought by parents that science, while 
valuable to boys about to pass certain examinations, or to 
enter certain professions, is merely of the nature of an 
“extra accomplishment,” not affecting the rest of the edu- 
cational course. Nothing can be less true. It would be 
nearer the fact to say that the especial importance of 
science-teaching in schools, is in its serving beyond any 
other known means to open children’s minds, to stimulate 
their reasoning powers ; not to teach dull formulas, learnt 
by a memoria technica, but to start boys and girls ona 
course of realising and comprehending life and nature. This 
statement (as is right with a statement concerning physi- 
cal science) is one to be tested by direct experiment. 
Take a class of children brought up to learn Latin and 
Greek, Geography and History, and Mathematics, but on 
whose minds the idea has scarcely dawned that these 
matters concern real places and people and things. Un- 
fortunately, nothing is easier than to find such classes, 
grinding on, year after year, in the fond belief that, because 
school work is dull and toilsome, it must be profitable. 
Now, let an intelligent teacher give these unlucky children 
an elementary science lesson: for instance, how it is that 
bodies fall, what causes summer and winter, how the ther- 
mometer does its work. In half an hour’s time it will be 
seen in the very faces of the children, that the lesson, inde- 
pendently of its value for itself, has actually repaid the 
time spent on it, in the newly-aroused attention and re- 
flection it has gained for other studies. It is no exaggera- 
tion to say that four hours of really live teaching in science 
fully pays for itself in the improved quality of the rest of 
the week. For this cause itis that science is not made 
optional at the Taunton School. It is taught simply, 
and with inexpensive apparatus; but every boy is re- 
quired to collect his own specimens, to perform his own 
experiments, and to show at every step that he knows 
what he is doing. 
It seems to us that in some few of the really enlightened 
public schools, such as that we are now writing of, nearly 
the highest ideal of training has been attained to, com- 
patible with the present habits of English life. When 
boys, fresh from an intelligent governess at home, or 
from a ladies’ preparatory school of the best sort, go 
through the full school course from 11 to 17, working 
steadily on without flagging and without strain or hurry, 
at an education which they understand to be the direct 
and purposeful preparation for active business or profes- 
sional life, such boys start with success in their hands, It 
is the result of such education that the professional 
“crammer” tries to simulate when he endeavours to 
make 12 months’ over-work, ruinous to body and mind, 
produce at the examiners’ table the semblance of seven 
years of steady mental growth. The examiner knows 
better, and the real business of after-life shows before 
many years are out the difference between cram and real 
education. 
THE SCIENCE OF EXPLOSIVES AS APPLIED 
TO WARLIKE PURPOSES 
II.—RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANIPULATION 
AND FIRING OF EXPLOSIVE CHARGES 
yA we have already shown, the employment of explo- 
sive charges is a branch of warfare to which the 
attention of military engineers has been directed for some 
time past. For warlike purposes, as also for the destruc- 
tion of wrecks or other submarine obstructions, explosions 
have been frequently applied in earlier times, but the 
methods resorted to for igniting them were, as may be 
supposed, exceedingly crude and primitive; sometimes a 
clock-work arrangement was used, sometimes an encased 
slow match, and, occasionally, explosion was brought 
about by means of heated shot dropped down a metal 
tube. As would naturally be inferred, the difficulties and 
the frequently unsatisfactory results attendant on explo- 
sions of this kind rendered their profitable application a 
matter of considerable doubt, and few successful records 
of their employment are to be found. 
During the past few years our knowledge of the science 
of explosives has been considerably enlarged. Not only 
has the subject of igniting charges been studied to such 
an extent as to form, at the present time, almost a science 
of itself, but the nature of the combustible material has 
likewise been changed and improved ; and military and 
naval engineers have thus been placed in possession of a 
source of power, of which we hardly know whether to 
admire more its unlimitable force, or its wonderful plas- 
ticity. 
The first practical application of electricity to igniting 
gunpowder, although such a proceeding was considered 
possible both by Franklin and Priestley, was not made until 
about thirty years ago, when some French military engi- 
neers employed a voltaic battery asa means of explosion. 
The method used by these officers was the simple and well- 
known one of connecting the two conducting wires by a 
thin platinum thread, the resistance offered to the passage 
of the electric current by that metal causing its tempera- 
ture to be raised to a degree sufficient to ignite any charge 
of gunpowder in contact with it. This manner of apply- 
ing the electric current as a source of heat is both simple 
and practical, butit frequently lacks, besides other qualities, 
the essential virtues of certainty and instantaneity, and it 
was for this reason that further investigations of the subject 
have been from time to time carried on, Among others, 
Colonel Verdu, a Spanish officer, made some progress in 
the matter, and was successful by the aid of a Ruhmkorff 
induction coil in exploding several charges simultaneously. 
This officer’s first attempt was to fire the gunpowder by 
simply allowing a powerful spark to pass from one pole 
to the other of two wires imbedded in the charge; he 
found, however, that ignition in this manner was by no 
means to be relied upon, but that by covering the poles 
with fulminate of mercury, a substance more readily in- 
flamed, the desired result was readily secured. Some suc- 
cessful results were also obtained about the same time by 
employing a particular electric fuze, known as Statham’s, 
A few years later, in 1856, Sir Charles Wheatstone and 
Mr. Abel devoted considerable time to the prosecution 
of further researches, and each of these gentlemen con- 
tributed an important discovery, which had the effect of 
perfecting this interesting application, and rendering it a 
practical and valuable aid to military science. The 
employment of electricity induced by magnetism was 
suggested by Sir Charles, who, after some preliminary 
experiments, constructed an exploding instrument in 
which the electricity was created by the rapidly revolving 
armatures of a compound magnet; and the successful ap- 
plication of this machine was effected through the agency 
of an electric fuze, devised by Mr. Abel, and of whicha 
sketch is here given, 
